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AGRITOURISM CASE STUDY

October 2026AGRITOURISM CASE STUDY

Clover Brooke Farm

Hyde Park, New York • Founded 2008 • Dutchess County

Cornell Cooperative Extension — Agritourism Case Study Series

Interview subject: Andrea Parent-Tibbetts, Owner and Operator

“Our mission is to connect people through agriculture — hands-on, experiential learning that educates,

inspires, and creates lasting connections between visitors, animals, fiber, and the land.”

OVERVIEW

Ask Andrea Parent-Tibbetts how Clover Brooke Farm got its name, and the story starts with an 8-year-

old and a 4-H project. In 2008, Andrea and her husband brought home two goats, named Clover and

Daisy, so their older daughter could join 4-H. The farm took its name from that first goat and from

Brooke, their daughter's middle name.

In 2016, the family relocated to their current 45-acre property in Hyde Park, New York, which allowed

them to expand into livestock, fiber production, educational programming, and agritourism. In 2025 they

purchased a second property nearby, the Hudson Valley Equine Center, to grow into equine-assisted

learning and restorative programming.

Andrea didn't come from farming. She spent thirty years as a school administrator, most recently as a

director of finance and operations at private schools — a background, she says, that turned out to be

surprisingly well-suited to running a small business. What she did not know, quite yet, was what kind of

farm she was building.

Today, Clover Brooke Farm produces roughly 350 pounds of raw fiber a year from a herd of llamas,

alpacas, goats, and sheep, processed into yarn and other fiber goods. It hosts summer camps for city kids

who have never touched a llama. It offers Airbnb farm stays. They have also been on the Today Show,

Dr. Oz, and Rachel Ray. It runs fiber arts workshops in which visitors learn to turn raw fleece into

something they made with their hands. Its llama and alpaca hikes have a return rate of fifteen to twenty

percent — meaning one in five visitors comes back specifically to walk the same animals again.

Andrea sells experiences. Something that city visitors drive ninety minutes to find, and then book again

before they've left.

"To be honest, Agritourism is what pays the bills. Fiber farming does not net you enough

to continue to grow. So hence, the diversification."

Llama and alpaca hikes, farm tours, classes, summer camps, school trips, farm stays, and a rotating slate

of workshops now fill the calendar most weekends of the year, and the farm has been recognized as a

TripAdvisor Travelers' Choice award winner, among the top 10 percent of listings, two years running.

The farm is run almost entirely by Andrea, alongside her husband, a part-time college professor, and

their youngest daughter.

THE BIG IDEA

It was recognizing that the animals themselves, which were already being raised, already being handled,

already good with kids - were the resource worth building a business around. She is selling calmness.

“That's kind of what we could call agritourism, right?” Andrea says. “You use the resources you have,

with the hope that you can continue to build, or at least reinvest.” Andrea doesn’t just sell llama walks

though. Visitors arrive thinking they want to see exotic animals. What they discover, holding a lead rope

with a 350-pound alpaca walking beside them, is something quieter. Something they didn't know they

needed.

"This donkey was my spirit animal," visitors tell Andrea, with complete sincerity. They’ll be back.

HOW IT STARTED

The farm was established in 2008 with the goats but the agritourism didn't begin until the move to Hyde

Park in 2016, when Andrea had space and the animals.

The llamas and alpacas came first, originally for 4-H, and for the fiber they produced. The tourism came

later, once Andrea realized those same gentle, unusual animals were something visitors would pay to

spend time with. She used what she already had before spending what she didn't.

"We already had the llamas and alpacas because we had a 4-H club, and I was also using

them for fiber. Use the resources you have without reinvesting if you don't have to."

The farm's first agritourism offering, roughly six years ago, was a guided llama and alpaca hike. Andrea

is careful to clarify, walks. Not a petting zoo model, not a hands-off exhibit, but a structured forty-five-

minute walk with a trained guide, during which visitors learn about the individual animals, their

environment, their fiber, their needs, and “learn how each one is individual.”

