THE IMPORTANCE OF AGRO TOURISM IN TERMS OF RURAL DEVELOPMENT AND ECONOMIC EFFECTS

Abstract

The activities of the mass tourism which was experienced in countries developed and still developing caused to occur diversity of alternative tourism because of the lack of the economic revenue for the region where the activities of tourism are actualized besides the cultural and environmental destruction. The increasing of interest for rural life provided to develop the relationship between agriculture and tourism. Depending on the development of the relationship between agriculture and tourism sector, agro tourism which is one of the alternative tourism types was emerged. Agro tourism means the usage of agricultural source for touristy destination. Agro tourism which increases both farmers' and local people's yield and provides them employment area is a type of tourism. In this investigation, it will be touched on the importance of agro tourism and its effects according to rural development. In this context, agro tourism will be examined as a concept and its importance and economic effects will be put forth. The technic of semi-structured interview will be utilized in order to obtain data in investigation. Many interviews have been materialized with local stakeholder who reside in the places where farms operate within TaTuTa in Adana in order to obtain data. When the findings are evaluated, it is seen that Adana and Osmaniye city’s have agro tourism potential but they have not been able to develop due to reasons such as ignorance of people, lack of sample application, lack of facilities, lack of marketing and promotional efforts and they have recently turned to tourism. It has come to the conclusion that there is no negative impact on the economy and that it creates income and employment as positive economic effects.