Rural Tourism: Does It Matter for Sustainable Farmers’ Income?

The coupling coordination between rural public services and rural tourism and its causative factors: The case study of southwestern China

Rural public services and rural tourism are interdependent, and their coordinated development is crucial for promoting rural revitalization and overall growth in China. So far, the existing studies mainly focus on the mutual influence, mutual promotion, and coordination paths of rural public services and rural tourism but fail to conduct an empirical analysis on the coupling coordination of rural public services and rural tourism or summarize the spatial and temporal differences of the coupling coordination. Therefore, we adopt an evaluation index system for rural public services and rural tourism. To measure the development level and the coupling coordination degree of rural public services and rural tourism in southwestern China from 2012 to 2019, we used a comprehensive evaluation model and a coupling coordination degree model. Additionally, geographic detectors were utilised to detect the causative factors of their coupling coordination development. Based on the analysis of research results, we made the following observations. In southwestern China, the comprehensive development of rural public services and rural tourism indicated an upward trend. An additional interactive coupling relationship between the two systems is observed, and its coupling coordination degree increases, with the increment varying from slow to rapid. The type of coupling coordination changes from rural tourism lagging type to rural public service lagging type, and there are spatial differences in the degree of coupling coordination between the two. The coupling coordination development of the two systems is affected by multiple causative forces, such as economic, industrial, resource attraction, and service guarantee forces, and some differences distinguish the driving strengths of both single and interaction factors. The main contribution of this article is to reveal the coupling and coordination relationship between rural public services and rural tourism, to explore the driving factors affecting the degree of coupling and coordination between them, and to make relevant policy recommendations.

The Evaluation of Rural Outdoor Dining Environment from Consumer Perspective

The quality of the environment should be measured by the satisfaction of the public and guided by the issues of public concern. With the development of the internet, social media as the main platform for people to exchange information has become a data source for planning and management analysis. Nowadays, the rural catering industry is becoming increasingly competitive, especially after the pandemic. How to further enhance the competitiveness of the rural catering industry has become a hot topic in the industry. From the perspective of consumers, we explored consumers' preferences in a rural outdoor dining environment through social media data. The research analyzed the social media data through manual collection and object detection, divided the landscape of the rural outdoor dining environment into eight categories with 35 landscape elements, and then used BP (Back Propagation) neural network nonlinear fitting and least square linear fitting to analyze the 11,410 effective review pictures from eight rural restaurants' social media comments in Chengdu. We derived the degree of consumer preference for the landscape quality of the rural outdoor dining environment and analyzed the differences in preference among three different groups (regular customers, customers with children, and customers with the elderly). The study found that agricultural resources are an important factor in the competitiveness of rural restaurant environments; that children's emotions when using activity facilities can positively influence consumers' dining experiences; that safety and hygiene environment are important factors influencing the decisions of parent-child dining; and that older people are more interested in outdoor nature, etc. The research results provide suggestions and knowledge for rural restaurant managers and designers through human-oriented needs from the perspective of consumers, and clarify the preferences and expectations of different consumer groups for rural restaurant landscapes while achieving the goal of rural landscape protection.

Spatial Distribution Characteristics of the Rural Tourism Villages in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau and Its Influencing Factors

The development of rural tourism (RT) has great significance in reducing poverty and achieving rural vitalization. Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau (QTP) is a depressed area with rich RT resources due to its unspoiled nature and diverse culture. For future sustainable development of RT in QTP, this paper analyzes the spatial distribution characteristics and its influencing factors of RT villages using various spatial analysis methods, such as nearest neighbor index, kernel density estimation, vector buffer analysis, and geographic detectors. The results show the following. First, the RT villages present an agglomeration distribution tendency dense in the southeast and spare in the northwest. The inter-county imbalance distribution feature is obvious and four relatively high-density zones have been formed. Second, the RT villages have significant positive spatial autocorrelation, and the area of cold spots is larger and of hot spots is smaller. Third, the RT villages are mainly distributed with favorable topographic and climate conditions, near the road and water, around the city, and close to tourism resources. Fourth, the spatial distribution is the result of multifactor interactions. Socio-economic and tourism resource are the dominant factor in the mechanism network. Fifth, based on the above conclusions this study provides scientific suggestions for the sustainable development of the RT industry.

