When distinction does not pay off - Investigating the determinants of European agritourism prices

Agritourism aims to deliver a particular kind of travel experience when compared to more mainstream types of hospitality, calling for the development of a specific model to design pricing strategies. This research examines the impact of three groups of factors on price: (i) internal attributes, classified as common or distinctive to other hospitality categories, (ii) external attributes, in terms of natural environment or cultural attractiveness and (iii) reputation, in the form of online and offline ratings. The proposed methodology, which provides a possible solution to collinearity among attributes, is the Shapley Value Regression. The database consists of 1268 agritourism establishments in five European countries. The findings show the relevance of the services that are common to mainstream types of hospitality and of the cultural attractiveness of the area. Managerial and policy implications build on the threat to the exclusivity of agritourism establishments with respect to traditional hotels in rural areas.