Procedure for the Design of Agrotourist Products to Contribute to Local Development

Tourism products constitute an element of high incidence in the economies of all countries due to their multiplying nature and their potential as exportable resources. In addition, they represent a significant variable within the study of marketing, since they are the main component of the offer of any destination and around which revolve the rest of the policies that operational marketing follows. Regardless of the type of tourist product that is offered, it must be taken into account to satisfy the needs of tourists so that they can enjoy a unique experience that identifies and differentiates it from other products. The following article proposes, based on current trends, a procedure for the design of agro-tourism products that can be used in a general way, for the creation of tourism products. It comprises four structured phases in the form of a system and a fifth evaluation phase, which is present in the previous ones; which allows the correct planning, development, management and promotion of nature tourism products and their different segments, so that they can be inserted in a competitive market and are not only optional for the Sun and Beach modality, which is the one that is the most influx of tourists attracts globally. It also has in one of its stages the validation through the criteria of specialists of the design, importance and relevance of the tourist product, depending on its quality.


I. Introduction
International tourism continues to grow significantly around the world, resulting in job creation in many economies. This growth reminds that it is necessary to increase the capacity to develop and manage tourism in a sustainable way, forging smart destinations and making the most of technology and innovation (Pololikashvili, Z. 2018).
Tourism activity, due to current trends in the world market and increased competition, has had to incorporate new concepts in its management, so that the tourism products offered are of interest to both the real and potential markets; which forces us to evolve in terms of the way of conceiving tourist products to achieve better economic results, through a philosophy of sustainability, balance and social well-being. Machado, E. -Hernández, Y. 2011;World Tourism Organization 2020), agree that technological development causes significant changes in the economy and society, and the tourism product acquires a more dynamic and active character. It is not enough to show something, but it is also necessary to convey an experience.
The creations of tourist products (Acerenza, M.1986;Acerenza, M. 1991;Beltrán Vargas, L. C. y otros, 2002;Campdesuñer, R. 2006;Pierre-Avoce, S. 2007;González-Ferrer, J. 2007;Partido Santanach y otros, 2009;Bernal-Ruiz, Z. 2010) are based on the need that human beings have for recreation and enjoyment of their free time, which is why they present an area of opportunity for women companies to offer various alternatives taking into account the available tourist resources, among which natural resources, historical, cultural values and new recreational options and the demands of the tourist market are rescued.
Nature tourism is one of the modalities that has experienced the greatest advance and growth throughout history. This topic has been investigated and developed by dissimilar researchers around the world (Acerenza, M.1986;Fayos-Solá, E. 1997;Ceballos Lascurain, H. 1998;Ayala Castro, H. 1999;Ascanio, A. 2004;Kuper, D. 2009;Cebrián, A. 2010;Moral et al., 2019;Rodríguez Alonso, G. 2019) from its inception until today, where its main thematic axis has become on how to do it in a sustainable way, carrying out activities of enjoyment, leisure and adventure that cements a responsible mentality with respect to good environmental practices.
However, rural tourism and agrotourism have not been sufficiently conceptualized in our country and therefore their planning, development, management and specialized promotion has been limited. They have been mixed with a group of nature tourism products as options for the Sun and Beach segment; therefore the methodological treatment that allows the development of agro-tourist products where they are integrated through a procedure, the processes for their management and development based on quality, according to the tastes and needs of tourists, is still insufficient.
The objective pursued with this article is to propose a procedure for the design of agrotourist products, where the different phases are analyzed in a comprehensive manner, as well as the supply of goods and services that are associated with this tourism modality in order to contribute to the management of sustainable agrotourist products and with the ability to gain competitive market share in the current environment, influencing the economic and social development of rural communities that have the potential to develop this modality.
In addition, it allows integration in the local economy and in the activities of the rural environment, in the preservation, conservation and long-term recovery of the communities; It contributes to the reinforcement of the local identity and institutional framework related to the benefits of the knowledge produced by specialized research (biology, anthropology, rural sociology, archeology) to value the cultural and natural heritage; and it is considered highly topical and relevant.

