Challenges Facing Agritourism: How Are Producers Coping?

Agricultural direct-marketing and agritourism contribute millions of dollars annually to the local food economy (Veeck, 2016). Family farms participate in agritourism in order to diversify their operations and preserve their cultural heritage, and agritourism can positively influence local economic development, farmer income, and the rural landscape and environment (Schilling, Attavanich, and Jin, 2014; Ammirato et al., 2020; Paras, Michaud, and Hoffman, 2022; Quella et al., 2021). During the COVID-19 pandemic, concerns arose about the resiliency of the global food supply chain. As a result of the disruption of the supply of grocery items and travel restrictions, consumers turned toward local food and recreation. During the pandemic, visiting local agritourism businesses was considered relatively safe and appealed to families for the peaceful and idyllic atmosphere and the perceived healthiness of the local food and recreation opportunities (Wojcieszak-Zbierska et al., 2020). In general, local agritourism and direct marketing businesses and, specifically, the impact of COVID-19 on these businesses, are an underresearched area of the agriculture industry that has primarily been studied internationally (Wojcieszak-Zbierska et al., 2020; Magno and Cassia, 2021; Roman and Grudzień, 2021; Cesaro et al., 2022; Östh et al., 2023; Zawadka et al., 2022). To expand our knowledge about U.S.-based enterprises, we assessed the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on agritourism and direct-marketing farms in the Northeast.