Rural Tourism Destinations Research Articles

Overtourism, residents and Iranian rural villages: Voices from a developing country

Differing from much of the research on overtourism, which has concentrated on urban tourist destinations, this exploratory study investigates the attitudes of rural communities toward over-visitation. Face-to-face interviews with 63 respondents in three of the most visited Iranian villages reveal that tourism creates social, psychological and health problems for residents. Findings indicate that locals questioned the notion of tourism as a means of sustainable livelihood for local communities and on many occasions protest against tourism. Respondents also emphasized the failure of tourism authorities to manage overcrowding and called for public authority-community partnerships in managing visitation growth. Residents also regard the behaviours of tourists and their responses to local needs as having a significant role in better managing overtourism. Besides having significant practical implications for tourism stakeholders, this study adds knowledge to the overtourism and degrowth literature by drawing attention to overtourism in rural areas in developing economies with a focus on sustainable tourism planning. The current study investigates the phenomenon of overtourism from the perspectives of ruralcommunity in popular rural tourism destinations. The paper has both practical and theoreticalcontribution by bringing the phenomenon of overtourism within the context of rural tourismwhich has been overlooked in the literature. It also echoes the concerns of local community overgrowth visitation and ascertains that unlike common beliefs in the mainstream literature, bignumbers do not necessarily bring significant benefits. The study further highlights that changingdestinations strategies and defining new roles for local community in managing overtourism isnecessary and tourism authorities should pay more attention to the priorities of local community.The findings of this research also recommend solutions to manage overtourism from theperspective of local community and calls the contribution of all industry players including visitors.

Empirical research on the competitiveness of rural tourism destinations: a practical plan for rural tourism industry post-COVID-19

PurposeFollowing COVID-19, the emphasis on tourism development has shifted to rural tourism and eco-destinations for preventive practice of the three Cs – confined spaces, close contact and crowded spaces. Given the potential growth of rural tourism destinations, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is conceivably the first to provide empirical evidence for rural tourism development post-COVID-19, and this study aims to examine the relationship between the potential development of rural tourism destination competitiveness alongside the inherited, created and supporting resources as perceived by domestic tourists.Design/methodology/approachThis study sampled 172 respondents who were all domestic tourists in Malaysia. A partial least square (PLS)-structural equation modeling approach was used to evaluate the developed model, with PLS estimation and hypothesis testing performed using WarpPLS software.FindingsInterestingly, the findings indicate that rural tourism destinations in Sarawak derive competitive advantage from factors that are closely associated with urban destinations (i.e. created and supporting resources), whereas rural-related factors (i.e. inherited resources) are not perceived as a contributor to their competitive advantage.Practical implicationsThe findings will assist tourism planners in constructing a deployable rural tourism destination competency index to develop policies and programmes that address specific tourism or rural development objectives in Malaysia and beyond.Originality/valueThe value of present study lies in its examination of the tourists’ perspectives on the factors that provides addition to rural competitive advantage, with an emphasis on a relatively new and contentious post-COVID-19 topic, namely, rural tourism destinations.

Study on the marketing of rural tourism destination based on the internet perspective

With the rapid development of the rural tourism in China, how to innovate and optimize the marketing mode and successfully achieve the marketing purpose is an urgent problem for the marketing of the rural tourism destination. The rapid development of Internet technology has provided new ideas for rural tourism destination marketing. Based on the analysis of the questionnaire results of rural tourists, this paper has proposed the optimization suggestions of rural tourism destination marketing from the Internet perspective. That is, building the information communication channel between rural tourism destinations and tourists based on the Internet, designing tourism products of the rural tourism destination on the basis of tourist characteristics of tourists and realizing the marketing optimization of rural tourism destinations with the help of Internet technology.

