Abstract

Studies into agritourism have predominately privileged positivistic methodologies and quantitative approaches. As such extant studies have highlighted the economic importance of adding tourism enterprises on farms, while not adequately uncovering or probing deeply enough into the complex web of factors influencing farm families to start and operate tourism enterprises on their farms. Further the need to explore, describe and better understand the complexity of how tourism is impacting the farm, the families and rural areas continues to grow. This paper captured and documents the experience taken by three researchers while conducting independent agritourism studies following an interpretative research approach, specifically Q-Methodology, Appreciative Inquiry, and Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis.