Business potentials from Agritourism (Case Study: Jahrom city)

Agritourism is a part of rural tourism that offers various recreational and tourism services. Actually agritourism includes business conducted by farmers for the enjoyment of visitors or public training toward promoting the products of the farm and to generate additional farm income. The present study aims at identifying the concepts of business agritourism and investigating businesses opportunities in this regards. Applied method was used for this qualitative case study method. The data was gathered through a structured interview form (open questionnaire) interviewing the experts. It is noteworthy that the samples of this research are experts of the areas (authorities and experts in agriculture and tourism). The data was analyzed using qualitative case study method (open and axial coding). Excel software was used to display the results. Lastly, literature reviews and the results of the coding method indicated that the potencial of Jahrom for promoting agritourism categorized into 3 groups: natural geography, human resources and agricultural potential. Also it is indicated that Jahrom has high potentials for promoting agritourism. Moreover, among identified businesses (rural business, home-based business, family business, small and medium-sized enterprises, small sized enterprises, cultural business and educational business), home-based business (small business that operates from the business owner's home office) are the most important business resulting from agritourism and among the agritourism activities organizing festivals and events especially festival of date and its products has the highest priority in Jahrom city.