II. Research Methods
For the development of the investigation it was combined the use of theoretical and empiric investigation methods, among the first ones they stand out that of analysis and synthesis, the abstraction and concretion, the induction and deduction. Inside the empiric methods there are the techniques of summary of the information like workgroup. It was also used a statistical method to establish statistical correlation of the information obtained by the different scientific methods used during the investigation process, as well as to reveal the tendencies, regularities, and the relationships in the phenomenon study object starting from the information obtained during the investigation process, what allowed to arrive to conclusions.

Agrotourist Products
According to consulted authors (Miranda Jacome, G. 2013; Pumares Chat, Argelia C. 2019; Noa G. y Gascón G. (2019), Agrotourism is a vital and feasible component that facilitates the local development of any territory, therefore, all activities that involve the natural environment in rural areas can be considered an agrotourism product. Therefore, when designing an agrotourism product, a process of transformation, integration and strengthening of the agricultural and non-agricultural activities carried out, including the commercialization of these products, is conceived, taking into account current market conditions and demands. Therefore, Blanco y Riveros (2010) proposes that the agrotourist product takes advantage of the agricultural and agro-industrial heritage of a certain place to offer visits that are of interest to a certain segment of tourists, accommodation, food and sale of fresh and processed products are also offered in the farms or surrounding communities, and the necessary infrastructure is created for their access. All these activities will be subordinate to the objective of the trip, constituting the main factor that determines the tourist flow to a destination, also influencing the free time available, the budget available and the quality of the service offered.
An agrotourist product then, will have as its central axis, the activities of rural farms and participation in daily practices, such as: harvesting, milking, herd roundup, threshing, canning, assistance in feeding and caring for animals, among others. These field works are combined with walks, bird watching, horseback riding, boating, and cycling, among other recreational activities.
That is to say, agrotourist products must offer "experiences" in a rural environment with opportunities for differentiation, which enables situations of positive interaction with visitors from the cities to sow in them a spirit of caring for the natural environment and respect for the style of life and for local identity.

Procedures for the Design of Tourist Products
At this point, it was considered pertinent to carry out a bibliometric analysis about the scientific production on tourism product, for this we went to the electronic database of SciVerse Scopus, since it is considered the largest database of abstracts and citations of literature reviewed anonymously and available on quality websites, containing nearly 18,000 titles from 5,000 publishers around the world.
In the results obtained on the subject of tourism product, it is evident that from 1975 documents that address the subject began to be published. Since 2011 there are more than 4 thousand documents that evaluate it. The years 2017 and 2018 have been the ones with the highest productivity as shown in figure 1. It was also possible to determine the tourist product written documents, by subject area as shown in figure 2, with economic and social sciences, followed by environmental sciences, being those that make the most reference to the subject. From all the analysis carried out, it can be inferred that research in tourism in general and in particular those oriented to the analysis of tourism products are broad, diverse, relevant and that they are the object of different and complementary views of various areas of scientific knowledge. In the same way, it was revealed that these investigations are more abundant in countries that show a high degree of economic and social development, which is why in turn they are tourist destinations that, in their operational execution as a result of said development, promote or motivate the conduct of such investigations. Some reasons to renew and create new products are: to attack or equalize the competition, to respond to new needs raised by customers, to take advantage of a market opportunity, to occupy idle capacity, among others.
A comparative analysis of several methodologies exposed by different authors was carried out, as shown in Table 1 Table 2 shows the analysis of the procedures and in figure 3 the graphic representation of the absolute frequency of ten criteria used in the seven methodologies analyzed, which allowed to validate the coincidence of the authors for the design of tourism products, related to the inventory of resources and tourist attractions, the analysis of supply and demand, the competition, the structuring of the product. The rest of the criteria show a lower incidence, but they fulfill the design in question.  It was determined that the evaluation of the phases is not carried out as a means of feedback in the management of the process, nor is a complete diagnosis of the situation of the environment that allows to determine if there are opportunities for the design of new products, because there is no the situation of the macroenvironment and the influence exerted by community factors on tourist activity are taken into account. Nor are tools used that allow the process to be concluded and to propose its development and renewal, taking into account the product life cycle and the improvement actions.
For all the above, and based on teamwork and consultations with specialists it was decided to design a new procedure that solves the limitations found in the procedures analyzed and takes into account the common criteria of the authors studied, modifying and incorporating elements in some of the phases and stages. Thus, the introduction of a Stage 5 in Phase III is highlighted: Design of the tourism product, aimed at its implementation, in which the design of an action plan for its enhancement of tourist use is detailed. Likewise, the inclusion in Phase V: Evaluation, feedback and continuous improvement of the tourism product, of a group of indicators that will facilitate the validation of the results achieved with the application of the designed procedure, the improvement of the product once implemented and the identification of their contributions to local development; as shown in figure 4. To guarantee the success of this stage in which two steps are developed, all the information possible envelope the town study object should be gathered (resources and attractiveness that it possesses, behavior of the tourism, patrimony and traditions, etc.), in such way that becomes evident the necessity of the design of the product.

