Rural Tourism

New Concepts, New Research, New Practice

Bernard Lane, Elisabeth Kastenholz, Bernard Lane, Elisabeth Kastenholz, Bernard Lane, Elisabeth Kastenholz

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351620307
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Hospitality, Travel & Tourism Industry
• Index: Business

This book describes, analyses, celebrates and interrogates the rise of rural tourism in the developed world over the last thirty years, while explaining its need to enter a new, second generation of development if it is to remain sustainable in all senses of that word. Contributors include 29 leading researchers, practitioners and commentators from ten countries around the world. Subjects covered include the ongoing evolution of rural tourism as a genre; its numerous niche markets, and market trends; community involvement, and its impacts on rural landscape conservation and society. Special attention is paid to product development in rural tourism, including food and beverage tourism, avitourism and landscape appreciation. Management Issues are also dealt with, as is the impact of internet booking systems on both commercial performance and regional and national rural tourism governance. There is a review of trends in academic research in rural tourism with an analysis of 1848 refereed and published research papers since 2000. This book is a worthy successor to Bramwell & Lane's pioneering 1994 publication, Rural Tourism and Sustainable Rural Development. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Sustainable Tourism.

Rural tourism: the evolution of practice and research approaches – towards a new generation concept?

Bernard Lane and Elisabeth Kastenholz

This paper charts the evolution of rural tourism in the developed world as an alternative tourism form, popular since the 1970s with the market and with policy makers as a rural regeneration and conservation tool. It outlines parallels with the Butler tourism area life cycle: emergence; volume growth, complexity and geographical spread; followed by problems arising from increasing competition, lack of governance and leadership, societal change and technical developments. Research responses to rural tourism’s growth and change are examined, analysing 1848 articles published since 2000 by interrogating Scopus to reveal responses by subject category and geographic distribution. The papers in the Journal of Sustainable Tourism’s new rural tourism Special Issue are discussed, noting how researchers have explored the conversion of rural tourism from sightseeing to numerous experiential activities, together with papers discussing governance, leadership, networking, product development and marketing. The paper concludes by calling for the research-led creation of a New Generation Rural Tourism, based on informed destination development and management, better understanding of markets and modern marketing, and professional approaches to holistic and sustainability enhancing management. The formation of an international rural tourism research group to explore, assist and assess New Generation Rural Tourism is suggested.

Introduction

Almost 25 years ago, plans were put in place for a Special Issue on Rural Tourism and Sustainable Rural Development in the then new Journal of Sustainable Tourism (JOST). The issue was published in JOST, 2 (1&2), 1994, and in book form (Bramwell & Lane, 1994). In some respects, the Special Issue of JOST in which this current paper is published is a sequel to that of 1994. Much has changed in rural tourism over the last 20 years. This paper reviews that period, drawing on its two authors’ combined experience of academic research, consultancy, project management, and work with rural community groups, community business, public–private partnerships and private businesses in many countries, which together adds up to nearly 70 years.

Rural tourism in the developed world was an exciting, pioneering and relatively simple field in which to work during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, whether as an academic researcher, or as a practitioner in the rural context. It was one of the then new alternative tourism possibilities, challenging the traditional and, in some contexts, fast growing sun, sea and sand resorts which dominated post-second world war tourism.

Rural tourism was not totally new in that period in developed countries. It had existed, for example, in many renowned scenic areas in Europe and North America since the late nineteenth century, based on the strong interest in the romantic rural landscape (Kohl, 2006) and the development of rail networks into rural areas (Runte, 1990). Nineteenth century rural tourism was often, and paradoxically, urban, based in small towns, sometimes spa towns – not least because of the lack of public transport in rural areas. But the 1970s and 80s saw a new type of rural tourism, described below, become an activity spread across numerous rural areas, almost regardless of their status as scenic or protected areas. It was recognised by markets, by rural people and communities, and by governments, as a valuable activity that had both rural regeneration benefits and manageable challenges. Many national governments issued guidelines and/or supportive policy documents. And it seems to have grown as never before, not least because rising car ownership has made visits to the countryside beyond the rail network much easier. We cannot, however, even after many years of reports and research papers, be sure exactly by how much it has grown, for reasons which will be explained later.