Інвестиційна складова розвитку туристичних дестинацій

The article presents principled approaches to the development of tourist destinations, primarily due to the investment component. The need for the development of rural and green tourism destinations in order to solve the problem of disproportions in the socio-economic development of rural areas and diversification of the rural economy is justified. It is shown that the development of rural and green tourism destinations is closely interrelated with environmental issues, to which attention is focused not only at the state, but also at the global level. Popularization of the development of rural and green tourism in Ukraine will allow not only to solve the environmental problems of the regions, but also to become one of the directions of diversification of the rural economy, since tourism, according to the statistics of the World Council on Tourism and Excursions and the World Tourism Organization, is the largest dynamic industry in the world. The suspension of business activity of a large number of tourism business entities led to the loss of their competitive positions, and for some to further exit from the market. To restore their functioning, it is necessary to attract investment resources, as well as to develop appropriate support programs at both the regional and national levels. Investments in tourism activities will contribute to the further effective development, first of all, of the Ukraine regions. The specifics have been analyzed and the main directions of investment attraction in the field of tourism have been determined. Considering the rather low investment activity in the tourism sector, and especially capital investments in the development of the tourism sector in rural areas, it is advisable to intensify the cooperation of business entities with specialized funds, venture capital companies and other institutions, in particular with the Fund for the Development of Rural Areas. The possibilities of solving the problem of attracting financial resources for the financing of tourism projects have been determined. The main factors influencing the development of rural and green tourism are highlighted. A generalized action plan for the development of rural and green tourism is proposed. According to it, it is necessary to solve the tasks set in the direction of investment support for the development of rural and green tourism, increase the efficiency of management, organize partnerships with state authorities, develop quality standards for rural estates of Ukraine, improve the qualifications of subjects of tourist activity and create a marketing plan for the development of rural and green tourism.

Karangsalam Village Towards Halal Rural Tourism: Evaluation and Prospects

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the condition of the Karangsalam rural tourism from the perspective of halal tourism concept and analyze the prospects for the development of the Karangsalam Village into a Halal Rural Tourism destination. To answer these objectives, this study uses descriptive qualitative analysis and SWOT Analysis. The findings of this study indicate that Karangsalam Village has tourist facilities, products and services that are friendly to Muslim tourists. The results of the SWOT analysis show greater strengths than weaknesses, and greater opportunities than threats. This means that Karangsalam Rural Tourism is very prospective to be developed into a Halal Rural Tourism destination. To advance the potential of halal tourism in Karangsalam Village, the local village government needs to contribute through the distribution of village fund allocations and community empowerment programs. Restaurant entrepreneurs also carry out halal certification to convince Muslim tourists. Keywords: rural tourism, halal tourism, karangsalam

Analysis of Nostalgia Emotional Experience, Rural Tourism Environment Cognition, and Consumption Willingness Based on Big Data Technology.

As the primary research vehicle, rural tourism is used in this paper to examine urban visitors' “homesickness.” This research explores the effects of homesickness on tourists' perceptions of travel destinations and consumption intentions through qualitative analysis, logistic empirical analysis, and questionnaire survey. This work also explores the behavioral traits of customers' purchase intentions from the perspective of a “big data” environment, and it constructs the relevant consumption behavior model for rural visitors in accordance with those behavioral traits. Through questionnaire design and investigation, this paper makes statistical analysis on tourists' basic information, expected value, and actual experience and explores the related factors that affect their consumption behavior, so as to understand the consumption behavior law of tourists in rural tourism consumption. The research shows that the MSE (mean squared error) of this algorithm is about 4.16, and the RMSE (root mean square error) of this algorithm is about 0.508. Finally, combining the influence of tourists' consumption behavior, this paper tries to put forward some countermeasures and suggestions on rural tourism. This paper aims to study the development and planning of rural tourist destinations, and provide corresponding basis for the destination selection of tourists with homesickness.

