Registration is now open for Webinar: Cheese Tourism 2020, a virtual session running the evening of Thursday, March 19th. If you've thought about opening your facility to visitors — a farm tour, a tasting room, a seasonal open house — this is the session to attend before you commit budget to any of it.
We built this one after fielding the same set of questions from members for two years running: how much does a tasting room actually cost to staff, what permits catch people off guard, and whether tourism revenue is worth the disruption to a working production schedule. Interest isn't just anecdotal on our side, either — federal research published late last year found that on-farm tourism and recreation income has climbed sharply this decade, and that farms adding a direct-to-consumer offering like a tour or a retail counter tend to see it complement rather than cannibalize their wholesale business, provided the two are priced and staffed as genuinely separate operations. That last caveat is exactly where most first-time tourism programs go sideways, and it's a good chunk of why we built this session the way we did.
The answers to "should we do this" vary enormously by state and by scale, which is why we wanted a session that walks through a decision framework rather than a single case study that may not map onto your operation. A two-person farmstead thinking about a Saturday open house once a month is solving a completely different problem than a mid-sized creamery weighing a full-time tasting room.
What the session covers, and who it's for
The webinar is built around three questions, in order, because members who skip the first two tend to regret it. First: is your production schedule even compatible with visitors. A raw-milk aging cave with strict humidity and traffic controls is a different proposition than a make room with a viewing window, and we'll walk through what kind of facility layout supports tourism without compromising your food-safety plan, and where the two goals are simply in tension. Second: what does a tasting room or tour actually cost to run. Staffing, insurance, signage, and sampling product you're not selling add up faster than most members expect, and the session includes a rough cost framework members can adapt rather than a single number, since your state's permitting and insurance requirements will shape it more than anything else will. Third: how do you price and market it once it exists. A farm tour that undercuts your wholesale pricing on the same cheese sold at the register creates a problem you'll be explaining to a retail buyer later, so we'll cover positioning tourism revenue as its own line rather than a discount channel for existing product.
This session is aimed at producer members considering a first tourism offering, not members who already run an established visitor program. If that's you, look for our advanced session later in the year, which will dig into seasonal staffing and group-tour logistics in more depth. It's virtual and free to attend for current members, and a recording will be available afterward for anyone who registers but can't make the live session.
How to register
Registration is open now through the events page on the member portal. Spots for the live Q&A portion are limited, so register early if you want to get a question in during the session itself rather than submitting one in advance. If you have a specific tourism-program question you'd like us to make sure gets addressed, send it to the Events Committee ahead of time and we'll work it into the agenda where it fits.
If March feels far off, that's on purpose. Most members who've built a successful tourism program told us they spent a full off-season on permitting and layout decisions before opening the door to a single visitor, and we'd rather members register now and have eight weeks to plan than sign up the week before and scramble.
The International Cheese Federation (ICF) and More Cheese are entirely fictional. This post is demonstration content created for MemberJunction. All people, organizations, events, courses, certifications, figures, and quotations in it are invented, and nothing here represents a real association, a real business, a real person, or real professional advice.