Focuses on the potential for tourism development in rural America. Composed of a selection of annotated bibliographic citations, and other relevant information sources. Covers: marketing, surveys and models, audiovisuals, federal funding programs, economic development and planning, case studies, and much more.

Rural regions are experiencing fundamental challenges to their ways of life and social fabric, as traditional land-based occupations are in decline and younger and better-educated rural residents migrate to cities for greater work, social and cultural opportunities. Rural tourism offers a possible solution to the problems associated with lost economic opportunities and population decline that accompany the waning of agriculture. Many governments and regional authorities have embraced rural tourism as an opportunity to bring new money into rural regions, stimulating growth, providing employment opportunities and thus beginning to halt rural decline. However, the possibilities of rural tourism to promote rural regeneration have been criticised for being over-stated and unrealistic. Rural tourism has frequently been found to under-deliver in terms of expected economic benefits and job creation, and may sometimes exacerbate local hierarchies and inequalities. This edited collection questions the contribution tourism can and does make to rural regions. Drawing on a range of geographically diverse, research-driven case studies, the book is thematically organised to explore a variety of issues relevant to rural tourism, from the perspectives of local communities, businesses, government/policy makers and the tourists themselves.

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.