Memories are made of this

Written by the Easy Riders and sung by Dean Marin in 1955. This song still brings nostalgia and memories to a lot of people.

What we do today on the farm for our visitors should also be based on memories and nostalgia. Many of our visitors want to reflect on their youth, while the young ones want an understanding of farms and farming and to take memories away with them. As an industry, we have done a reasonably good job on the farm developing memories and nostalgia. But we have not done as good a job of keeping those memories alive once the visitor has left the farm. That is about to change.

The Power of Nostalgia

It took us a few years at our own farm,Chestnut Brae, to realise we were not selling sweet chestnuts, we were selling nostalgia. It is common for our visitors to start reminiscing about having roasted chestnuts on a street corner in New York, Paris, Rome, London, or Kula Lumpa. Our point of difference is selling nostalgia.

The question is what are your nostalgic experiences on your farm?

The Power of Meaningful Experiences

As more and more farm agritourism destinations start to look the same, visitors across the globe are looking for more meaningful experiences than just a day out.

They are looking for unique, meaningful experiences that they can experience on the farm and when they get home.

They want to meet the farmer, understand where their food comes from, connect and take home the story and memories and share them with family and friends.

Farmers have a unique opportunity to turn their everyday life into memorable visitor experiences.

Our role is to turn agritourism, entertainment and food into a story they take home and still engage with us at their home.

Storytelling is the key; visitors should be exposed to the story on the farm and then further engage with the story at home.

As farms develop into experience destinations, storytelling becomes more important.

In our own farm, Chestnut Brae, we are partnering with Storyland Atlas (https://dti0af-1h.myshopify.com) who have farm partners in Canada, the USA, the UK as well as Australia.

Our visitors simply scan a barcode while at the farm that takes them to Storyland Atlas, where their online memories storyboard begins.

The aim is to take the real farm experience into a living story world. At the Storyland webpage, they can listen to audio stories, obtain collectables, go on digital adventures, obtain recipes and keepsakes. The aim is to help farms and families stay connected after they have left the farm.