Abstract

This paper examined forces driving tourists’ hotels purchasing behaviour. The results revealed that the tourist hotels consider several factors before deciding to source vegetables and fruits from smallholder farmers. The most prominent factors for the tourist hotels to source vegetables and fruits were consistent quality, regular supply, compliance to legal practices, and hygiene conditions. Interestingly, proximity to the tourists’ hotels and competitive price of fruits and vegetables were not among important driving forces contributing to the choice of sourcing points. This suggests that the tourist hotels are willing to pay premium prices so long they are assured of quality and regular supply, comply to legal practices and observe hygiene conditions. With the fact that smallholder farmers lack access to appropriate market information, produce at subsistence level and lack logistic infrastructure this call for a change of mind-set among smallholder farmers and position strategically to take advantage of emerging markets.

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