Recreational Services Provision and Farm Diversification: A Technical Efficiency Analysis on Italian Agritourism

Abstract

Recreational functions are among the most important practices to improve farmers’ income and to promote sustainability in the rural territories. Two crucial issues are the ability to rationally allocate farm resources and the ability to efficiently produce different sorts of food and non-food goods. Possible cost savings due to the co-presence of different activities can generate positive effects in the creation of value by agritourist farmers. This paper aims to investigate technical efficiency related to agritourism and recreational functions in Sardinia. Based on a sample of 37 farms and using a data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach, we aim to estimate the technical efficiency of double attitude processes, such as those that characterise agritourism practices. Our findings suggest that efficiency can improve if technical inputs are adequately used; however, the scale appears to be close enough to optimal. Furthermore, we estimated that the margins for improving the efficiency are larger for recreational services and that technical factors contribute to efficiency with a different magnitude. Furthermore, we estimated whether agricultural and non-agricultural resources are efficiently allocated. To our knowledge, this is one of the first attempts in Europe at using an efficiency analysis in agritourism.