Agritourism Workshop 2

Agritourism - Part 2: "Telling & Sellng Your Story" was held on June 14, 2012 at SRJC Shone Farm.

The University of California Cooperative Extension (UCCE) hosted an Agritourism meeting on Thursday June 14, at the Shone Farm Dutton Pavilion. The meeting was filled with a mixture of 75 agriculture professionals and tour industry leaders.  This was the second Agritourism meeting, co-sponsored by UCCE and Farm Trails following the successful meeting held in February 2012, as a result of the 2011 Sonoma County Food Forum.

The meeting brought together agricultural producers, i.e. farmer and ranchers, and the tourism industry, i.e. chamber of commerce, tourism boards, adventure companies. The two groups came together to collaborate and cross market to better enhance agritourism in Sonoma County.

In addition, the UCCE Agricultural Ombudsman, Karen Giovannini, discussed how services can be provided to increase economic opportunities to agricultural producers.

Brochures and business cards were exchanged as the tour industry and agricultural producers navigated through the room through telling their “story” and speed dating amongst the participants.

The day ended with representatives from Sonoma County Tourism Bureau spoke to the audience about the resources offered to help market agritourism activities to the public. Everyone left the workshop with new connections and “out of the box” ideas for agritourism in Sonoma County.  UCCE will host more of these programs in an effort to increase economic viability to both the agricultural and the tourism industries in Sonoma County.

Presentations

The following were among the presentations at the workshop: 

Agritourism KG

Welcome

Elevator Speech - outline 

Permitting & Regulatory Considerations for Agritourism Operations