CC BY
280 QTal and Practice
Journal Bulletin of Stavropol Hegton
UDK 338.48
Sidelnikova K.
PRICE AS THE MAIN FACTOR OF RURAL TOURISM DEVELOPMENT
Abstract: Today rural tourism has to be treated as an important trend of entrepreneurship development and its diversification in rural areas, as an important trend of sustainable rural development, as a chance for economic, social and cultural revitalization of rural areas at large. This gives a reason for high relevance of research of the essence and development prospects of the above-men-
tioned type of tourism. The article presents the results of questionnaire survey aimed at revealing the main factors influencing the rural tourism development. The price was highlighted as the main factor affecting the consumer demand.
Key words: tourism, rural tourism, price.
Sidelnikova K. -
Assistant at the Department of tourism and service,
Stavropol State Agrarian University
Stavropol, Russia
Tel. 8 (86152) 31-59-26
E-mail: sideksena94@mail.ru
Nowadays rural tourism is becoming more and more often the sphere of great interest. It is especially popular in Europe, where each country has its own specialization area. For example, gastronomic tourism is common for France, Italy and Spain, hunting and fishing - for Finland, while Poland, Hungary and Slovakia are mostly famous for its culture and traditions. Austria is considered to be one of the founders of rural tourism. About 10 % of farms in Austria have offers in agritourism along with traditional agricultural activities.
Study of international agritourism experience is a useful way to develop this sphere in Russia, which has helped Central, North-Western and Kaliningrad Federal Districts to become leaders in the rural tourism. As well as any emerging business activity, agritourism fosters plenty of issues to be examined.
The aim of our investigation was identification of factors influencing the tourism development. To determine the most important one, the questionnaire survey was held among 131 respondents, represented by 67,2 % of women and 32,8 % of men. The age of respondents has the following structure: 67, % of surveyed are under the age of 25, 26 % are between 25 and 40 years and age of 6,1 % of respondents varies from 41 to 60 years old. The majority of interviewees (67,7 %) is single, 73,3 % of them have no children. Employment to the total ratio of respondents is 63,8 %. The biggest part of surveyed represented by city inhabitants, which can help to reveal customers preferences of urban population.
The questionnaire survey was oriented to reveal main customer preferences and factors affecting the demand of prospective clients. Thus, the most frequent factor which keep 57,9 % of respondents from travelling around Russia is price. The next commonest one is quality, which is reasonable due to the interconnection between prices and quality, proved earlier by the number of scientists. The biggest part
of interviewees prefer short-term trips, what is also favorable for rural tourism development. 67,9 % of respondents consider trip costs as the key aspect when making a decision. As for seasons, summer is the most preferable one for 70 % of surveyed, while 6,2 % of them pick agritourism. This fact shows a positive trend for the rural touristic sphere as for developing one.
The record form consists of 6 questions reflecting factor impact on customer demand, where prices represent the primal one. According to the results of the survey factor ranking is following: 1st place -prices; 2nd place - quality; 3rd pace - previous travel experience; 4th place - friends' feedbacks; 5th place - distance.
For the effective operation of the agritourism farm and its rapid market penetration the complex of affecting factors is similar. Among the most significant ones are price reasonableness for agritourism product, costs and quality accord, positive image formation for agritourism farms, marketing development of agritourism services, local government support for above-mentioned sphere in the territories [3].
Rural tourism as a business activity can bring in profits in the case that there is plain and obvious for clients pricing system for the services offered by agritourism farms [8]. In fact, price represents one of the key items specifying efficiency of the others marketing tools for the particular agritourism farm (Figure 1).
Even if the farm offers high-quality product, has well-organized distribution system, but its prices do not correspond to reality, it will not be profitable [5]. The question is at what rate the price should be set - high, middle or low? It is evident, that answer is that price should be set in accordance to the product's quality. That kind of prices is named as fair or optimum price, which means that it can not be too high or too low. The more optimum is price level the more effective are tools for enterprise operation.