This paper concentrates on rural tourism in the developed world: the 34 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member countries (http://www.oecd.org/about/membersandpartners/) plus China, now a major source of research articles on rural tourism: see Table 3 later in this paper. Rural tourism has developed in those countries – for many reasons – in different ways to those in the developing world. Some issues related to the term rural tourism will be found in endnote 1.

Rural tourism was not strongly based on property development, unlike resorts, but it was created largely by recycling and revalorising existing properties and heritage resources as tourist accommodation and attractions. It did not require large-scale capital investment, although it did require some infrastructural development, including signing, marketing and heritage interpretation, all usually provided by the public sector. It was developed, mainly by rural people, who were typically new to tourism entrepreneurship, at low cost and on a small scale. In many areas (but not in all) it was seen as a rural diversification and development tool for a countryside losing jobs and income through the modernisation of agriculture, a process that had produced surplus food, thus forcing down farm gate prices. Rural tourism claimed a link to sustainability through its role of supporting, using and valorising the “traditional” countryside, a countryside and culture that was seen to be threatened by change. That link has been challenged (Barbieri, 2013), but it remains important in the rural tourism concept.

The 1994 JOST Special Issue defined the subject (Lane, 1994a). That still widely used definition can be found in the supplemental data available in the online version of this paper. The 1994 issue was dominated by papers about tourism’s role in rural diversification. Five of the 10 papers in the collection were based on practice or consultancy work. In Europe, this was the era of implementing the quite radical Mansholt Plan (European Commission, 1968), restructuring rural Europe away from its reliance on food production. Rural tourism was seen as a restructuring option. By the early 1990s, the growing discussion on rural tourism had spread beyond Europe and attained global significance. The OECD and its then 24 worldwide national members began discussing rural tourism as a potential development vehicle in 1987. That lengthy and in-depth discussion illustrated the international interest that the growth of rural tourism had attracted across many governments. A ministerial level OECD meeting in 1990 brought together agricultural, tourism and rural development delegates from each of its member states to commission and publish a series of publications on rural tourism and related questions under the banner of rural development OECD, 1994). The first author of this current paper was closely involved with this work. International OECD delegate meetings to discuss rural tourism heard opposition to the concept from agricultural committee delegates (rural areas should concentrate on food production) and from tourism committee delegates (rural tourism might draw market share from existing resorts, and would be difficult to regulate). Rural tourism was especially supported by delegates from Australia, France and the USA. It was especially questioned by delegates from Greece and Spain. And there were long discussions about the name “rural tourism”, discussions which are still alive today.¹

Rural tourism survived the doubts expressed by some government officials at OECD meetings and it appears to have grown st...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Citation Information
• Notes on Contributors
• 1. Rural tourism: the evolution of practice and research approaches – towards a new generation concept?
• 2. More than sense of place? Exploring the emotional dimension of rural tourism experiences
• 3. Food tourism, niche markets and products in rural tourism: combining the intimacy model and the experience economy as a rural development strategy
• 4. Rural tourism and the craft beer experience: factors influencing brand loyalty in rural North Carolina, USA
• 5. Landscape and the rural tourism experience: identifying key elements, addressing potential, and implications for the future
• 6. Wind farms and the rural tourism experience – problem or possible productive integration? The views of visitors and residents of a Portuguese village
• 7. Birdwatching and avitourism: a global review of research into its participant markets, distribution and impacts, highlighting future research priorities to inform sustainable avitourism management
• 8. The central role of leadership in rural tourism development: a theoretical framework and case studies
• 9. Avoiding burnout: the succession planning, governance and resourcing of rural tourism festivals
• 10. Networks, citizenship behaviours and destination effectiveness: a comparative study of two Chinese rural tourism destinations
• 11. Community participation in sustainable rural tourism experience creation: a long-term appraisal and lessons from a thematic villages project in Poland
• 12. The co-evolution of rural tourism and sustainable rural development in Hongdong, Korea: complexity, conflict and local response
• 13. Rural tourism and the development of Internet-based accommodation booking platforms: a study in the advantages, dangers and implications of innovation
• Index