Is agriculture an important componenet of rural tourism?
) Abstract In many regions rural tourism is accepted usually as a natural part of the socio-economic fabric juxtaposed with agriculture. It is clear that rural tourism is based on rural amenities, however, it is not clear how it relates to agriculture. Is agricultural activity an important and even a necessary component of rural tourism or does rural tourism provide the farmer with an auxiliary funding to continue farming? Do active farms with rural tourism enjoy economies to scope and run both businesses more efficiently than farms with only a single activity? These issues have not been approached rigorously. The objective of this paper is to investigate whether rural tourism enterprises combined with active farming differ from those without agricultural activity and how the agricultural activity affects the enterprise. The analysis is based on a face-to-face survey of 200 operators of B&B enterprises in Israel. The owners were asked about the characteristics of the B&B, labor and cap