TOURISM DEVELOPMENT THROUGH COMMUNITIES’ SUPPORT: RURAL COMMUNITIES’ PERSPECTIVE

Rural tourist destinations are a growing segment of global tourism. The rural communities in these destinations play a major role in delivering tourist services, attractions, and accommodation. Any tourism development, therefore, requires host community support if it is to attain long term success. The proposed study aims to investigate tourism development through communities’ support in the context of rural communities’ perspectives. The Social Exchange Theory was employed to develop the conceptual framework for this study. A total of 266 residents from sampled households at rural communities in a developing country were surveyed. The study employed the Partial Least-Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) analysis. The findings of this study revealed that the community’s participation in the decision-making of tourism matters has a significant influence on residents’ support for tourism development. Tourism stakeholders as well as rural host communities will benefit from these findings which will outline how community’s participation in tourism decision-making influence them to be supportive for tourism development. This study analyses the direct effect of host communities’ perceived positive and negative impacts of tourism, participation in tourism decision making towards support for tourism development, and perceived positive impacts towards community participation. A quantitative survey method was carried out to collect data for testing the significance of the proposed relationships in the conceptual framework of the study. The study recruited rural host communities at the Dhangmari village located in the district of Khulna in Bangladesh. Host communities’ perceived positive and negative impacts of tourism can influence them to support for tourism development in rural communities. Notably, community participation in tourism decision-making process has a greater role to enhance host communities’ support towards tourism development in rural communities as it assists to alleviate their confusion and conflict on such a development, particularly, in developing countries. This study further explored an indirect effect of community participation in tourism decision making between host communities’ positive impacts of tourism and support for tourism development. Thus, local authorities should provide more opportunities for host communities to be involved both in tourism operations and decision-making process.

Tourism Potential and Strategy to Develop Competitive Rural Tourism in Indonesia

This study aims to identify tourism potential and a set of strategies for a competitive rural tourism development using a case study in Sukajadi Tourism Village, Bogor Regency, West Java. This study is a descriptive qualitative type with an exploratory case study approach. Primary data were obtained from deep field observation and interview with key informants, while secondary data was obtained from the results of literature studies and documentation. This research used identification analysis techniques of 11 tourism components modified from several experts, CHSE analysis, work program government (PROKER), market preferences, and SWOT analysis as well as SWOT Matrix. The result of this study was obtained great potential and 15 main strategies for the development of the Sukajadi Tourism Village which is currently starting to grow, namely making serious and aggressive efforts on the internal aspects of village tourism destination, as well as collaboration with tourism industry and local governments to create a competitive rural tourism destination. An active and aggressive strategy is needed for the development of Sukajadi village as a competitive rural tourism destination, based on micro and macro perspectives.

Evaluation of Rural Tourism Spatial Pattern Based on Multifactor-Weighted Neural Network Algorithm Model in Big Data Era

In recent years, due to the rapid development of rural tourism, rural tourism has lost its unique rurality, which has led to a certain impact on the sustainable development of rural tourism. Primarily, based on the rural characteristics, the social environment development, population development, and economic development are taken as the research indexes, and the evaluation index system of rural tourism destination is constructed. Afterward, an empirical study on the spatial pattern of rural tourism is carried out with examples, and the model is simulated and analyzed by MATLAB software. Finally, the spatial autocorrelation method is used to analyze the evolution characteristics of the rural tourism spatial pattern. The results show that through the analysis of the evaluation error curve of the Back Propagation Neural Network (BPNN), the evaluation error and the actual error range are within 0.08%, which proves that the BPNN algorithm has good calculation accuracy. The BPNN rural tourism destination rurality evaluation model established here can make an effective evaluation of rural tourism space. The results show that the proportion of employees in the primary industry and the penetration rate of mobile phones are the decisive factors in the adjustment of industrial structure and social environmental factors, respectively. Rural per capita tourism income and the proportion of primary industry output value will also have a certain impact on rural evolution. Certain guiding significance is provided for the sustainable development of rural tourism.

