Study On The Development Of Agro-Tourism In Veraguas Province,Panama

Farmers have been found in the increasing necessity of transforming traditional agriculture in a more profitable business,in consequence,product diversification plays an important role in the improvement of rural well-being.Tourism is a diverse activity and can be adjusted to the needs of the visitors and in doing so allows to complement many different sectors along the way.This study aims to understand agro-tourism development in the Republic of Panama after the creation of the agro-tourism Development Project that started in 2007 and in particular,the current status of the province of Veraguas.First,this study presents an analysis of the different concepts of agro-tourism in the general context,allowing the reader to have a better understanding of the activity as a whole,followed by a brief explanation of the agritourism activity in Panama.The study results and the analysis of the situation and perspectives of the agritourism activity that is carried on in the rural areas of the province of Veraguas have been commented.These results were obtained using questionnaires applied to two main groups,visitors and farmers in the rural areas of the middle and north part of the province of Veraguas,then analyzed with SPSS statistics software.From the analysis of the data,certain barriers have been identified that affect the development of agro-tourism in Veraguas such as a low interest from the local population due to the difference in the services they want vs what are provided,the visitors are generally from either the capital city or foreigners,which mean the locals are not participating.Another important reasons are the seemingly nonexistence marketing of the services provided which hand in hand with the lack of knowledge of the activity,have reduced the success rate of the agro-tourism ventures.Although the rural areas of Veraguas have the potential to develop a successful agro-tourism offer,agro-tourism represents a very marginal activity where on the contrary,other forms of touristic activities have become increasingly important.