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Few studies of agritourism have focused on farm tourism on tropical islands, and even fewer have explored the motivations, challenges, and/or self-transformations of farmers engaged in farm tourism...

Although agritourism has received increasing attention among tourism researchers, few studies have focused on the phenomenon as it exists on tropical islands. This article helps to fill this resear...

Local visitors to recreation areas, many of whom provide voluntary support to area managers, and tourist visitors from outside the surrounding regions, whose expenditures stimulate the regions' economies, are among the most important clientele groups of such areas. The purpose of this article is to synthesize and expand past research on these groups, drawing upon results from a mail survey of visitors to a state park rail-trail used mostly for mountain biking. Sharp differences between local and tourist visitors emerged that corroborated many of the results of past studies. Compared to tourist visitors, local visitors tended to be younger, to have lower incomes, to visit the trail more frequently, and to place greater importance on visiting the trail for solitude, quietude, and the enhancement of health and fitness. Tourist visitors were more likely than their counterparts to have been mountain biking aficionados. Implications related to the formation of strategic alliances, the design and management of f...

The goals of participants in a given type of recreation activity available in a specific recreation area may be in conflict with those of participants in other types of recreation available in the same area, creating difficult challenges for area managers. Moreover, little is known about the characteristics and behaviour patterns of such groups and how they might differ from one another, leaving managers less equipped to communicate effectively with them than would otherwise be the case. This article helps to fill this information void by comparing the characteristics and behaviour patterns of equestrians, hikers, mountain bikers, and runners on a rail-trail in South Dakota, USA. Significant differences across these activity groups emerged. For example, compared to the other groups, equestrians tended to be older visitors who sought an appreciation of history and nature, almost always in the company of others. Runners, on the other hand, tended to be younger visitors who sought to ‘promote health and fitn...

This article documents the popularity of five types of trail-based recreation relative to other forms of recreation that tourists frequently participate in on their trips; identifies these trail users’ cross-participation in other outdoor recreation activities; and profiles the travel behaviour, media habits, trip planning behaviour, and demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of day hikers and snowmobilers as two particularly large trail user segments. Findings are based on data from a household telephone survey conducted in Michigan, surrounding states, and Ontario, Canada. Hiking/backpacking was found to be the most popular natural resource-based recreation activity that respondents participated in on pleasure trips taken during the past 12 months; other forms of trail-based recreation were significantly less popular; mountain bikers participated in nature-oriented recreation activities in Michigan at levels that were similar to those of hikers/backpackers; and snowmobiling appeared to be the foc...