Impact of competitive capabilities empowered by community-based tourism projects on tourism businesses success in rural tourism destinations

This paper endeavors to reveal the impact of competitive capabilities which were promoted by Community Based Tourism (CBT) empowerment projects on the success of rural tourism businesses and also key competitive capabilities which effect business success. The positivism approach was applied and a 250 sample of micro and small-scale tourism entrepreneurs (MSSTEs) from the rural tourism destinations of Panama and Arugam Bay in Ampara district and Kanneliya, Vihrahena, Mederipitiya, and Godahena in Galle and Matara districts who were empowered by the CBT projects namely, International Labour Organization and Ruhunu Tourism Bureau was selected by using the random number generator with the list of the MSSTEs of the two selected CBT projects. A structured questionnaire was used in collecting data and five hypotheses were formulated and tested to reveal whether any significant impact creates by the competitive capabilities empowered by CBT projects on tourism business success in rural destinations and which competitive capability affects mostly on creating a variance in business success. Results were obtained mainly through correlation and multiple regression analysis. Findings revealed that empowerment efforts of CBT projects affect significantly the business success of MSSTES. Among the five constructs of competitive capabilities, capacity enhancement, community collaboration and cohesiveness, and business know-how and management are the only predictors which affect significantly business success. Facilitating network building and sustainability practices are not good predictors. Though the impact of network building and sustainability practices on business success was reported as insignificant, a positive but weak correlation exists between these variables. This positive relationship implies that success of rural tourism businesses can be further enhanced by promoting these two capabilities and the concentration need to be given by policy planners and practitioners on the inappropriate assistance of the CBT projects for network building and sustainability practices among the MSSTEs in rural tourism destinations.

Rural Tourism Destination: The Ligurian Farmers’ Perspective

Rural tourism is considered a high potential form of tourism, enhanced by the demand for more sustainable and nature-based solutions, and able to contribute to territory resilience. A rural area is not necessarily a tourist destination, but it might become one, if agricultural enterprises are willing to diversify their economic activities by investing in rural tourism, and local actors provide active support and co-participation. This research focuses on the development of rural tourism in hinterland, mountainous, and hilly areas of the province of Savona in Liguria (North-West of Italy) in order to gather the farmers’ perspectives about local rural tourism destination development. Liguria is known above all as a seaside tourist destination. In recent years, policy makers have initiated a debate with local actors to relaunch Ligurian tourism by trying to develop alternative forms of tourism, such as rural tourism. A sample of 32 farmers already proposing rural tourism activities such as agritourism were involved in a mixed methodological approach aimed at validating local interest toward rural tourism and collecting information for designing future local development policies. At first, a questionnaire set up by a panel of experts was carried out, followed by one-to-one semi-structured interviews, and finally the Nominal Group Technique (NGT) was used to identify local priorities, strategies, and tools. The results highlight the willingness of farmers to invest in the rural tourism sector, the presence of heterogeneous interests, and the complexity of management of the relationship among the various stakeholders. Findings are partially explained by the early stage of development of rural tourism in the analyzed area, a phase in which starting a constructive dialogue on objective and project ideas among all stakeholders seems to be a crucial priority among the farmers taking part in the study.

Changes of Women's Roles in the Context of Rural Tourism Development: Case of "Beautiful South" in Nanning, China

Tourism, as an important part of modern industry, has had a great impact on the changes of women's roles in rural tourism destinations, but it has not been paid enough attention by researchers in previous studies. Taking the "Beautiful South" rural tourism project as an example, the author explores the reasons and circumstances of women's participation in rural tourism from the perspective of gender, and the impact of rural tourism on the changes in the role of local women. This study found that women's participation in rural tourism production activities is more active than men, and the reasons for their participation are diverse. The economic growth brought about by the development of rural tourism is one of the important driving forces for the changes in the role of rural women. The strict gender division in production and labor no longer exists, and the initiative and independence of local women in the economy have been improved. And there has been a trend of women transforming from passive recipients of the original life model to active pursuit of ideal life, from being a victim of the right to self-education under the pressure of family conditions and local traditions to being the leader of the right to self-education. However, it has not completely deviated from the traditional division of labor of "male leading the outside and female leading the inside". There is still a long way to go before true equality between men and women and women's complete autonomy in all aspects.

