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Rupri health panel submits comments to house ways & means committee on improving access to health care in rural and underserved areas. october 2023., rupri health panel submits comments to physician-focused payment model ta committee. october 2023, rupri health panel responds to cms proposed rule on 2024 physician fee schedule and medicare part b, rupri health panel submits comments on hhs smoking cessation framework, rupri health panel submits comments on medicare pps proposed rule, keith mueller presentation to the national rural ems & care conference. april 2023, news & events, national advisory committee on rural health & human services releases policy brief on rural childcare., rupri research on covid featured in scientific american article on rural mortality, national advisory committee on rural health & human services releases policy brief & recommendations on the rural emergency medical services, national advisory committee on rural health & human services releases policy brief & recommendations on rural emergency hospital designation, keith mueller appointed to hhs rural health equity expert panel, rupri health webinar: it’s not easy being a rural pharmacy. november 14, 1:00 pm eastern.

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Rural development in the farm bill: A research roundup

In the final installment of our three-part series, we look at what the research says about rural development programs in the farm bill, which expires in late September.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License .

by Clark Merrefield, The Journalist's Resource September 26, 2023

This <a target="_blank" href="https://journalistsresource.org/economics/rural-development-farm-bill/">article</a> first appeared on <a target="_blank" href="https://journalistsresource.org">The Journalist's Resource</a> and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.<img src="https://journalistsresource.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/cropped-jr-favicon-150x150.png" style="width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;">

The farm bill is wide-ranging legislation that sets funding and directs priorities for a variety of federal food consumption and production programs in the U.S. — plus, economic development programs aimed at improving broadband access and providing small business loans, among other things, in rural areas.

Congress usually debates and renews the farm bill every five years. The first farm bill was passed in 1933, with 18 farm bills having been passed in all. The most recent farm bill passed as the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 and it expires at the end September, the end of the federal fiscal year.

Legislators are making the case for the next farm bill to include funding that supports the interests of their constituents, as well as lobbying and advocacy groups. To help guide journalists in coverage of those debates, The Journalist’s Resource is taking a look at academic research on three pillars of farm bills: SNAP , environmental conservation and rural development.

The research featured in this miniseries can inform the questions that journalists at local, regional and national outlets ask of federal lawmakers.

This week, we’re focusing on rural development.

Rural development programs aim to spur business development and improve rural quality of life. These programs directly affect the economic health of rural areas in real ways, such as by providing small businesses with access to loans and funding infrastructure for high-speed internet connections.

There are more than a dozen rural development programs that are part of the farm bill.

“The United States Farm Bill is a sprawling, complex piece of omnibus legislation flying largely under the public radar,” write the authors of a May 2020 paper published in the journal Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems. “It influences eaters, growers, land and water, rural, urban and suburban communities alike, across the country and across the world.”

Rural development programs make up a small fraction of the overall farm bill budget, and funding is largely discretionary. That means the farm bill gives Congress the ability to appropriate a maximum amount for these programs each year. Congress can later change those yearly funding caps .

Two notable rural development programs that academic researchers have studied deal with expanding broadband access, administered by the Rural Utilities Service , and federally guaranteed business loans through the Rural Business-Cooperative Service .

“Without a reliable internet connection, precision agriculture just doesn’t work,” Sen. John Thune of South Dakota said in a statement in March. “And next-generation precision ag technologies will need stronger connectivity.”

The Rural Business-Cooperative Service had a program-level budget of $2.5 billion for the fiscal year ending on Sept. 30, while the Rural Utilities Service had $10.5 billion, according to a recent U.S. Department of Agriculture budget report .

Those billions represent, “the gross value of all financial assistance USDA provides to the public,” through those programs, according to the report.

Recent research finds programs that expand broadband access and provide federally guaranteed loans are associated with increased local wages, reduced risk that small businesses will fail, and other findings featured in the research roundup below.

Under the federal loan guarantee program, the federal government insures 80% of the amount of a loan made by a bank or credit union. The goal is to encourage and enable capital needed for rural entrepreneurs to start and grow their businesses.

The way the federal government defines “rural” varies by program, but population counts are “the primary factor used in rural definitions to determine eligible rural areas,” according to an April 2023 report from the Congressional Research Service.

For firms to qualify for the business loan programs, they need to do business in a town or other area with fewer than 50,000 people. USDA grants and loans for utility companies to build out broadband service are for areas with fewer than 20,000 people.

