Rural Tourism Fostering Welfare Through Sustainable Development: A Conceptual Approach

Abstract

In the past decade, we could see a myriad of efforts in fostering rural development. Two critical elements in travel, tourism, and leisure activities are the traveler's wellbeing and resident's welfare, which are inherent factors of rural tourism. Despite the importance of rural areas to tourism development, the focus of the studies on wellbeing usually is resident or employee oriented. There is a lack of inquiries trying to understand the relationship between rural tourism and welfare on tourism. In this sense, this study aims to connect the topics on welfare and tourism in rural areas to provide a theoretical starting point for future studies. The authors unravel essential elements in the pursuit of enhancing tourist's welfare on rural tourism by providing a visual conceptual model that provides guidelines for tourism stakeholders to enhance tourists' welfare while mitigating negative crisis impacts. They expose the central elements of the graphical model and the actions required to enhance welfare on rural tourism as well as their interrelationships.