Levels of Awareness, Importance and Willingness to Engage in Agri-Tourism: In the case of Farm Owners and some Sectors in the Municipality of Manay

Abstract

This study was conducted to measure the levels of awareness, importance and willingness of the respondents to engage in agri-tourism in the municipality of Manay, Davao Oriental. Respondents of this study were 13 including farmers, representatives from the selected sectors in the community policy maker, government, transport sector, student and professional. The farmers were identified as Gawad-saka awardees located in four barangays namely, San Ignacio, Holy cross, Cayawan and Tubigan. Semi-structured interview questionnaires were used to collect data, analyzed, interpreted and computed through frequency counts and percentages. Most of the respondents being interviewed were males; under the age bracket raging 51-60 years old, 40-50 years old and 61-70 years old. About 92% of the marital status of respondents were married and the remaining 8% were single. Most of the respondents were Mandaya and majority of their religion were Catholic. In terms of the primary source of income of the respondents, most of them rely on farming and 46% of the respondent finished their tertiary level. Farmers were highly aware of what is agri-tourism. Some sectors in the community were also highly aware on what is agri-tourism, its definition, terms related to agri-tourism and some activities to enjoy in. Farmers perceived that agri-tourism was very important as well as some sectors in which the result shows the general importance was very high. Farmers were very willing to engage in agri-tourism as well as some sectors recognized agri-tourism as income generating and would greatly help the economic status of the farms.