About 14.5 million people lack broadband, and about 11 million of them live in rural areas, according to the Federal Communications Commission’s most recent estimate, published in January 2021.

The FCC defines broadband as download speeds of at least 25 megabits per second. Critics have contended that rural connections may inconsistently reach that speed but still count as broadband, indicating that the number without reliable broadband could be higher. The FCC has used the 25 mpbs benchmark since 2015. In an April 2023 report , the Government Accountability Office found that from 2014 to 2021, there have been “inconsistencies in the scope of FCC’s analysis of the benchmark speed and in the explanation of FCC’s rationale for updating or not updating the benchmark.”

A strong internet connection is a necessity for carrying out day-to-day business for most firms, but it’s particularly important during times of crisis. A September 2023 paper in the Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics links every 1 percentage point increase in broadband access in rural counties with $20 more in per capita payments from the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program , which provided financial assistance to agricultural producers during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“In addition to the unprecedented size of the disaster relief program, CFAP was also unique in that it was the first farm support program that allowed producers to enroll through an online portal rather than in person through a local Farm Service Agency,” the authors write.

Keep reading for more insights on what academic research says about rural development programs aimed at expanding broadband access and guaranteeing loans to businesses.

Research roundup

The Impact of USDA’s Business and Industry Loan Guarantee Program on Tax Revenue in Oklahoma Communities Ty Rope Smith and Brian Whitacre. Community Development, January 2021.

The study: The authors explore the relationship between farm bill programs aimed at rural economic improvement and sales tax revenue, an “often-overlooked component of effective rural development,” they write. The authors analyze retail sales tax data in 57 municipalities in Oklahoma with fewer than 50,000 people that charged sales tax from 2005 to 2015 — along with data on businesses in those municipalities that received loans insured by the federal Business and Industry Loan Guarantee program.

The findings: Guaranteed rural business loans are associated with a positive and statistically significant effect on retail sales — but this effect only held for when the national economy was doing well, from 2005 to 2010. The authors did not find an association between these loans and improved retail sales from 2010 to 2015, years overlapping much of the slow economic recovery from the Great Recession.

The authors write: “The results also offer strong guidance that policymakers should stay the course over a long time horizon since such downturns cannot be predicted in advance. These findings have implications for future policy evaluation efforts: differing underlying economic conditions can impact evaluation results, and should be considered as an important component of the broader evaluation.”

Stimulating Innovation: Statutory Influence on Electric Cooperative Telecommunications Innovation Jamie Greig. Journal of Information Policy, May 2020.

The study: The author explores bureaucratic barriers preventing electric service cooperatives , which largely serve rural areas, from also offering broadband internet.

Electricity cooperatives are owned by customers, and profits are reinvested into the cooperative — for example, to maintain or expand infrastructure. There are more than 900 such cooperatives in 47 states. Many exist to distribute electricity from power grids to homes, businesses and agricultural producers in small towns and rural counties.

SNAP and the effectiveness of work requirements: A research roundup

Nearly six dozen of those electricity cooperatives also provide broadband access, most of them since 2010, after federal legislation put $7.2 billion toward expanding rural broadband. The 2014 farm bill reauthorized rural broadband loan and grant programs, while the 2018 farm bill did the same and allowed Congress to appropriate another $350 million toward expanding rural broadband.

State laws may prevent electricity cooperatives from offering broadband. For example, in Montana and Minnesota, broadband licenses for publicly regulated utilities are only allowed in areas without competing private firms. At the time of the study, 34 states had laws stating electricity cooperatives could form primarily to provide energy services, without explicitly allowing them to provide internet.

The author collected survey responses from officials at a random sample of 210 electricity cooperatives to explore whether state laws and regulations prevent cooperatives from expanding into telecommunications. 

The findings: Nearly 18% of respondents said their electricity cooperatives offer broadband, while a little over one-third said they would in the future. Some 40% were unsure, while 5% said they did not plan to offer broadband.

Almost all respondents — 95% — identified costs to members and general investment costs as the biggest barriers to offering broadband. Nearly two-thirds said laws were a barrier to expanding into broadband, while a little over half identified regulations as an issue. The author identified only eight states that have updated their laws “to reflect the emergence of electric cooperatives as advanced telecommunications providers.”

