Agritourism businesses in eastern Colorado will soon have access to a tool that will be able to help them plan, grow and manage their businesses. Xue “Alice” Dong, a CSU Extension eastern region specialist for vibrant communities, has developed and is in the process of finalizing an Agritourism Toolkit and AI-powered chatbot that will deliver personalized and actionable guidance for farmers, ranchers and agritourism stakeholders.
“The idea grew out of my direct work with the rural communities in the eastern region. I saw that there were some repeating challenges faced by small and mid-size agritourism businesses. They have limited access to the business development tools and a lack of tailored marketing and risk management support,” said Dong, a 2025 graduate of CSU Global’s Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning graduate program. “This AI-powered agritourism toolkit, I think, is a great way to fill those gaps and to deal with challenges faced by these agritourism stakeholders because it can provide accessible and past-proven solutions to support the rural entrepreneurship.”
After learning that many farmers and ranchers don’t have smartphones, she decided to develop the Toolkit as a website, so there is no need to download an app to be able to use it. The Toolkit includes five interactive modules – business planning, marketing strategy, risk management, compliance check and impact assessment, plus an AI-powered chatbot…