ABSTRACT

The study investigated the exploratory analysis of agritourism development in Nigeria. It was carried out in the South-South (Tai Local Government Area in Rivers state and Abi Local Government Area in Cross River state) Region of the country so as to examine the synergistic relationship between the agritourism centers, the agritourists, the host communities, and their attendant benefits and impacts. Structured questionnaire was used to collect data from a total of two hundred and fifty (250) respondents. Data were analyzed using simple descriptive tools such as tables, frequencies and means, as well as inferential tools like Principal Component Analysis, correlation, entrepreneurial behavior index and Multinomial Probit (MNP) model. The results of the findings show that majority (55%) of the respondents stayed in their agritourism destinations for a period of 1-5 days. The results show that poultry, feed mill, bakery, processing, irrigation, agro-forestry and fishery units were the identified attractions. According to ranking, the irrigated crop unit was adjured to be most attractive. Findings further showed that economic impact was the most perceived benefits of agritourism on the host communities while sustainable development was the least perceived benefit. Conducive environment, relaxation, safety and visiting new places were the most rated factors for destination choice. The Multinomial Probit (MNP) model result shows that travel time, gender, state employed workers, distance and age of the agritourists reduced the probability of choosing air over road and sea travel modes while perceived service quality and monthly income increased the probability of choosing air over road and sea travel modes. The correlation results confirm that both overall satisfaction and switching barriers have significant effects on destination loyalty. The Entrepreneurial Behavior of the supervisors of agritourism centers show that with respect to innovativeness, decision making ability, achievement motivation, knowledge of operating agritourism centers, risk-taking and leadership ability, 63%, 55%, 50%, 45%, 68% and 65% respectively which represent the majority of the supervisors of agritourism centers fell within the high Entrepreneurial Behavior Index category except for innovativeness where the majority was in the medium category. The result shows problems facing the agritourism centers are lack of political will on the part of the government, poor funding, poor infrastructural development, high accommodation cost and safety and security issues. The need for the development of agritourism in Nigeria cannot be overemphasized as it could help in diversifying the economy, promote the tourism sector, increase our foreign exchange earnings and as well generate offseason income for farmers. There is the need to develop an encompassing agritourism policy if it has to be sustainable, equitable and responsive so as to contribute to the region’s economic development and in effect raise the quality of life of all her people. Agritourism strategy should concentrate on activities that help in improving the skills of local people and ensure local people’s work opportunity and encourage investment in physical infrastructure such as highways, railways, harbors for yielding more income and employment to the locals.