I knew that would get your attention! We are going to stray a bit from a standard informational blog and ask you for your participation. We would like to know a little about you and how your season went. Along with that we would like to know a little about your farm and what makes you unique. Since we’re all in this together, it might be helpful for other owners that frequent our site to learn about who else is out there and what they are learning from the journey. We also want to provide you with a little free advertising! And please include some pictures from this season; we would love to post some photos from this year’s agritourism...

Perhaps you are in the middle of chaos right now or ramping up for a busy season. In either case, let me recommend one more staff position. We have all met the greeters that Walmart uses to staff their entry doors. A simple task, but an important one. They are there to make your experience more than just a visit to a store. It is kind of like they are welcoming you into their home and want to make sure there is someone at the door to greet you. I know, that may be a stretch, but I guarantee that their marketing department finds it effective.

In the age of big box stores, the little stores are using our frustrations to market themselves....

Ever consider how your business flows? I mean how people navigate your venue from the minute they drive on your property. Again, this is something you may have never thought about or changed for years, but it is important to be the most effective at utilizing your resources. Usually when your flow is off it is immediately apparent because it causes traffic jams of people and or cars. It also becomes evident when people are constantly asking for directions as they navigate your property.

There are many things to consider when you evaluate your flow, but sometimes it is helpful to enlist outside opinions. As in many cases, guests are the b...

Includes a great example guide from our friends at Autumn Acres!

It’s that time of year again!  Time to start working on securing sponsorships for our Agritourism business.  Sponsors can make a HUGE impact on your bottom line from not only the products, services, or funds they provide, but also from the cross-promotional marketing that normally comes with it.  Last year we did a blog post on 14 Steps to securing sponsors which you can read here: http://www.agritourismideas.com/blog/category/Sponsorships

We wanted to follow that up this spring with a great example of a Partner Guidebook by one of our community members.  A very sp...

Three tips to enhance the look and feel of your venue:

1. Follow the theme of that season- We have always encouraged a yearly theme that runs throughout your venue. Your décor should reflect that theme so that it ties everything together. When we highlighted the election, not only was our maze, election themed, but the patriotic feel was evident everywhere with our flags, banners, events, names, etc. Kind of like Disney in that its themes are seen all the way out to the parking lot! We tried to tie it all together as much as possible but avoided the “tacky trap”. By that I mean those decorations that take away from the farm feel. That br...

There is one thing for sure, there are no guarantees in the agritourism business. Because despite how much you plan and how hard you work, there will always be the elements of this business that we can’t control. For some of us, these “elements” seemed to only show up when we were scheduled to be open! When we have a short season to be open, every day and every minute counts. I know from talking to several people that last year’s weather was one of those unpredictable things that has driven them to the edge. Right now, there may be many of you that are trying to decide whether you will even open for business this year. So, let’s take a...

Let me use the time for this blog to fill you in on something that will be coming to our site after the new year. For the sake of a better title, we’ll call it a classified section! It will be a new area of our website devoted to getting buyers and sellers together on all items agritourism. It will be limited to items that have “previously been in circulation” that you are no longer using because you have upgraded or changed direction all together. (If you have new items or a product line that you would like to list on our website, contact us for how to get your products the highest visibility in our “resources” section.)

In the agritour...

I know you probably don’t want to think about this right now, but at least keep it on the back burner until after the new year. Christmas is a great time to think about lists and checking them twice! It is also a good time of year to begin to evaluate your agritourism season and make the necessary improvements for next year. I’m sure some of you are still very busy right up until the end of the year so no time yet to take a breather.

In many aspects of business and development there is the phase that has commonly been called “the debrief”. Usually it is used to make a thorough evaluation of the process to determine if the goals were achi...

One of the best things about Agritourism is the opportunity to provide your guests with a one-of-a-kind experience. There are some things that can only be done at an Agritourism venue and that is why people travel long distances to visit. There are certain experiences that we need to create that will not happen otherwise. We’ll call them hands on. They are the things that you provide which allow your guests to get involved at a greater level and are often educational at the same time. Let’s take a few minutes and list some of them. Chances are you are already doing some of these things, but maybe this will help you to take the next step...

As the Simmons family pulled into the parking lot they weren’t sure where to go next. A couple cars blocked the driveway where the drivers had left them to just “run into” the farm market. A young child ran out between the parked cars and the car ahead of them narrowly avoided a serious mishap. The actual parking lot was hard to navigate with long grass and no real clear parking spaces. But they parked near where other cars had congregated and headed for the entrance…or so they thought.

The next several minutes were a mix of taking in the new sights and sounds and trying to find the actual farm. Fortunately, there was enough newness that...