The Evolution of Rural Tourism in Wuhan: Complexity and Adaptability

The complex adaptation system (CAS) theory of “adaptability to produce complexity” is a new theoretical perspective for the spatio-temporal evolution of rural tourism systems. Based on the CAS theory, the theoretical framework, structural composition, formation process, and evolution mechanism of the rural tourism complex system were examined and revealed. The suburban country region of Wuhan was taken as the area of focus for empirical research. The state of the rural tourism destination system in Wuhan has gone through various periods of development: the embryonic stage of the system (before 2000), formation (2001–2007), rapid development (2008–2015), and consolidation and transformation (since 2016). Under the environments stimulating external physical geography, social economy, market demand, and emergencies, multiple agents such as government, enterprises, residents, and tourists in Wuhan have actively adapted to the environment and other agents, and the interaction intensity and complexity have gradually increased, driving the emergence of system agent types, functional structures, and spatial patterns. The agents continue to grow, differentiate, and aggregate. The tourism product has shifted from the dominance of a rural ecological scenery and leisure agriculture to diversified development, and with the main function changing from sightseeing to leisure and vacation. The rural communities have been renovated and beautified, transforming them from a provider of rural service facilities to a co-builder of a rural-imaged tourism space.

The Role of Local Government on Rural Tourism Development: Case Study of Desa Wisata Pujonkidul, Indonesia

Tourism has contributed significantly to economic growth, and the government is the leading actor in the tourism development process. This article aims to discuss the role of village government in rural tourism development. The research was conducted qualitatively with a case study in Pujonkidul, a tourist village that is growing and developing into a rural tourism destination rapidly in Indonesia. The research data were collected through a series of in-depth interviews with village governments and main actors in the rural tourism development process. Observation and study of document also carried on during the process of collecting data at the village. The result of study show that the local government is able to carry out all government functions in tourism development (coordination, planning, regulation and legislation, entrepreneurship, stimulus and promotion, social tourism role and boarder role of interest protection). This study also found a new function of government in tourism development which is the main finding of this study, namely institutional development. Therefore, the authors argue that the village government can conduct rural tourism development locally and effectively with its functions and authorities. This finding of study can be adopted and developed in the other villages in the process of rural tourism development. The limitation of this study has ignored the discussion of villagers' participation in the rural tourism development process that is the essential form of rural development issues. This limitation is an important topic for future research.

Temporarily returning to an ideal life: Research on Chinese rural tourists' home experience

Home and away’ makes up a fundamental dichotomy during journeys. However, the knowledge of tourists' home experiences is limited. This study investigates Chinese rural tourists' home experiences to extend home research to more general tourism patterns and short-term tourist groups. Adopting a qualitative method to collect tourists' home experience data with the help of pictures that they prepared in advance, the study found that home experiences are an important motivation for Chinese rural tourists. It was immersion in nature, connection with history, sense of ease in interpersonal relationships and engagement with the true self and inner freedom that provided rural tourists with home experiences. The home experiences are mainly inner feelings that manifest as identity awakenings and senses of belonging and are also a manner of dwelling in the world. Rural tourism destinations should pay more attention to the construction of homey surroundings to attract more itinerant urbanites to them.

Lifestyle Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Rural Areas: The Case of Tourism Entrepreneurs

Lifestyle entrepreneurs play an important role in innovation and sustainability in rural destinations. Their competitiveness depends largely on how they explore their link to the place and generate innovation. To analyze the relationship between the link to the place and innovation, this article uses survey data from a sample of 221 rural lifestyle entrepreneurs. Using PLS-SEM modeling, the results indicate that place familiarity and relational capital positively influence innovation. Furthermore, place familiarity reveals as an important factor for improving relational capital. In its turn, the degree of relational capital contributes positively to the small firm’s knowledge absorption. The results also reveal that, although there is no direct relation between knowledge absorption and innovation, relational capital mediates the relationship between place familiarity and innovation and that there is an indirect relationship between relational capital and innovation, through the mediating effect of knowledge absorption. These results provides important elements for rural tourism destination decision making on innovation and competitiveness.

