Written by leading European practitioners and researchers, this book examines both the theory and practice of rural tourism. It outlines how to both conceptualise and implement rural tourism in a sustainable way and will be of interest to tourism researchers and students of tourism, economics, geography, planning and sociology.

This is a structured, edited book of nineteen Chapters which provides, from an inter-disciplinary perspective, latest thinking on, and practical case study exemplification of rural tourism and sustainable business development from Europe, North America, Australasia, the Middle East and Japan.

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 Europe is a highly developed tourism region, representing advanced tourism experience and supposed modern approaches to this industry. That said, it remains highly sensitive and fragile in terms of environmental, social, economic and cultural impacts. This volume focuses on rural Europe as a fascinating example of how tourism development impacts on the communities and the environment of rural regions and offers insights into how long term sustainability could be achieved in this specific region and correspondingly in other rural parts of the world. Sustainable Tourism in Rural Europe contains contributions from leading international scholars that review and analyse the concept and practice of sustainable tourism in this region through a multidisciplinary approach that embodies the view that sustainable tourism warrants a holistic approach in terms of its impacts and development potential. Divided into three sections: Key Themes and Issues; The State and Development; The Local Community and Development, this book addresses contentious and vital issues through theory, detailed research and case studies, offering real world approaches to sustainable development, showing problems including local politics which challenge abstract models. It introduces cutting edge research dealing with contemporary developments throughout Europe and consequential lessons/implications for other rural parts of the world. This volume will be of interest to students, researchers and academics in the areas of Tourism, Geography and Environmental Studies.

Forces of economic, social, cultural, environmental, and political change are working to re-define rural spaces the world over and broad global transformations in consumption and transportation patterns have re-shaped leisure behaviour and travel. This book of cases about rural tourism development in Canada demonstrates the different ways that tourism has been positioned as a local response to political and economic shifts in a nation that is itself undergoing rapid change, both continentally and globally.

Rural tourism is not a new phenomenon in many parts of the world, but it has only recently received increased attention from researchers, politicians and managers as a result of new market trends, the recognition of the “rural crisis” and the urge to solve it. However, there is also evidence that rural tourism is not a miraculous antidote for this crisis, certainly not in all places and under all conditions. Despite some recent studies examining the critical factors of success for rural tourism, there is still a need for a deeper understanding of the rural tourism phenomenon, the nature of the tourism experience and how it could be optimized to the benefit of all, while making the best use of endogenous resources and competences, yielding sustainable destination development. This book contributes to the debate, focusing on the tourist experience, here conceptualized as “co-created” between hosts and guests, based on destination-specific elements of “countryside capital” and aiming at sustainability. It contains both conceptual and empirical chapters, with diverse and new perspectives, methodological approaches and cases from several countries.

In a neo-liberal era where society in the Developed World is reliant on mass-produced cheap foods, and living standards are based on high consumption of non-renewable energy and materials, this book investigates the growing significance of sustainable systems in rural areas. Drawing on a wide range of topical case studies, primarily in the UK, it provides an in-depth analysis of the progress made towards sustainability within rural systems, focusing specifically upon sustainable agriculture and sustainable rural communities. The authors provide an overview of the various systems of sustainability currently being applied in the Developed World. They highlight key environmental, economic and social issues, including post-productivism, 'alternative' food networks, organic farming, GM foods, conservation, rural development programmes, sustainable tourism, local training schemes and community participation. The various studies provide important lessons in the ongoing search for greater sustainability and suggest positive directions for future policy practice.

To meet the rising demand for scientific evidence in the context of rural tourism research, this book explores tourism and tourism-related diversification activities performed by farming households and entrepreneurs in rural communities. To do so it adopts a consistent conceptual and empirical microeconomic approach and employs econometric methodology. Community-based rural tourism (CBRT) is attracting increasing interest in both developed and developing countries, since tourism is considered an effective way to promote rural development in all parts of the globe. Further, because information and communication technologies are developing rapidly, new types of communities are now formed more easily than ever. As such, this book covers not only traditional, closed agrarian communities, but also emerging communities formed by local nonprofit organizations (NPOs) and national networks of farmers who provide educational tourism for consumers. These emerging communities are beyond the range of traditional agrarian communities and complement each other, which helps overcome obstacles to rural tourism for farm operators and urban residents. Those communities also nurture the rural entrepreneurship that eventually will create a sustainable urban–rural relationship. This study—the first of its kind—contributes to the advancement of research on rural tourism from a microeconomic perspective. It presents a conceptual framework for understanding rural tourism from a microeconomic perspective; empirically clarifies the specific issues and constraints for the development of CBRT; and also investigates how to overcome these issues.

This publication released on the occasion of the International Year for Sustainable Tourism for Development 2017, focuses on community empowerment and poverty alleviation through rural tourism development. The report shines a light on rural tourism development in the Asia Pacific region with fourteen specific case studies that show how communities have adapted a sustainable approach to rural tourism that stimulates economic growth, creates employment and improves the livelihood of communities.

Mountainous and rural areas throughout the world have continually been attributed with several hinderances including poverty, faulty governance, and susceptibility to natural disasters. However, with the recent development of tourism, these provinces have seen a strong rise in visitation. Despite this increase in economic sustainability, planners are still presented with many challenges as they try to balance developmental and ecological considerations. Global Opportunities and Challenges for Rural and Mountain Tourism provides emerging research exploring the integration of mountain tourism development and innovative practices for managing contemporary issues and challenges of tourism in these regions including socio-economic impacts, role of stakeholders, and promotional strategies for sustainable tourism development. Featuring coverage on a broad range of topics such as cultural heritage, marketing strategies, and value chain systems, this book is ideally designed for travel agents, tour directors, tour developers, hotel managers, hospitality and tourism professionals, industry practitioners, researchers, geographical scientists, planners, academicians, and students.