WHY AGROTOURISM – OWNER’S OPINION

The development of industries and technologies used in agriculture has brought to the known problem of deagrarization in rural areas. By developing tourist activity in rural areas people have possibility of generating satisfying level of income and conditions for better social life. Aim of this paper were to obtained data about age and educational degree structure of people that live and work on agrotourism households and what were the main reasons why they start with this business activity. For example we chose Istria as the region with the largest number of agrotourism households and because Istria is region with the first agrotourism households in our country. The results of primary research, that were carried out by interview, have shown that the main motive for starting agrotourism activity were self-employment (49%, n=43). Other reasons were: better use of extra place, sale of agricultural products, to ensure employment of children - how family would stay together. The main limitations were: agrotourism households are insufficiently organized, unadjusted legal regulations and insufficient help in education.