What sets Clover Brooke Farm apart is that she launched her agritourism without a website.

"I wanted to kind of try to figure out what I wanted, but I wanted to get things started,

because I don't know what I need until I've started the process."

Instead of waiting until everything was ready, Andrea listed the hikes on Airbnb Experiences. The

platform takes twenty percent. She treated that twenty percent as her marketing budget since Airbnb

already has millions of users who are actively looking for something to do. Every customer who booked

through Airbnb was told, at the end of their visit: we're building our own website. When it's ready, you

can book directly for less.

That strategy of launching immediately, migrating your customers later, and incentivizing the switch

meant that Clover Brooke Farm was generating revenue and learning from real visitors before Andrea

had finished building the infrastructure. After two to three years, the website was ready and the

customers followed.

From there, the offerings multiplied: goat walks, donkey and mini-horse walks, farm tours, fiber-arts

classes, soap and skincare workshops, Bunnypalooza, even yoga classes, and eventually multi-week

summer day camps, now in their fifth year. Unlike many agritourism operations, food is deliberately

absent from the business. Andrea notes that the farm's entire identity is built around fiber, animals, and

education instead.

A second, distinct customer base grew out of the farm's education mission: school groups, including

several NYC-based programs. One partnership, with a summer program called New York Edge, brought

five student groups (about 150 kids) to the farm last year as an experiential-learning reward for students

who kept their grades up during the school year. “I think there's a lot of value in that,” Andrea says. “Our

audience are individuals who probably would never get out of the city, or never learn about this type of

scenario.”

The newest chapter began in 2025, with the purchase of the Hudson Valley Equine Center, a second

property that Andrea is now renovating to expand into equine-assisted learning, using the same playbook

that built Clover Brooke. They’ve embraced the growing interest in wellness tourism. With equine-

assisted programs combine the calming atmosphere of the farm with guided interactions with horses and

donkeys, creating experiences that promote relaxation, mindfulness, emotional well-being, and

meaningful connections to agriculture. Rather than serving as clinical therapy, these programs provide

restorative, nature-based experiences for veterans, individuals with disabilities, and community

members alike.

THE HARD MOMENTS

Ask Andrea what keeps her up at night, and the answer isn't the animals, the weather, or even the

workload. It's insurance.

New York State has no agritourism-specific insurance law, which means farms like Clover Brooke have

to piece together coverage from carriers that may not fully understand what they do. Andrea has found

exactly one insurance carrier willing to cover her operation — despite six years of running tours and

camps without a single claim.

“If, for some reason, this insurance company we're using decides they no longer want to do

agritourism, then my business folds. Immediately.”

“What's ironic is that what we're doing is pretty low risk. We're not riding animals, we're not

doing rodeos. However, our ability to be insured is more risky, by some of these standards,

than a rancher managing a herd of 1,200-pound cattle.”

The other recurring challenge is visitor expectations, particularly from a client base that is roughly 95

percent from New York City. “People feel that farms are public land,” Andrea says, “and they feel as

though they can just walk on anytime.” That assumption can be both a safety liability and an operational

one, since the farm still has to feed animals, run chores, and occasionally deal with a sick or dying

animal outside of tour hours. The farm has had to install fencing to physically separate working areas

from visitor areas, and adopted a strict no-walk-ins policy, and every visit requires a guide and a

reservation, no exceptions.

It is, Andrea says, the most important thing any farmer starting in agritourism needs to understand before

investing a dollar.

"The most important thing before they start, before they invest, is to make sure they've

secured an insurance broker and hopefully carriers who know exactly what you're doing

and what you'd like to grow."

BALANCING THE FARM AND THE FARM EXPERIENCE

Clover Brooke Farm runs public tours and hikes Friday through Sunday, and keeps weekdays reserved

for the farm itself: chores, animal care, off-site outreach to hosting school groups and camps that need a

trained guide's full attention.

