Modeling Different Scenarios for Forecasting Human Resources Requirements in Taiwan’s Recreational Farms

Abstract

The demands of the rural recreational market have increased in recent years. Taiwan’s rural area is also a popular travel destination for inbound tourists. Taiwan’s recreational farms are the destinations that best represent the rural recreational experience. Taiwan’s recreational agriculture association data show that Taiwan had 377 legal recreational farms in the year 2014. However, recreational farms face an area of management difficulty: how to achieve a fixed flow of human resources management. Hence, this study aimed to explore the optimal human resources in recreational farms by using system dynamics theory and modeling the financial, tourism and human resources subsystems as the decision making supports. Vensim 5.2 for Windows (Ventana Systems, Inc., 2012) was used as a research tool to test and verify two recreational farms in Taiwan as empirical cases. The results were used as the basis of the human resources requirements for recreational farm.