Step 1. Creation of the Work Team
It is recommended that the work team integrates it specialists that have knowledge on the study object. It is recommended to select among 7 and 10 specialists endowed with knowledge that facilitate the summary and analysis of the existent information on the development of products. It is advisable to keep in mind to the directive and professionals that work in the company that is in charge of the setting in value of the product and of the exploitation of the same one, as well as those that belong to the travel agencies (TTAA) of the destination, touroperators (TTOO) of the issuing markets and other specialists in tourist administration coming from the investigation center, universities and of tourist entities.

Step 2. Capability of the Work Team
Once the team is created, they will be given the steps to follow, the objectives and the tasks that must be undertaken. The training process must have an intrinsic professional updating of the specialists who make up the team, in order to be in tune with the development of the environment under investigation. They will also be trained in the techniques, methods and tools proposed by the procedure and in new trends for product design.
Phase II: Identification of existing opportunities for the development of the new tourist product Objective: To determine the real and projected possibilities for the success and competitive capacity of the new product or its renewal and improvement based on the analysis of the current situation of the environment and the entity in charge of managing it.
This phase includes two stages with five steps, in which the threats and opportunities in the environment are determined; The main competitors of the product being designed are analyzed, as well as the markets to which it is oriented, and the strengths and weaknesses existing in the locality are also identified for the development of the new product.

Stage 1. External Diagnosis
At this stage, it corresponds to analyze the opportunities in the environment for the development of the new product, thus, the characteristics of the macro environment, the resources and available attractions, the market situation and the competition will be determined.
Step 3. Macro environment analysis for the diagnosis of the macro environment, information about the external environment will be collected and analyzed. Economic, environmental, social, legal and political factors will be taken into consideration.
Step 4. It constitutes a record and assessment of the state of all the elements that, due to their natural, cultural, historical and patrimonial qualities, can constitute a motivation for the tourist.
One of the techniques to carry out the tourist inventory is the application of interviews to local managers of the economy and in particular tourism, as well as observation, among others. It is important to also evaluate the load capacity. It is about determining the maximum number of visitors that a tourist attraction admits at any given time, or the maximum value of an indicator in the use of a natural resource in order to guarantee its sustainability.
Step 5. Demand analysis The analysis of the demand allows to identify towards which markets the offer can be directed, what are their needs and preferences. It allows to know the profile of the main tourism source markets to the region where the product is located, to identify and deepen the study of the different segments towards which the offers can be directed.
Step 6. Competitor analysis You must know who the competitors are and define who are those who offer similar products and services to the same customers and at similar prices. The analysis of the competition makes it possible to evaluate the level of rivalry in the sector in which the tourism product is located.
To close this stage, it is recommended to make a summary of the external diagnosis using the Matrix of External Factors (MEFA) as a tool.