Smart Tourist Village—An Entrepreneurial Necessity for Maramures Rural Area

The necessity of entrepreneurship in rural area is an actual one. A smart entrepreneurial variant of contemporary village’s development could be “the smart tourist village”, to capitalize rural resources. Thus, in this research we come to a variant of contemporary village’s development, respectively “smart tourist village”, which is the basic idea of the work. To demonstrate that the notion of “smart tourist village” can be a future idea of sustainable rural entrepreneurship the steps undertaken were: the identification of the representative aspects of the villages from Maramures and of their specific resources presentation of the specific aspects; the study also made a quantitative presentation of the rural tourism infrastructure from Maramures by localities; and identifies the perception and “vision” of tourists and owners of tourist structures about Maramures tourist village as an innovative solution with benefits for tourists and locals. The information collected by using the method of qualitative case study served to sketch a possible projection such as “smart tourist village” taking into account the possible costs, return on investment, possible design and advantages.

Sustainability through Rural Tourism in Moieciu Area-Development Analysis and Future Proposals

In our days consumers are interested and visibly reoriented towards natural/local/organic products. Starting from this specificity, the development of rural tourism can come as a possible sustainable response to be implemented in many of the rural areas, such an example being the Moieciu area subject to our analysis. The main objective of this paper is to achieve an analysis of rural tourism activity’s development stage from Moieciu area, from the tourist’s perspective, using case study method and as “main tool of research” the questionnaire. Thus, several research-oriented goals followed are: establishing the arguments for practicing tourism in rural areas; describing the development of Bran-Moieciu area from economic, agricultural and tourist point of view; identifying the reasons for which Moieciu area is a place where tourism can ensure sustainable development. The measure of appreciation of this area by the tourist is analyzed through a face-to-face questionnaire, having as purpose to identify: the capitalization level of local resources through rural tourism activities; the extent to which local resources are present in the product consumed by tourists; the satisfaction degree and expectations regarding the tourist product; the connection between tourism and area development in terms of satisfaction. Based on the information obtained some proposals/possible directions will be proposed to transform the area into “a possible model of sustainable rural tourism development”.

Impact of Cross-Border Tourism on the Sustainable Development of Rural Areas in the Russian–Polish and Russian–Kazakh Borderlands

Rural areas and peripheral borderland territories are experiencing socio-economic marginalization featuring depopulation, population aging, and an increasing inequality gap in the quality of life compared to cities. Integrated rural tourism is argued to be ideal for supporting the well-being of rural communities, providing an additional income, decreasing unemployment, offering new and appealing jobs out of traditional rural activities, while preserving the conventional lifestyle. In this study, we discovered the tourism capacity of rural borderland territories affected by cross-border tourism using the data on the geography of cross-border movements, the distribution of tourist sights, and the density of tourist accommodation facilities. The geographical scope of the study covered two cross-border coastal regions—the Russian–Polish region on the Baltic Sea and the Russian–Kazakh region on the Caspian Sea. The statistical and geoinformation analysis were used to allocate areas of prospecting rural tourism integrated with cross-border movement. The research results on the development and distribution of tourist infrastructure suggest that: the rural territories of these regions feature tourist attractions and accommodation facilities at a different level of density and remoteness from the border crossing; each cross-border region is featuring different types of travel restrictions for tourists; and both border-land territories show asymmetry by the more active Russian tourists traveling abroad. Each of the regions under consideration is attractive for cross-border tourism while having different degrees of penetration of tourist flows into the interior territories and coverage of rural areas. The study resulted in a tourist flow model that allows integrating rural areas.