Ten Categories of Entrepreneurial Climate to Encourage Rural Tourism Development

Abstract

Entrepreneurship has been embraced in the last decade as a strategy for rural economic development, especially in areas where traditional industries have declined. Rural tourism development, which is largely leisure‐based and can encompass many segments of tourism such as agritourism, ecotourism, and cultural‐heritage tourism, has also emerged as a tactic for communities to tap into their natural and cultural assets as a means of sustainable revenue. These two areas of scholarship and practice hold a strong overlap because entrepreneurs create many rural tourism businesses. However, little is noted in the tourism literature about the formula for success for a rural tourism entrepreneur. This paper revises McGehee and Kline's (2008) 12 categories of tourism entrepreneurship using existing research to provide a more specific and detailed strategy for the creation of entrepreneurial climates that support rural tourism. The resulting framework provides the information necessary for rural tourism and leisure professionals, economic developers, and community development professionals to identify barriers to the effective growth of a rural tourism entrepreneurial climate in their region.