This paper empirically investigates the influence of specific direct sales approaches in attracting visitors to an agritourism operation and its profitability using survey data from the U.S. This study further examines the mediating role of the number of visits to a farm in the relationships between specific direct sales approaches and profitability. Agritourism operations enhance economic viability and sustain the business by opening farms to visitors for education, recreation, entertainment, and direct sales of farm products and services. The goal is to invite visitors to a farm and enhance income. Previous studies in the U.S. show that on-farm direct sales, in general, show a positive association, whereas off-farm direct sales show a negative association with the profitability of agritourism operations, along with many other factors. Farmers consider U-pick, sales through a farm stand/store, and subscription farming or community-supported agriculture (CSA) (on-farm pick-up) as on-farm, and CSA (off-farm delivery) and selling at a farmers’ market as off-farm direct sales approaches. However, which specific approach attracts visitors to a farm and generates profitability is not known. Multivariate analysis using the recently collected data from a U.S. national survey of operators reveals that on-farm direct sales such as a U-pick and a farm stand/store attracted significantly more visits to an agritourism operation, which ultimately yielded higher profitability. In contrast, the selling of produce at farmers’ markets attracted significantly fewer visits to the farm and reportedly reduced profitability. These results are adjusted for other factors including various agritourism experiences offered to the visitors. Moreover, as theoretically expected, the number of visits mediated the effects of specific direct sales (particularly a U-pick and farm stand sales) on profitability. This evidence has implications for agritourism operators, policymakers, and extension educators engaged in starting, expanding, and promoting direct sales via agritourism operations for their economic viability and sustainability.

Agritourism operations enhance economic viability and sustain the business by open-ing farms to visitors for education, recreation, entertainment, and direct sales of farm products and services. Previous studies in the US show that on-farm direct sales, in general, show a positive association, whereas off-farm direct sales show a negative as-sociation with the profitability of agritourism operations. Farmers consider U-pick, sales through a farm stand/store, and subscription farming or community supported agriculture (CSA) (on-farm pick up) as on-farm, and CSA (off-farm delivery) and sell-ing at a farmers’ market as off-farm direct sales approaches. However, which specific approach attracts more visitors to a farm and generates higher profitability remains underexplored. Multivariate analysis using the recently collected data from a U.S. na-tional survey of operators reveals that on-farm direct sales such as a U-pick and a farm stand/store attracted significantly more visits to an agritourism operation, which ulti-mately yielded higher profitability. In contrast, the selling of produce at farmers’ mar-kets attracted significantly fewer visits to the farm and reportedly reduced profitabil-ity. This evidence has implications to agritourism operators, policymakers, and Exten-sion educators engaged in starting, expanding, and promoting direct sales at agritour-ism operations for their economic viability and sustainability.