Agritourism Development in the USA: The Strategy of the State of Michigan

Agritourism has been widely promoted by governments at many levels, especially in the developed regions of Europe and North America, as a tool to revitalize rural economies and as a sustainable path. Research on agritourism has mainly focused on defining and categorizing agritourism, farmers’ perceptions, tourists’ attitudes, tourism benefits, and marketing. However, little attention has been paid to characterizing the processes and strategies of agritourism development in a relatively large region, for instance, in a state or a province. This article uses the state of Michigan in the Midwest of the USA as a case study, systematically collecting academic publications from several literature databases on agritourism, the state’s regulation and policies on agritourism, the development of agritourism associations, the participation of universities in agritourism related to academic and outreach activities, identifying key and critical developmental events, and reconstructing the historical phases of the agritourism development process. It summarizes the significant characteristics of agritourism’s development in the state of Michigan, the state government’s comprehensive strategy and leadership, the universities’ strong intellectual support, and the consistent involvement of the industrial associations, as well as the interactions of these three parties at the different developmental stages of agritourism. The discussion is set in the wider context of agritourism’s development in the USA. We conclude by presenting the implications and recommendations derived from the agritourism development experience in the state of Michigan. We specifically discuss the relevance of the Michigan experience for agritourism stakeholders in other regions worldwide, especially those that are still in the early stages of agritourism development, such as China.