Every visitor experience is guided, for both the animals' safety and so visitors actually learn something.

Guides are trained in-house, drawn mostly from Andrea's former 4-H club members or pre-vet students

from nearby Bard and Vassar Colleges, who need supervised large-animal hours before applying to

veterinary school. “It's a win-win for everyone,” Andrea says. “They're going to have to communicate

and work with individuals and talk about animals if they're a vet, so it's good practice for them, and it's

good for us.”

Andrea leans on booking software rather than a human assistant: a confirmation email when someone

books, a reminder three days out (after which cancellations are no longer accepted), a reminder at 48

hours, and a final note at 24 hours. “I don't have time to call people and remind them,” she says. “Why

not take advantage of these software models to facilitate that for you? There's a cost, but it's not the same

cost as hiring a human.”

WHAT THEY DISCOVERED

You just need an audience. When Clover Brooke launched its first llama and alpaca hikes, Andrea didn't

build a website. She used Airbnb's Experiences platform, which handled bookings and payment (for a

fee) while she figured out what the business actually needed. “I feel like I don't know what I need until

I've started the process,” she says. The farm ran on Airbnb alone for two to three years before building

its own site — and still keeps a presence on Airbnb, TripAdvisor, and Viator today, alongside two

Airbnb-listed farm-stay units added in 2024. This also gives your operation creditability with these

platforms.

We discovered that word of mouth is still the biggest marketing channel over traditional advertising.

Clover Brooke does no print advertising at all. Its core audience skews younger and lives almost entirely

on social media, so Andrea focuses on Instagram, with a lighter presence on Facebook and TikTok.

High-profile media appearances — the Today Show, Dr. Oz, Rachael Ray, Fox News — have helped,

mostly because they draw influencers to the farm who then post about it themselves.

agritourism with explicit animal-assisted learning.

"I think your biggest advertising is word-of-mouth referrals, which links right back to

social media,” she says. “When they tag you, and they talk about you — hey, what'd you

do this weekend? Oh, I went here!”

“I realized that if I could get into that area — invite influencers to the farm, go do high-

end promos — as silly and ridiculous as it is, sometimes you just gotta take one for the

team.”

Working with your regional tourism partners are worth cultivating. Clover Brooke works closely with

Destination Dutchess, the county's tourism promotion agency, which actively showcases local farms. “I

can reach out to them and say, will you do a little something on us, put it on your calendar, or maybe

your front page,” Andrea says. “That really has come a long way.”

Software may sometimes be cheaper than staff. When someone books a tour, they receive an automated

confirmations and gentle cancellation notices before their visit and “we're looking forward to seeing

you”. Andrea does not make these calls. A booking platform makes them. "We're not sitting around

waiting for a call. Let's use effective software to facilitate reservations and communications."

We underestimated how far a strong return rate could carry us. Fifteen to twenty percent of the visitors

who do a llama or alpaca hike come back the following year to do it again. They ask for the same

animal. They buy yarn made from that animal's fiber. They bring a friend. "They've found something

beneficial to their well-being. They recognize it's something they enjoy." That return rate is not an

accident — it is the product of a structured experience designed to create connection, not just

entertainment.

We discovered that city visitors want to know exactly what to expect. Ninety-five percent of Clover

Brooke Farm's visitors come from New York City. They arrive with expectations. The key is not to

lower expectations but to shape them accurately before they arrive. "Tell them what they're going to be

doing. Let them know what they can possibly expect. Animals are unpredictable — but I can tell you

that you're going to learn about the farm, hopefully have hands on the animals, and walk away with a

different appreciation of farming." Clover Brooke Farm has a 4.99 Google rating.

The best investment wasn't equipment. It was hiring 4-H alumni. Andrea's guides are, by design, people

who already know the animals. Former members of her 4-H club. Pre-vet students from Bard and Vassar

who need large-animal hours before applying to veterinary school. They already understand llamas and

alpacas. They already know how to talk about them. The training is minimal. The quality is immediate.

