Do they know you're local?

Of course, visitors know you’re the local farmer growing their food for them and providing agritourism experiences.

If you believe that you’re probable fooling yourself. Although at Chestnut Brae they are surrounded by over 1000 chestnut trees, we are often asked by visitors where we get our chestnuts from. In fact, most locals can name the local school teacher and doctor, but not a local farmer.

We need to do a better job of promoting that we are local in order to gain customer trust.

John has been in Hong Kong in June this year and the China News newspaper was promoting that this month municipalities are promoting “local” markets around the country. To have a stall at the market the stall holder has to have made our grown the product in the municipality.

You may argue that farmers markets do this in many countries, but some markets can be questionable and tarnish the image for all.

In the UK this month is a promotion “Meet a farmer for a day” where the public are invited onto participating farms to find out about how a farm works.

In the Agritourism Training Academy, there are a number of lessons focused on how to increase your “local” marketing potential and increase your revenue as a result.

Promoting being local is now big business and restaurants, cafes, grocery stores, trades people are all joining the bandwagon.

It is getting to be a crowded “local” marketplace and your business needs to stand out.