Socio-Economic Factors and Rural Competitive Advantage: The Moderating Role of Economic Literacy

Abstract

This study aims to determine the factors influencing the community behavior in improving competitive rural tourism as well as understanding the role of economic literacy in mediating socio-economic indicators and rural competitive advantage. This research followed an explanatory research to examine the relationship between variables including socio-economic variables and rural tourism competitive advantage. The data was gathered by conducting observations and interviews with tourism businesses, stakeholders, and the local village government, and related agencies as respondents. Furthermore, the data were analyzed following inductive and descriptive statistics. The findings indicated that, from all variables used, solely the environmental impact variable did not affect economic literacy and the competitive advantage of rural tourism. The moderating variables showed that the economic literacy mediates the economic impact on rural tourism competitive advantage. In addition, socio-cultural impacts on rural competitive advantage tourism, and the stakeholder involvement affects rural competitive advantage tourism. However, economic literacy failed in mediating between environmental impacts on rural competitive advantage tourism. This is due to the increasing understanding of the economy of the community around the tourist attractions it will increase the business around the tourist attractions that have an impact on environmental damage around the tourist attractions.