WHAT VISITORS REALLY WANT

What visitors say they want: to see animals, a llama hike, a fiber-arts class, an afternoon away from the

city.

What they actually want, according to Andrea: is a connection with one specific animal. A sense of

calmness they can't always find at home. Roughly 15 to 20 percent of hike visitors return every year,

often asking for the same animal by name.

“A lot of them come back and they ask for the same animal. And at that point, it's a nice

connection — if they want to make something with their fiber, they can buy a skein of yarn,

buy some roving, take a class, and create something with it. There's a lot of win-wins if I can

get them vested and keep coming back.”

Andrea has been working with an organization called Pet Partners for over fifteen years, doing animal-

assisted therapy with her animals. As that work deepened, she began to understand that what visitors

were experiencing on the hikes was not so different from what the therapy clients were experiencing in

structured sessions.

Animals create calm. That calm is what people are actually purchasing. The fiber and the workshops are

add-ons. The calm is the core product.

This understanding now shapes everything Andrea is building at her second farm — the Hudson Valley

Equine Center, where she plans to develop donkey walks and structured sensory experiences, overlaying

agritourism with explicit animal-assisted learning.

"The more I can get people hands-on with the animals, the more connection they have.

And that is another application of marketing, they come back because they felt good

about the situation. It wasn't my vision coming in, fully defined. But now I know this is the

importance — to educate, and to inspire lasting connections.”

Andrea sees the same dynamic play out at the farm's summer camps, where kids are invited to imagine

their own version of a farm, not necessarily one built for production. One camper wanted to raise frogs,

simply because he loved them and wanted to “come home from work and hang out with his frogs.”

Andrea's takeaway wasn't that the idea was impractical. It was that the instinct behind it which is caring

for something, land stewardship, tending to your own well-being — is exactly what she hopes every

visitor, adult or child, leaves the farm with a little more of.

“If we do not educate the next generation, some of the things we're doing will not continue.”

ADVICE FOR OTHER FARMERS

Get your insurance conversation right before you invest.

Have an honest conversation with a broker about what you're doing now and what you hope to grow

into, before you put money into new infrastructure or animals. It won't guarantee coverage stays in

place, but going in blind is worse.

Use what you already have before you buy something new.

Clover Brooke's first agritourism offering didn't require new capital but instead it repurposed animals the

family was already raising and already knew how to handle safely around people.

Let software carry the communication load.

Booking platforms and automated reminder sequences do the job of a full-time assistant at a fraction of

the cost, and they keep no-shows and confusion down without requiring a phone call from you.

Set expectations before people arrive, not after.

Telling visitors exactly what they will and won't be doing and being upfront that animals are

unpredictable can heed off most of the friction that comes from mismatched expectations.

Pay for the help you depend on.

Unreliable free labor costs more in missed shifts than a modest, accountable wage does, especially when

the “volunteers” you're recruiting are there for the animals, not the job.

Let the thing that pays the bills fund the thing you love.

Andrea's deepest passion is education and youth programming, which doesn't generate enough revenue

on its own. Agritourism - the hikes, the classes, the camps - is what makes the education possible. “It

always circles back to agritourism,” she says. “That's where we make money.”

FARMER'S CHEAT SHEET

The Idea Fiber farm that grew into guided animal hikes, fiber-arts classes,

school programs, camps, + farm stays

First Year Cost Low — built around llamas and alpacas the family already owned

for 4-H and fiber

Started With Two goats, guided llama/alpaca hike, launched on Airbnb

Experiences (20% fee = marketing budget)

Biggest Surprise 15-20% annual return rate — visitors come back to walk the same

animal again on hikes

Hardest Part Insurance: NY State has no agritourism law; only one carrier will

insure the farm

Most Profitable Add-on Farm stays via Airbnb accommodations — 6% platform fee vs. 20%

for Experiences

Marketing That Worked Word-of-mouth and social tagging, amplified by media appearances

(Today Show, Dr. Oz, Rachael Ray) and a strong regional tourism

partner

What They'd Do Sooner Secure insurance before investing, accountable staff earlier; keep

testing on low-cost platforms (Airbnb)

Would They Do It

Again?