Main requirements to the price level of the agritourism product
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Optimality anddynamics Relative stability Suitable form of
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Complexity Appropriate quality of the product presentation
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Bulletin of Stavropol Regi
Stavropol Region
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Figure 1 - Main requirements to the price level of the agritourism product
However, achieving the price at this rate is the main problem of agritourism farm pricing policy.
Based on the survey data it is concluded that 90 % of respondents are planning to have a vacation in summer time. In this case, the effectiveness of rural tourism will be at the possibly highest level, when hospitality and accommodation services are offered during the whole year [7]. It requires the complex of specific procedures of pricing for agritourism farm according to peculiarities of each season, which lead to the change of factors determining range and quality of tourism items.
The common criteria for the vacation costs at the agritourism farm is client appeal. Today the wide range of prices for agritourism services is observed. It varies from 400 to 9000 rubles pro person (with or without meal option) and depends on the region, farm arrangements and services range. One more feature of the prices in this sphere is its high variability and seasonality. The difference between price ratio in winter and summer periods is twice, while in comparison with spring or autumn it might be even three or more times as large.
Unfortunately, lack of monitoring among agritourism enterprises makes impossible to gain the systematic information about authoritative prices in this sector. On the other hand, there should not be any problem in price determination of the whole service package per day at the exact agritourism farm. The attempts to contact with agritourism enterprise holders by telephone or Internet and get some information were in 75 % successful. The gained responses includes the price for one night without meal and other options which were offered to be discussed on site.
The undertaken research was aimed at development of price determination methods, which can be applied in agritourism farm keeper trainings.
There is a general pricing formula, where Tourist product price = production costs + realization costs + remuneration for the efforts, risks, initiative [6]. Though this approach does not include all the factors that can influence the tourist product price it can be used as a base for product price determination.
Russian agritourism mainly uses marketing pricing strategy. The idea is that the price for agritourist product is set giving due consideration to the competitor prices, agritourism farm location, its proximity to popular resorts, attractiveness of the environment and some other factors [4]. Certain researchers pro-
pose to add the product content, demand changes and product value as another factors influencing the price for agritourism service. The last one, in our view, is too uncertain to be considered as a price affecting factor.
Obviously, when setting price for a product an agritourism farm keeper should regard the production costs as the initial point. Thus, the first step is to analyze expenses and determine those, which form production costs for a product unit. In this particular case, a product unit is one day of agritourist stay. All the rest pets are devoted to looking for ways of profit maximization.
There is a pricing method based on 4 factors: product content, material costs, product value and competition. The product price is calculated by multiplying the price set by an enterprise by the ratio of product value determined by our clients to the value of competitor's product determined by his clients. This method has only one though quite significant disadvantage - complicated process of agritourism product value determination [1]. It is calculated based on «multivariate comparison with competitor's product by determining product's most important properties and estimating the share of each property». This process is time-consuming and technically challenging one, so it suits some scientific institution more than an ordinary agritourism farm keeper. Thus, we may conclude that the main requirement for pricing strategy for agritourism product is its simplicity and transparency.
The main goal of price for agritourism product under condition of market economy is to make an agritourism farm competitive on the market. That means:
- first, the price should cover expenses for agritourism product production and maintain certain level of profitability;
- second, it should reflect the product quality;
- third, it should not exceed competitor's price for similar product.
In this case, we propose to simplify the above-mentioned method:
PMAX = (PB+ PMAX ID); (1)
where Pmax is maximum estimated price for an agritourism product;
ID - desired share of profit in price (return on expenses); PB - basic price level (is based on production costs for a product unit).
82 QUearCh and Practice AgTE"1*™!
Journal XK, Bulletin of Stavrapal Reglan
The influence of competitor prices can be accounted by setting the maximum and the minimum price level for a product unit of the same quality in other agricultural enterprises of a region. So the formula of optimum price level for agritourism product on some enterprise is:
POPT = [PMAX.C > PMAX. > PMIN. C], (2)
where PMAX.C и PMIN. C are the maximum and the minimum price for agritourism product of the same level (quality, product range, conditions) offered by potential competi-
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