Stage 2. Internal diagnosis
To carry out the internal analysis, we start from a general characterization of the locality in question, with a view to assessing the situation presented by the products on offer, human resources, the economic and financial situation, the prices of the products, the promotion, distribution channels, infrastructure (communications, networks, telephony) and the services of the entity in charge of managing the product. The Internal Factors Matrix (IFMA) is used as a tool.
Step 7. Diagnosis summary As the final closure of this phase, a balance is made of the analyzes carried out in the previous steps that will serve as a starting point for the next phase and its main objective is to determine the competitive strategy, as well as the design of lines of action for its realization. For this, the construction of the SWOT Matrix is proposed, which allows obtaining a clear diagnosis for making better decisions in the marketing and dissemination strategy of the business.
Phase III: Design of the tourism product Objective: Design the product according to the existing potential in the municipality where it will be managed.
This phase consists of four stages and the same number of steps, in it the product is structured defining its name, objectives, services, attractive activities to develop as part of it. Likewise, its spatial and temporal location and the ease of movement are analyzed.

Stage 3. Product structuring
In this phase, the new tourism product will be structured, taking advantage of the potential of the existing environment in the locality, for which the objectives of the new product are established, which must be in correspondence with the characteristics and projections of the locality in which it will be managed. Likewise, the commercial name that the product will carry will be defined and with which it will be made known to the target audience, which must clearly communicate the fundamental activity to be developed and be attractive and attractive, so that customers are feel interested in buying it. The tourist attractions present in the product and in its immediate surroundings are identified, taking into account the possibility of carrying out complementary activities compatible with the main attraction.
Step 8. Determine the objectives and name of the product, defining the mix of services, attractions and activities to be developed as part of it.
You must begin by defining the name and objectives of the tourism product in question, as well as defining the mix of services it includes, which must be related to the demands of the target market towards which the product is oriented, the type of product, the attractions that comprise it, the activities to be carried out, the benefits that are expected to be obtained, the idea and the concept of it. In addition, it is necessary to decide about the quantity, type and way of organizing the service, the perception of quality and the value that the consumer attributes to it, as well as making decisions regarding physical and material aspects.
Step 9. Product concept test At the end of this stage, the product is submitted to an evaluative judgment of the tourist intermediation (guides, AAVV and TTOO representatives), specialists from the entity that manages the product and the end customers through a concept test. First, the concept of the product is developed based on the differentiating attributes that it is desired to have, which allows it to be adapted to the characteristics of each market, without losing its essence. It consists of a detailed description of the product, in terms that have meaning for the consumer, but must be determined by the buyer's point of view and be in line with market requirements.
The product concept is the basis for positioning, to develop and project an attractive image of the product for the market segments, differentiating it from the competition, so the functional, symbolic and experiential benefits must be defined at this point.
-Functional benefits: they satisfy basic needs such as accommodation or food, or those that offer advantages in terms of comfort and ease (proximity, comfortable transport, etc.). -Symbolic benefits: they respond to emotions, status and personal fulfillment. For example, using exclusive services, that the tour guide or host is a recognized personality, visiting places that confer status, etc. -Experiential benefits: they are related to the five senses of the human being, that is, experiences and experiences resulting from tourist activity. For instance, offer unique experience, specials, few common, which the experience will be safe, etc. (Secretary of Tourism from Mexico. How to develop competitive tourist products. Mexico) Stage 4: Process of provision of the tourist product In this stage, the set of processes and facilities of the product that allow the enjoyment of the activities and services by the client in a satisfactory way is defined, establishing how to organize and develop the process of providing the product to the client, that is, establish the set of facilities and processes that allow the enjoyment of the activities and services by the client in a satisfactory way.
Step 10. Spatial and temporal location of the product In this step, the location of the product within the tourist space is defined, the hours during which it provides its services to the client and the definition of the times of the year when the main attraction is optimal for the tourist, considering the interests and seasonality. target markets.
Step 11. Travel facilities The facilities for the displacement of the emitter space to the receiver are defined. They include access and transportation. Within the accesses, the routes by which the product can be reached and its state of conservation are analyzed to choose the most appropriate (maritime, land and air links). In the case of transport, the existing transport facilities in the area under study are taken into account to define the means of transport that will be used to access the product, their capacity, comfort and service hours if required.