Expanding to a second property in 2025- opening 2026

LESSONS FOR ANY FARM

These takeaways from Clover Brooke Farm apply whether you're raising fiber animals, growing

produce, or tapping maple:

✓ The question every farmer should ask before spending money is: what am I already doing that a

visitor would pay to be part of?

✓ Build your first offering out of resources you already own and already know how to manage safely.

✓ Talk to an insurance broker honestly, and early, about what you're doing now and what you want to

grow into — don't assume you're covered.

✓ Communicate constantly and precisely. Before the visit. At the visit. After the visit. Over-

communication is not annoying. Silence followed by a negative surprise is.

✓ Test a new experience on a low-cost platform (Airbnb, Eventbrite) before investing in a full website,

you won't know what you need until you've started.

✓ A strict no-walk-in, guide-required policy protects both visitor safety and your ability to actually get

farm work done.

✓ Treat every farm role — including tour guides — as a paid, accountable job rather than a volunteer

favor.

✓ Let automated booking and reminder emails carry the communication load instead of your own time.

✓ Cultivate your regional tourism promotion office as an active partner, not just a listing.

✓ It's fine if your favorite part of the work isn't what pays the bills — let agritourism fund it.

Clover Brooke Farm • Hyde Park, New York • Case study prepared by Cornell Cooperative Extension

Clover Brooke Farm

Hyde Park, New York • Founded 2008 • Dutchess County

Cornell Cooperative Extension — Agritourism Case Study Series

Interview subject: Andrea Parent-Tibbetts, Owner and Operator

“Our mission is to connect people through agriculture — hands-on, experiential learning that educates,

inspires, and creates lasting connections between visitors, animals, fiber, and the land.”

OVERVIEW

Ask Andrea Parent-Tibbetts how Clover Brooke Farm got its name, and the story starts with an 8-year-

old and a 4-H project. In 2008, Andrea and her husband brought home two goats, named Clover and

Daisy, so their older daughter could join 4-H. The farm took its name from that first goat and from

Brooke, their daughter's middle name.

In 2016, the family relocated to their current 45-acre property in Hyde Park, New York, which allowed

them to expand into livestock, fiber production, educational programming, and agritourism. In 2025 they

purchased a second property nearby, the Hudson Valley Equine Center, to grow into equine-assisted

learning and restorative programming.

Andrea didn't come from farming. She spent thirty years as a school administrator, most recently as a

director of finance and operations at private schools — a background, she says, that turned out to be

surprisingly well-suited to running a small business. What she did not know, quite yet, was what kind of

farm she was building.

Today, Clover Brooke Farm produces roughly 350 pounds of raw fiber a year from a herd of llamas,

alpacas, goats, and sheep, processed into yarn and other fiber goods. It hosts summer camps for city kids

who have never touched a llama. It offers Airbnb farm stays. They have also been on the Today Show,

Dr. Oz, and Rachel Ray. It runs fiber arts workshops in which visitors learn to turn raw fleece into

something they made with their hands. Its llama and alpaca hikes have a return rate of fifteen to twenty

percent — meaning one in five visitors comes back specifically to walk the same animals again.

Andrea sells experiences. Something that city visitors drive ninety minutes to find, and then book again

before they've left.

"To be honest, Agritourism is what pays the bills. Fiber farming does not net you enough

to continue to grow. So hence, the diversification."

