AGROTURISMO Y COMPETITIVIDAD, COMO OFERTA DIFERENCIADORA: EL CASO DE LA RUTA AGRÍCOLA DE SAN QUINTÍN, BAJA CALIFORNIA

The agritourism can act as an engine for regional economic development. Since its implementation generates many positive externalities, make it a powerful tool for development and cultural diffusion. Properly trained and organized, farmers can find in this type of tourism new prospects to development and diversifying their products. The objective of this research was to develop an agritourism proposal on agricultural route of San Quintin Valley as a way to help boost regional development in conditions of limited agricultural resources. The methodology was to characterize the agricultural route to conduct a SWOT analysis. Among the main result a proposed concept of agritourism in the San Quintin Valley which basically describe trade and potential services to be performed within the agricultural farms, aimed at domestic and foreign tourists. Associated with the proposal a number of tourist routes are briefly described as additional tourist attractions. Finally we discuss different strategies to implement the model of agritourism in the valley which consist differentiate the tourist service, train farmers and involved for each ranch on three basic aspects: food, businesses and tourists service. The paper concludes highlighting the great potential of this tourism activity in the rural areas, suggesting some aspects of future research.