Stage 5: Implementation
In this stage, improvement actions are planned for the adequate implementation of the tourism product and those that promote its sustainability.
The sequence and convenient priority of execution of the planned actions, the estimated budget if possible, the tentative start and end dates, the resource requirements, as well as those responsible for their execution are defined, all through a plan of action.
Phase IV: Marketing of the tourism product Objective: To develop the strategies to be followed in the remaining marketing variables: price, distribution and commercial communication to successfully insert the product in the market.
In this phase there are also four steps to develop.
Step 12. Definition of positioning strategies The process of inserting the new product in the market is planned, first defining the most convenient strategies to achieve a successful positioning of said product in the customer's mind.
Step 13. Determination of the communicational mix Then the communicational mix of the product is defined, which must be in correspondence with its positioning in the market and the characteristics of the target audience. The use of the Internet as a communication channel and the use of support media such as: printed and audiovisual informational materials offered by travel agencies are analyzed. Promotional actions are also proposed to publicize the product and stimulate its purchase by customers.
Step 14. Establishment of distribution channels Once the communicational mix has been defined, the elements that make up the distribution channel are examined, emphasizing the analysis with the most significant tour operators and travel agencies that operate the selected markets, although it is not ruled out to also consider online distribution channels.
Step 15. Product pricing fixation Finally, the price of the product has to be set from considering different strategies that can be adopted through the use of different existing methods for this, also considering the response of the demand and the actions of the competitors Phase V: Evaluation, feedback and improvement of the tourism product Objectives: Evaluate the economic viability and the contributions to local development, as well as the stages of the procedure and the final control of the product plus its improvement, to guarantee its continuous feedback once it is put into operation.
In this Phase there are three steps to develop: The evaluation of the economic viability and the contributions to local development, the evaluation by stages and the final control of the product through consultation with specialists, plus the analysis of the instruments for feedback. and continuous improvement of the designed product.
Step 16. Analysis of economic viability and contributions to local development In this stage, the costs, expenses, income and the possibility of compensating the investment of the product are foreseen, to determine if it is sustainable and favors local development, identifying the amount of the investment and the expected profit. Make estimates about the number of products that the company can offer in a day and the number of customers. It allows estimating income and expenses, as well as analyzing what are the possibilities of compensating the investment and achieving profitability. The cost of the net present value (NPV), the Internal Rate of Return (IRR) and the breakeven point (Ueq) must be carried out, which is the level at which income is equal to costs and expenses, that is, the point in which losses disappear and profits begin to be generated.
In this stage, in addition, actions that favor the local development of the territory will be required, based on taking advantage of the potential of the natural environment and the components of its traditional peasant popular culture.
Work will be done to ensure that local companies increase their capacity to organize productive factors; as well as, so that cultural values and institutions are the basis of the development process, all under the leadership and guidance of the local government, which should be able to ensure a stimulating local climate.
The management of the designed product will promote the creation of employment, the generation of new productive activities, the reactivation of the rural area, giving value and hierarchy to the local identity, to its productive processes; as well as, it will facilitate that the agricultural producers and their families offer to the tourists the foreseen services, socializing and sharing with them new experiences through the diverse activities.
The management of the product designed using the resources of the locality, will be part of the municipal strategy, promoting the greatest possible articulation and integration of the interests, needs and priorities of all the actors involved and includes improvements in employment and in education and training. of human resources; as well as the establishment of alliances between public companies and private producers, as well as other forms of cooperation.
For the development of this phase, methods and techniques will be used to define a quality product that meets the requirements of the tourism industry and contributes to the local development of the region in question, using the criteria of specialists, the dynamics group, interviews, surveys, brainstorming and document review, to facilitate its design Step 17. Evaluation by stages and final control of the product In this last stage, the design, importance and relevance of the tourism product is subjected to evaluation by a group of specialists, based on its quality and on the basis of cooperation and collaboration with the managing body of the community or local government and the Agency. corresponding Travel.
