Classification of Agri-Tourism / Rural Tourism SMEs in Poland (on the Example of the Wielkopolska Region)

摘要

The paper is based on data from a questionnaire survey (interviews) conducted in the western part of Poland on 183 rural tourism and agri-tourism small and medium enterprises. The classification of enterprises was based on the methodology proposed byWysocki (1996) and included the k-means clustering algorithm. As the result of the research three types of SMEs were separated, including the top resilient enterprises aimed mainly at tourism activity and usually connected with horse recreation, a cluster of mixed SMEs for which tourism activity was an additional and less important source of income, and a group of SMEs for which tourism activity was an additional but important source of income. The classification may be used as a hint for rural development policy makers for future support of rural tourism / agri-tourism development.