Llama and alpaca hikes, farm tours, classes, summer camps, school trips, farm stays, and a rotating slate

of workshops now fill the calendar most weekends of the year, and the farm has been recognized as a

TripAdvisor Travelers' Choice award winner, among the top 10 percent of listings, two years running.

1The farm is run almost entirely by Andrea, alongside her husband, a part-time college professor, and

their youngest daughter.

THE BIG IDEA

It was recognizing that the animals themselves, which were already being raised, already being handled,

already good with kids - were the resource worth building a business around. She is selling calmness.

“That's kind of what we could call agritourism, right?” Andrea says. “You use the resources you have,

with the hope that you can continue to build, or at least reinvest.” Andrea doesn’t just sell llama walks

though. Visitors arrive thinking they want to see exotic animals. What they discover, holding a lead rope

with a 350-pound alpaca walking beside them, is something quieter. Something they didn't know they

needed.

"This donkey was my spirit animal," visitors tell Andrea, with complete sincerity. They’ll be back.

HOW IT STARTED

The farm was established in 2008 with the goats but the agritourism didn't begin until the move to Hyde

Park in 2016, when Andrea had space and the animals.

The llamas and alpacas came first, originally for 4-H, and for the fiber they produced. The tourism came

later, once Andrea realized those same gentle, unusual animals were something visitors would pay to

spend time with. She used what she already had before spending what she didn't.

"We already had the llamas and alpacas because we had a 4-H club, and I was also using

them for fiber. Use the resources you have without reinvesting if you don't have to."

The farm's first agritourism offering, roughly six years ago, was a guided llama and alpaca hike. Andrea

is careful to clarify, walks. Not a petting zoo model, not a hands-off exhibit, but a structured forty-five-

minute walk with a trained guide, during which visitors learn about the individual animals, their

environment, their fiber, their needs, and “learn how each one is individual.”

What sets Clover Brooke Farm apart is that she launched her agritourism without a website.

"I wanted to kind of try to figure out what I wanted, but I wanted to get things started,

because I don't know what I need until I've started the process."

Instead of waiting until everything was ready, Andrea listed the hikes on Airbnb Experiences. The

platform takes twenty percent. She treated that twenty percent as her marketing budget since Airbnb

already has millions of users who are actively looking for something to do. Every customer who booked

through Airbnb was told, at the end of their visit: we're building our own website. When it's ready, you

can book directly for less.

2That strategy of launching immediately, migrating your customers later, and incentivizing the switch

meant that Clover Brooke Farm was generating revenue and learning from real visitors before Andrea

had finished building the infrastructure. After two to three years, the website was ready and the

customers followed.

From there, the offerings multiplied: goat walks, donkey and mini-horse walks, farm tours, fiber-arts

classes, soap and skincare workshops, Bunnypalooza, even yoga classes, and eventually multi-week

summer day camps, now in their fifth year. Unlike many agritourism operations, food is deliberately

absent from the business. Andrea notes that the farm's entire identity is built around fiber, animals, and

education instead.

A second, distinct customer base grew out of the farm's education mission: school groups, including

several NYC-based programs. One partnership, with a summer program called New York Edge, brought

five student groups (about 150 kids) to the farm last year as an experiential-learning reward for students

who kept their grades up during the school year. “I think there's a lot of value in that,” Andrea says. “Our

audience are individuals who probably would never get out of the city, or never learn about this type of

scenario.”

The newest chapter began in 2025, with the purchase of the Hudson Valley Equine Center, a second

property that Andrea is now renovating to expand into equine-assisted learning, using the same playbook

that built Clover Brooke. They’ve embraced the growing interest in wellness tourism. With equine-

assisted programs combine the calming atmosphere of the farm with guided interactions with horses and

donkeys, creating experiences that promote relaxation, mindfulness, emotional well-being, and

meaningful connections to agriculture. Rather than serving as clinical therapy, these programs provide

restorative, nature-based experiences for veterans, individuals with disabilities, and community

members alike.

