Integrating local farmers into the tourism supply chain – The Travel Foundation’s “Taste of Fethiye” project.

The Travel Foundation’s Taste of Fethiye project aimed to integrate small, local producers into the larger, mainstream tourism supply chain. Its objective was to work with the existing tourism market with an initial focus on benefiting local farmers and safeguarding the environment. The project’s strategic and funding partners included TUI UK and Ireland, Thomas Cook, The Co-operative Travel and a host of supporting partners working with Fethiye hotels and 40 local farmers across five villages. (1) Linking supply chains, enabling hotels with a labelling system: The project’s aim was to prove that small, local producers can supply hotels at scale and in a commercially-viable way. This included helping producers to farm more sustainably, with greater yields and fewer pesticides, and improving their understanding of how to market their produce to hotels and tourism businesses. In addition to establishing supply-chain linkages, the initiative enabled hotels to verify locally-produced food with the “Taste of Fethiye” labelling system to help hotels promote the fresh, local food as a benefit to guests. (2) Capacity building with farmers: Focusing on five villages, 750 farm visits were made from 2012 to 2014 to improve farming practices and offer guidance on collaboration, marketing and hotel supply needs. 3,000 copies of the Sustainable Agriculture Guidelines were disseminated through the Ministry of Agriculture and other channels to share best practices with farmers. When final distribution was complete, an estimated one in six farmer families in Fethiye had a copy of the Guideline. Working with local wholesalers, The Travel Foundation established production agreements with farmers and purchasing agreements with hotels. (1) Extending benefits to the wider community: The Travel Foundation developed and disseminated food-themed, self-guided driving tours to encourage tourists to explore the rural area and spend locally. Together with the TUI Group, an agriculture excursion was developed, taking more than a thousand TUI customers to visit a Taste of Fethiye farm in 2015, providing the farmers with additional revenue. The combination of better farming practices and improved market linkages created economic benefits for the farmers. They increased their income both by reducing their input costs and increasing yield per acre by, on average, 30% each. Between 2012 and 2014, farmers taking part in the project increased their revenue by approximately 24%. Total revenue from Taste of Fethiye sales now exceeds USD1 million. (2) Local market linkages: This project successfully proved that it is commercially viable for local small-scale farmers to supply high quality and competitively priced fresh fruit and vegetables to the tourism sector. As an example, 16 hotels in 2015 sourced on average between 70% and 85% of their entire fresh fruit and vegetable requirements from Taste of Fethiye. In a survey conducted by the Travel Foundation among all the farmers involved in the project, 71% attested that Taste of Fethiye branding helped them achieve better sales and profits. In a related survey of 125 hotel customers conducted by the TUI Group in 2013, 62% of those surveyed felt more positive towards their hotel knowing it purchased locally grown, sustainable products. Approximately 200,000 tourists enjoyed Taste of Fethiye produce across the five years of the project. (3) Environmental resource protection: In terms of food transportation, buying local generally reduced food miles and associated CO2 emissions, and helped some hotels to meet sustainability certification requirements. Yet the main environmental impact of the project came from working with 40 farmers of four villages in Fethiye to improve their agricultural practices, in particular, by dramatically reducing the levels of pesticides and artificial fertilizers used. 93% of farmers stated they were more aware of the environmental hazards that pesticide and fertilizer waste container could cause, and had thereby made changes in how they disposed of waste chemical containers in order to decrease pollution levels.