Tourism is frequently proposed as a strategy to revitalize rural economies. The current mushroom¬ing of web platforms for the tourism sharing eco¬nomy affords rural microentrepreneurs opportu¬nities to capitalize on the growing demand for authentic experiences. However, these platforms may actually be widening the socio-economic gap between individuals across the digital and urban/ rural divides. In addition, the well-established urban culture of entrepreneurial mentorship is not taking hold in the rural areas, which direly need to attract and support nascent entrepreneurs. Farms are increasingly adopting tourism to diversify their business models, and Extension agents are trusted mentors par excellence of agribusiness entrepreneurs; therefore, this study explores the extent to which Extension agents feel able to address the mentoring needs of farm tourism microentrepre-neurs. We measured both tourism e-microentrepre¬neurial self-efficacy (TeMSE) among farmers and tourism e-microentrepreneurial mentoring self-efficacy (TeMMSE) of Extension agents. Results show that farmers have relatively low self-efficacy in the dimensions of e-marketing and marshalling resources, and that agents may be efficacious men¬tors in these dimensions. Farmers also show low self-efficacy in adapting to externalities; however, agents do not perceive themselves as efficacious mentors in this dimension. We conclude with a discussion of practical implications for train-the-trainer strategies to enable farm tourism micro¬entrepreneurship success.
With the emergence of tourism sharing economy platforms like People-First Tourism, Vayable, Airbnb, and Uber, there are now a much greater number of microentrepreneurs engaged in selling products and services directly to tourists. The limited existing literature examining these individuals
suggests that they are often inspired by noneconomic motives such as freedom, passion, or lifestyle, rather than the desire to rapidly grow a venture and maximize revenue. Accordingly, given that tourism microentrepreneurs have different goals and business models relative to typical entrepreneurs,
this study adapted extant entrepreneurial self-efficacy measures to the context of tourism e-microentrepreneurship to develop the tourism e-microentrepreneurial self-efficacy (TeMSE) scale. Our new 13-item scale provides insights into a unique and burgeoning group of tourism actors, namely
measuring their beliefs in their ability to successfully perform the various roles and tasks of microentrepreneurship in the tourism sharing economy.
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