On September 11th,  Haruna Ikenono from our farm stay department and CEO Keiji Sawano held a seminar for new farm stay business owners in Kunisaki City, Oita Prefecture.

Topics that were covered in detail included domestic and international market trends for farm stays, trends in educational travel, challenges faced when starting a new farm stay business, our track record in Kagoshima, and management methods. We were pleased to receive positive feedback, with some comments including, “I learned a lot,” “I see that it took a lot of research,” and “Now I know that farm stays business everywhere face the same challenges.”

We want to explore ways to add both socioeconomic and emotional value for farmers who participate in farm stays and there is a growing demand for farm stays to offer new opportunities beyond just educational travel. By implementing new endeavors that go beyond the typical, such as utilizing farm stays for corporate training, working vacations, general inbound tourism, and as destinations for school trips from overseas schools, we feel we can accomplish these goals.

Additionally, we plan to work with Oita Prefecture even more closely in the future to further improve our farm stay services and increase the number of guests we can accommodate.