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Effectiveness of promotion using web - based agritourism portals in the light of their users’ feedback. Web portal model for the region
Authors: Adam Jasiński
Number of views: 419
In recent years, agritourism has become one of the most popular forms of tourism. It is not easy to promote it, so
most rural tourism farms are not able to promote their services on their own. This requires special
qualifications and
financial resources. The solution to this situation seems to be the use of the Internet, thanks to which the owners of
agricultural tourism farms have the opportunity to use specialized agritourism portals, where they can publish
inform
ation about their own services for a small fee.
The author of the study decided to look more closely at this form of promotion of agritourism services. The subject of
his research was the effectiveness of promotion using Internet agritourism portals in the
light of the opinion of their
users. The survey covered Internet portals promoting agritourism in the Łódź Voivodeship. Particular emphasis was
placed on researching the portals belonging to public organisations dealing with agritourism, including the
Agr
icultural Advisory Centres, agritourism associations, the Regional Tourist Organisation of the Łódź Voivodeship,
Local Tourist Organisations, municipalities, poviats, Local Action Groups and other institutions. In order to obtain a
fuller picture of the st
udy, these portals were analysed from 3 perspectives: the analysis of the content conducted by
the author of the study, opinions of owners of agritourism farms as well as opinions of private persons interested in
using the offer of agritourism farms and ob
taining information on them using Internet agritourism portals.
The study showed that on the Internet there are many non
-
integrated portals containing offers of agritourism farms
from the Łódź voivodeship. The portals vary in functionality and offers
presented. There is no single comprehensive
portal dedicated to the region of Łódź. This causes confusion among Internet users and makes it difficult to access
important information. In addition, the author noted a number of shortcomings regarding the prom
otion of services
on existing agritourism portals. At the same time, it should be emphasized that in the author’s opinion, Internet
agritourism portals have much greater potential for promoting agritourism in the Lódź region than is currently used.
In conn
ection with the above, the report presents a number of recommendations which, in the author's opinion, could
significantly improve the quality of these portals and help in developing a new comprehensive agritourism portal for
the region, which in turn will
result in attracting new tourists and at the same time promoting the entire Łódź
Voivodeship.
Prepared recommendations are divided into strategic and operational ones. The first of them are addressed to the
institutions responsibl
e for setting the strategy for the Łódź Voivodeship in the scope of tourism development and
innovation. This type of institution includes: The Marshal Office of the
Łódź Voivodeship and self
-
government units in the region. The second group of recommendatio
ns was addressed
directly to economic entities, including institutions responsible for the promotion of agritourism in the region
(Agricultural Advisory Centre, agritourism associations, Regional Tourist Organisation of the Łódź Voivodeship, Local
Tourist
Organisations, Local Action Groups), owners of commercial agritourism portals and owners of agrotourist
farms of the Łódź region.
Strategic recommendations concern mainly such aspects as increasing the use of new information technologies
and innovative
solutions for the promotion of agritourism farms and development of a comprehensive agritourism
portal for the region. The author draws attention to the need to include these issues in the strategic regional
documents (i.e. Development of Tourism in the Łó
dź Voivodeship Programme, Regional Innovation Strategy and the
Regional Operational Programme for the Łódź Voivodeship) and in the promotional strategies of poviats and
municipalities, which define the scope of activities of these entities in the field of
tourism promotion (agritourism). In
addition, the Marshal Office of the Łódź Voivodeship, as a public institution responsible for the promotion of tourism
in the region, should strive to build a new comprehensive agriturism portal for the region, integrate
d with existing
tourism/agritourism portals. A comprehensive portal should be understood as a portal which includes 3 main
functions: information, booking and communication.
In the case of operational recommendations, the author considers that owners of In
ternet agritourism portals
(commercial and those of the institutions responsible for the promotion of agritourism in the region) should aim to
develop and improve existing portals because at present they do not present a sufficient level of technological
a
dvancement and they do not meet the needs of Internet users looking for agritourism offers. Expansion and
improvement refers here to the removal of problems detected during research and adding new functionalities,
including the use of innovative IT solutio
ns. Moreover, these portals should enable the owners of agritourism farms to
publish the most interesting and extensive offers and their later editing. In addition, the author pays special attention
to the needs of organizing trainings, conferences, forums
, publishing of articles and conducting research in the field of
promotion of agritourism in the Internet. They will allow the owners of agritourism farms to be made aware of the
benefits of this form of promotion and thus provide them with knowledge of ho
w to effectively use the promotional
tools offered by the Internet.
Additionally, based on the results of the study and recommendations presented by the author, a model for the
construction of an online agritourism portal was created.
The model is based on
the principle of benchmarking and
draws the best standards, e. g. from the portals which have been tested. Therefore, in the future the model can be
used to build a professional and comprehensive agritourism portal for the region of Łódź..