For this, between 7 and 15 specialists [26] should be selected, including representatives of the Ministry of Tourism or personnel with experience in tourism management, human resource management, quality management, economic management, logistics management, etc., representatives of Physical Planning and managers of the entity that will assume the new product, among other specialists. Each one must be selected based on their years of experience in the activity, certified knowledge of their skills, postgraduate degrees received in relation to the subject, etc.
To process the information obtained in the survey carried out with the specialists, it is recommended to use the following expression for each question: Being, VEi (Value by Expert) the value given by expert i to the question being evaluated.
The criterion is considered valid as long as it reaches values greater than 7 points. Questions that do not reach this value should be the subject of a more in-depth analysis with a view to determining possible design corrections or explanation to experts of some aspects not yet understood.
To evaluate the validity of the procedure, the specialist's criterion was used or the Delphi method can also be used, consulting it on more than one occasion until reaching a solution free of contradictions that ensures the greatest possible objectivity.
Aspects related to the recognition of the importance of the procedure for the design of an agrotourism product, its validity, relevance and the methodological nature of said procedure were evaluated, which must be estimated through a table of Aspects / Valuation Ranges (Very Acceptable, Fairly Acceptable, Acceptable, Not Acceptable, Unacceptable) to which a numerical value from 1 to 5 is assigned in the same order.
The criteria expressed by the specialists are subjected to a non-parametric statistical test, since they are inquiries typical of the social sciences and with the purpose of giving validity to the research.
Once the criteria of the specialists in each valuation range for the different aspects have been reflected in a table of Aspects / Valuation Ranges, the following established steps are followed until it is concluded that the valuation has each of the aspects: 1. Obtaining the table of observed frequency. 2. Obtaining the cumulative frequency table.
3. Obtaining the relative cumulative frequency table 4. Assignment from the Z table of the normal distribution of the value of the image that corresponds to each relative cumulative frequency obtained. 5. Obtaining the points through the calculation of N-P, where: P = average for aspects 6. The line is divided into categories from the Cut Points and the N-P points are located to determine the category of each aspect. 7. Analysis of the information obtained.
Step 18. Feedback and continuous improvement In order to have systematic feedback on the progress of product implementation, different instruments will be designed and applied to both internal and external clients to take the necessary corrective measures, in order to achieve the aspired levels of excellence.
That is to say, what it is about is to detect the fundamental insufficiencies that arise during the management of the product and the causes of them with a view to their elimination, for which, among other instruments, may be used: Surveys, interviews, observation, among others.
Depending on the results obtained, corrective actions must be designed and applied that allow continuous improvement, not only because the results do not correspond to what was planned, but also because the market demands changes as part of the improvement and constant demands that characterize it.
A group of indicators is proposed to achieve continuous improvement in the tourism product quality management process, taking into account the principles established in the ISO 9001: 2015 Quality Management System and the Model of the European Foundation for Quality (EFQM) applied to tourist destinations (Solsona, J. 2000); to attend to the improvement of quality and its implementation which are detailed below:  Transportation, access and roads.  Load capacity, services and support equipment.  Diversification of offers.  Cost-price-quality ratio.  Self-financing capacity.  Level of conservation and conditions of the environment and resources. Aesthetic-scenic (visual) values.  Restoration capacity.  Originality and exclusivity.  Attainment of customer service and average duration.  Need to develop new activities that add value to the product.  Customer satisfaction.  Safety and hygiene.  Environmental quality. Implementation of good practices  Tourist and environmental signage and information.  Qualification of personnel.  Dynamic and effective marketing.

IV. Conclusion
After the analysis carried out on the topic addressed, it was found that the design of agrotourist products, based on the potentialities of the natural environment and the components of traditional peasant popular culture so that agrotourism is promoted, can always favor local development that respond to the current demands of the demand. The marketing strategy adopted must always focus on selling the true value of use of the agrotourism product based on constant feedback with the client about what they really want and enjoy in a way that is able to provide unique and unforgettable experiences. Seven methodologies and procedures for the design of tourism products were analyzed, identifying that there are still shortcomings, so it was decided to make a new procedure that introduces a stage aimed at the implementation of the product, in which the design of an action plan is detailed. For its enhancement of tourist use and includes a group of indicators that will facilitate the validation of the results achieved with the application of the designed procedure, the improvement of the product once implemented and the identification of its contributions to local development, given the complexity and the diversity of current tourism demand.