Going Entrepreneurial: Agro-tourism and Rural Development in Northern Montenegro

Abstract

Background: In Montenegro, there is a growing awareness of the necessity to further develop sustainable forms of tourism and foster economic development of mostly agrarian northern rural areas. However, this is of the utmost importance not only for sustaining local economy, but also for creating more balanced framework for territorial development. Objectives: Paper aims to set a framework for studying the role of innovations and entrepreneurship in developing sustainable agro-tourism in Montenegro through identifying main resources, obstacles, challenges and potentials of the process. Methods/Approach: The analysis is based on both review of the secondary sources and the fieldwork conducted between June and October 2015 in rural areas of Kuci and Durmitor, as well as the number of interviews with farmers and tourism professionals from the country. Results: The results highlighted the low levels of both entrepreneurial culture and hospitality awareness amongst local population, lack of investments, infrastructural backwardness and insufficient government support as the main obstacles to developing successful and sustainable agro-tourism ventures. Conclusions: Public bodies should create a comprehensive strategy for sustainable tourism development, which should focus on providing incentives, training and support to the farmers eager to diversify their agro-activities through entrepreneurial actions.

A Review of Quantitative Studies in Agritourism: The Implications for Developing Countries

“…Agritourism development can be challenging due to the lack of entrepreneurial culture, hospitality awareness among local people, lack of investment, infrastructure issues, and insufficient government support [7,8]. After the motivation factor, investing in agritourism is another significant step in agritourism development.…”

“…However, the pace of agritourism's growth in developing countries, especially in the South Asian countries, is delayed as compared with the pace of that in developed countries [1][2][3][4][5]. Agritourism development is primarily based on farmers' willingness [1,2] and the ability to establish the necessary infrastructure [6][7][8], as well as tourists' interest in visiting such attractions [9][10][11]. More specifically, agritourism development and sustainability depend on supply and demand factors and exploring those factors sheds light on the conditions for agritourism development from the supply and demand perspectives [10,12].…”

Diffusing Entrepreneurial Innovation and Tourism: An Empirical Evidence of Permaculture

“…It helps the agrarian community to develop sustainable tourism destinations that will foster economic development in rural areas. It creates entrepreneurial activities that help farmers and practitioners through training and support in diversifying their agricultural activities (Stanovcǐćet al, 2018) that also bring a remarkable change in their way of thinking and hospitality training. Stojanović(2018) claims that entrepreneurial innovation plays a signi�icant role in tourism development as it increases the number of new visitors and tourist traf�ic, facilitates community network that will provide means for sustainable livelihoods in tourism (Kokkranikal & Morrison, 2011), and enhances the cultural tourism of the area making the tourist experience ful�illing and sustainable (Silvestrelli, 2012).…”

Analysis of income determinants among rural households in Kosovo

“…To deal with different challenges concerning agriculture in Europe like decreasing farm revenues, price fluctuation, low productivity growth rates, migration, etc., it is appropriate to diversify both agronomic and nonagricultural activities in rural areas by adopting new entrepreneurial competencies (Stanov ci c et al 2018). In doing this, the competitive ability of the agricultural sector and its sustainability would be increased (Stanov ci c et al 2018). Different authors suggest that off-farm income can reduce rural to urban migration rates, which are believed to be caused by rural unemployment (and underemployment) (Cho et al 2019).…”