Modeling Agritourism Entrepreneurship: A Comparative Analysis of Operational Profiles, Constraints, and Capacity Gaps Across Europe and Oceania
Contemporary global tourism is undergoing a structural transformation toward immersive, experiential “diving” modalities, establishing the countryside as a critical axis for constructive and regenerative travel. Despite this shift, academic literature remains bottlenecked by informational fragmentation, routinely prioritizing consumer demand over supply-side operator agency. To resolve this empirical deficit, this study utilizes a qualiquantitative, multi-sited, sequential mixed-methods research design across Europe and Oceania, focusing on agritourism as a significant sub-sector. The empirical findings reveal that while global agritourism is unified by a profound biographical territorial embedding, its operational architecture splits into two polarized configurations. The European Institutionalized Mature Model is highly market-driven, demand-responsive, and insulated by top-down public policy frameworks, yet it is severely constrained by generational succession grids and an aging demographic. In contrast, the Oceanian Decentralized Identity Frontier Model represents a youth-centric, female-dominated structure born of necessity within Small Island Developing States, driven by intrinsic cultural pride but exposed to a complete policy vacuum and severe climate variability. The research diagnoses an advanced sub-specialization training shortfall in Europe regarding environmental and social agriculture, and a foundational corporate capacity deficit in Oceania concerning financial risk hedging, compliance, and direct-to-consumer digital infrastructure.
Authors
- Miroslav Žitňák (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6611-8077)
- Zuzana Palková (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5782-8656)
- Taema Imo-Seuoti
- Md. Abdul Kader (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4786-4140)
- Leslie T. Ubaub (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5465-5019)
- Michele Filippo Fontefrancesco (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3247-6110)
- Gurmeet Singh (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2931-0670)
- Martina Pili (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-4038-4112)
- Jimaima Lako
- Leslie Vandeputte (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7090-5169)
- Tapu Iemaima Gabriel
- Igor Vaslav Vitale (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0004-2371-7618)
Institutions
- Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (IT)
- Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra (SK)
- Durban University of Technology (ZA)
- Durham University (GB)
- National University of Samoa (WS)
- University of the South Pacific - Samoa Campus (WS)
- Vanuatu Cultural Centre (VU)
- Institute of Technology and Business (CZ)
- University of the South Pacific (FJ)
- Fiji National University (FJ)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Societies
- Published
- 2026-09-28
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3390/soc16100311
- Primary Topic
- Diverse Aspects of Tourism Research
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00