THE IMPACT OF AGROTOURISM ON AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION

Agrotourism as a selective form of tourism which take place within the family farm represents a specific form of business with the multiple impacts on the socio-economic relation and the space in rural areas. Through the analysis of secondary source or desk research and information obtained by primary research the paper is seeks to get the answer on the question does agrotourism have impact on the increase of agricultural production in the region where is taking place. A primary research was carried out in Istrian County, our most developed tourist region, as well as region where agrotourism first starts to develop and where is the largest number of agrotourism households in Croatia. Research was carrying out by method of interview during August of the year 2002 on the sample of 43 agrotourism households. According to the obtained results it could be concluded that the development of agrotourism activities have not significant influence on the increase of agricultural production within agrotourism households. Moreover, the owners of agrotourism households in the next few years are not planning, significantly, to increase the agricultural production. Increasing number of specialized agricultural producers, particularly the producers of wines and prosciutto, then brandy, honey and others agricultural products can not be directly related with the development of agrotourism.