What challenges do you face in being able to provide services to support tourism in your state? Lacking staff capacity to implement statewide, lack of supporting infrastructure, lack of certain expertise (e.g. marketing and promotion). Funding to support faculty and staff time. Recognition from the university that tourism should be a priority. Lack of additional resources and the state leadership working in areas without coordinated effort. While many of our rural communities could benefit from more tourism programming I have been reluctant to start needs assessment in this area as as have so little capacity to support this work. As the only Community & Economic Development Educator in the state, I am stretched thin and our small Extension system lacks resources to support substantive program development, research support, and maintenance. Existing tourism programs (community food systems, community development, trails development and promotion, Seagrant) are not coordinated or marketed as “tourism” programming. The state of Connecticut as a whole also provides minimal funding for tourism through state agencies so many communities don’t see this as a viable strategy for economic development. There are challenges in thinking through risk management for farms and smaller agriculture industries Marketing Making the economic connection of agri tourism (beyond wine) Not enough research on the impacts of agritourism Lack of capacity (personnel). I was extension specialist in ag policy and focused part of my programming on agritourism before moving into administration. Several county ag agents remain involved; however, it is not the majority of their time/job duties.
State
NH
VT
WV
CT
NY
NJ
MD Regulations and liability MA
Funding, and public/stakeholder concerns about competing uses of agricultural land and what sorts of “farm” and “farmer” are worthy of public support.
ME DC
Lack of funding, and the need to prioritize hiring.
Limited financial resources
Staffing and financial resources. We are thinly staffed and under resourced, so there would have to be new funds to add a new program. This is not a programmatic area that we have explored, likely due in part to our geographic location, academic programs, and other extension program foci.
RI
DE
9 Extension Tourism: Impact and Opportunities of Land- and Sea-Grant Programming
extensiontourism.net
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