THE HARD MOMENTS

Ask Andrea what keeps her up at night, and the answer isn't the animals, the weather, or even the

workload. It's insurance.

New York State has no agritourism-specific insurance law, which means farms like Clover Brooke have

to piece together coverage from carriers that may not fully understand what they do. Andrea has found

exactly one insurance carrier willing to cover her operation — despite six years of running tours and

camps without a single claim.

“If, for some reason, this insurance company we're using decides they no longer want to do

agritourism, then my business folds. Immediately.”

3“What's ironic is that what we're doing is pretty low risk. We're not riding animals, we're not

doing rodeos. However, our ability to be insured is more risky, by some of these standards,

than a rancher managing a herd of 1,200-pound cattle.”

The other recurring challenge is visitor expectations, particularly from a client base that is roughly 95

percent from New York City. “People feel that farms are public land,” Andrea says, “and they feel as

though they can just walk on anytime.” That assumption can be both a safety liability and an operational

one, since the farm still has to feed animals, run chores, and occasionally deal with a sick or dying

animal outside of tour hours. The farm has had to install fencing to physically separate working areas

from visitor areas, and adopted a strict no-walk-ins policy, and every visit requires a guide and a

reservation, no exceptions.

It is, Andrea says, the most important thing any farmer starting in agritourism needs to understand before

investing a dollar.

"The most important thing before they start, before they invest, is to make sure they've

secured an insurance broker and hopefully carriers who know exactly what you're doing

and what you'd like to grow."

BALANCING THE FARM AND THE FARM EXPERIENCE

Clover Brooke Farm runs public tours and hikes Friday through Sunday, and keeps weekdays reserved

for the farm itself: chores, animal care, off-site outreach to hosting school groups and camps that need a

trained guide's full attention.

Every visitor experience is guided, for both the animals' safety and so visitors actually learn something.

Guides are trained in-house, drawn mostly from Andrea's former 4-H club members or pre-vet students

from nearby Bard and Vassar Colleges, who need supervised large-animal hours before applying to

veterinary school. “It's a win-win for everyone,” Andrea says. “They're going to have to communicate

and work with individuals and talk about animals if they're a vet, so it's good practice for them, and it's

good for us.”

Andrea leans on booking software rather than a human assistant: a confirmation email when someone

books, a reminder three days out (after which cancellations are no longer accepted), a reminder at 48

hours, and a final note at 24 hours. “I don't have time to call people and remind them,” she says. “Why

not take advantage of these software models to facilitate that for you? There's a cost, but it's not the same

cost as hiring a human.”

WHAT THEY DISCOVERED

You just need an audience. When Clover Brooke launched its first llama and alpaca hikes, Andrea didn't

build a website. She used Airbnb's Experiences platform, which handled bookings and payment (for a

fee) while she figured out what the business actually needed. “I feel like I don't know what I need until

4I've started the process,” she says. The farm ran on Airbnb alone for two to three years before building

its own site — and still keeps a presence on Airbnb, TripAdvisor, and Viator today, alongside two

Airbnb-listed farm-stay units added in 2024. This also gives your operation creditability with these

platforms.

We discovered that word of mouth is still the biggest marketing channel over traditional advertising.

Clover Brooke does no print advertising at all. Its core audience skews younger and lives almost entirely

on social media, so Andrea focuses on Instagram, with a lighter presence on Facebook and TikTok.

High-profile media appearances — the Today Show, Dr. Oz, Rachael Ray, Fox News — have helped,

mostly because they draw influencers to the farm who then post about it themselves.

agritourism with explicit animal-assisted learning.

"I think your biggest advertising is word-of-mouth referrals, which links right back to

social media,” she says. “When they tag you, and they talk about you — hey, what'd you

do this weekend? Oh, I went here!”

“I realized that if I could get into that area — invite influencers to the farm, go do high-

end promos — as silly and ridiculous as it is, sometimes you just gotta take one for the

team.”