Rural business diversification survey launched

Increasingly farms and estates are diversifying into less traditional income streams to complement their core businesses. Our estate benchmarking survey shows that the contribution of agriculture to rural estates income has fallen from 50% in 2000 to 38% in 2017. 

Ian Bailey of Savills research says “Economic pressure and the need to spread risk, especially with the uncertainties that surround the outcomes of Brexit, mean that understanding the performance of alternative income streams is highly relevant to rural businesses”.   

In order to appraise the performance of some diversified businesses, Savills has launched a survey that aims to collate data on trading and visitor businesses based on farms and rural estates. 

The survey covers the following diversified businesses: 

• Cafes / restaurants

• Farm shops

• Holiday accommodation

• House and / or garden opening

• Other visitor attractions

• Outdoor events

• Weddings and receptions

The results of the survey will enable the establishment of some key performance indicators which individual businesses can use as a benchmark. Participants will receive a report with their results against the benchmarks.

A recent scoping survey showed almost one third of respondents have holiday accommodation (including caravans, camping and glamping) and a similar proportion open the house and / or gardens, one quarter host weddings and receptions and more than 10% operate a farm shop. 

If you would like to take part in the survey embed link here (https://savills.formstack.com/forms/diversified_survey)  please follow the link. Results will be published early November at the Farm Business Innovation Show and available on our website here. 

For further information please contact:

Ian Bailey Director rural research 0207 299 3099

Louise Rose Savills press office 07967 555817

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