Tourism and struggles for domination: Local tourism communities and symbolic violence in Kashmir

Community-based tourism development in rural tourist destinations is hindered by the complex interplay of power struggles between the State, hoteliers, travel agents, local tourism players, host community and activists. Following Bourdieu’s ‘epistemologically reflexive’ sociology of everyday life, including his concepts of ‘capital’, ‘habitus’ and ‘field’, I examine the power relations between the Indian State, the regional government, the armed forces, private urban hoteliers and travel agencies, religious corporations, local tourism service providers (e.g. the ponymen and taxi operators) and the host communities operating at the tourism destination of Pahalgam in the Himalayan territory of the Indian-administered Kashmir. Drawing on ethnographic material collected during June–September 2017 and October 2018, I analyse the power relations in the context of a growing political conflict in the region. The central question this article addresses is how and to what extent these actors, particularly the Indian State, engage in contestations for dominance, insurrection and subversion over Pahalgam tourist destination. Theorising the embodiment of ponywālā1 habitus, I demonstrate that ‘subaltern’ dispositions of the ponymen and their corresponding tourism practices of offering pony rides to tourists and pilgrims create boundaries within the destination ‘field’ of Pahalgam. Subsequently, I aim to show that such dispositions cultivate internalised beliefs or doxa among local community players, thus limiting their access to capitals (economic, social, cultural and symbolic) and ensuring the (re)production of their dominated position in the destination field of Pahalgam.

The loyalty of rural tourism destination

The tourism sector is currently developing rapidly, thereby aiding in the significant boost of Indonesia's economy. Tourist villages are among the natural tourism product portfolios provided to tourists, which the government adequately develops to become a new and attractive alternative tourist destination. For the short term, this research examines the loyalty of tourist village destinations as a perspective destination quality, satisfaction, and intentions of practice in Kerinci Regency, Jambi Province. In the long term, it is expected to increase tourist village destinations' loyalty in Jambi Province. This research was carried out in three selected villages, namely Lempur, Pendung Talang Genting, and Jernih Jaya, Kerinci Regency, Jambi Province. The findings and discussion concluded that tourist satisfaction influences tourist destination loyalty and behavioral intention. Meanwhile, the perceptions of the quality of tourism destinations influence tourists' loyalty and urge to return to the village. Tourism satisfaction also affects the loyalty of tourist village destinations. However, its perception in terms of quality can influence tourist loyalty.

Reliving past experience: memory and rural tourism destination image as predictors of place attachment

ABSTRACT Limited research uses autobiographical memory to evaluate tourism experience. This study helps fill this gap by developing a causal relationship model among autobiographical memory, tourism image and place attachment. In the present study, memory rehearsal and memory impact were consistently predictive of place dependence, place identity. Cognitive image and affective image also positively predicted place dependence, place identity and mediated certain relationships between autobiographical memory and place attachment. These findings highlight the relevance of top-down processing of tourism experience and destination image, place attachment. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed based on the study results.

Perspectives and strategies of religious tourism for a sustainable development of the economy

"ABSTRACT. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the importance of religious tourism in sustainable development and to find effective strategies through marketing optics and methodology. The issue of religious tourism is a topical one and not without controversy. Romanian tourism is currently facing many problems, such as: reduced turnover, very frequent changes in the legal framework, very rigid labor market, a deficient infrastructure in quantity and quality, repeated changes in the behavior of economic agents and population, an unfavorable economic environment. To achieve this goal, qualitative research was conducted among tourism producers, intermediaries and tourists in the Neamţ region - one of the most important tourist areas in Romania and also an important region with religious and rural tourism destinations. The results showed that there is a special concern regarding religious tourism and could contribute to the local development of the area. Keywords: religion; religious tourism; development; sustainability; local resources JEL classification: M3, Z12 "