The author writes: “This analysis shows that in the majority of states, telecommunications service offerings are not being externally stimulated by statute,” meaning most states do not have laws allowing or encouraging electricity cooperatives to offer broadband. “The results show that statutory language is affecting electric cooperatives’ decision to offer broadband service to their members. It also shows that the lack of updated statutory language to reflect a changing industry could reflect the lack of dialogue and action within the legislative environment that these entities operate.”

The Impacts of the USDA Broadband Loan and Grant Programs: Moving Toward Estimating a Rate of Return Ivan Kandilov and Mitch Renkow. Economic Inquiry, December 2019.

The study: The authors examine the relationship between local wages and three rural broadband development programs that ran at various times from 1997 to 2007:

• A pilot loan program that made $180 million in loans to rural telecommunications providers in 2002 and 2003.
• The Community Connect Broadband Grant program, which has operated since 2002 and targets rural areas without broadband service of at least 25 Mbps.
• The current broadband loan program , enacted as part of the 2002 farm bill.

They restrict their sample to zip codes with fewer than 20,000 people across the 37 states that received at least one broadband loan or grant during the period studied.

The authors filed a freedom of information request to obtain names of counties that received a loan or grant, plus information on the size and timing of the funding. They then analyzed how average wages in the county changed after the broadband loan or grant.

Environmental conservation in the farm bill: A research roundup

The findings: The first two programs — the pilot and the Community Connect grants — did not affect local payrolls. But, for the current program, the authors associate every $1 increase in loans per capita with a 92-cent increase in yearly payroll per worker.

The authors note that it is difficult to say definitively from their study whether the benefits of the current broadband program outweigh the costs. For example, the data available for their analysis on payrolls don’t encompass people who are self-employed, nor does the data include potential higher home values related to better broadband access. Public services, such as health and education, would also likely be improved with broadband, but those effects are not captured in the analysis. In other words, there are outcomes that are difficult to quantify.

The authors write: “There is a long tradition of the federal government underwriting the costs of universal service provision, dating back to the implementation of Rural Free Delivery of mail in the late 1800s, and continuing on through Rural Electrification Administration subsidization of extending electrical service and telephone service into rural areas … Presumably, such investments reflected an assessment by policymakers that the public goods created by deployment of such integrative infrastructure were sufficiently large to outweigh the relatively steep costs of providing communication services to remote consumers of those services.”

Rural Business Programs and Business Performance: The Impact of the USDA’s Business and Industry Guaranteed Loan Program Anil Rupasingha, Daniel Crown and John Pender. Journal of Regional Science, December 2018.

The study: The authors look at establishment and exit data on 1,665 businesses in rural counties across the country from 1990 to 2013 that received federally guaranteed loans. They assess whether participating in the Business and Industry Loan Guarantee program helps reduce the risk that a business will fail. For comparison, these businesses were matched with similar businesses founded in the same year in the same state, but that did not receive guaranteed loans.

The findings: Every $100,000 worth of guaranteed loans is associated with a 5% smaller risk that a business will fold within two years of receiving the loan, the authors find. After six years, every $100,000 is associated with a 2% better chance a firm will still exist. Firms also slightly increased their payrolls, by about 4%, on average, in the two years after receiving a loan. Nearly 9 in 10 businesses in the study that received a guaranteed loan were standalone firms — they were not part of a larger business with multiple locations or divisions.

The authors write: “Since the program loans can be used for investment in building, machinery, and equipment, it is conceivable that the loan investments were directed to new technologies resulting in increased productivity.”

Broadband’s Relationship to Rural Housing Values Steven Deller and Brian Whitacre. Papers in Regional Science, May 2019.

The study: Does broadband access increase home values? The authors explore this question with data from the Federal Communications Commission and Census Bureau survey data from 2016 on home values and broadband availability across 887 rural counties. They only include counties not directly next to a metropolitan area. Most of the counties studied are in the Great Plains, with overlap in Appalachia, the upper Midwest and northern Mountain West .

The findings: Average yearly income across the counties studied was $44,000, while the average home was worth about $100,000. About two-thirds of households had access to internet speeds of at least 25 Mbps. The authors find that every 10% expansion in geographical coverage of at least 0.2 Mbps is associated with average home values in the area increasing by $661. Effects on home values decline as speeds increase. For every 10% expansion of coverage of speeds of 25 Mbps, average home values increase by $232. Speeds over 100 Mbps have no association with home values.

The authors write: “As connectivity becomes prevalent, the question will likely switch from quantifying the value-added by broadband to focus on the disadvantage of not being connected. Indeed, many businesses and individuals would choose not to locate in an area where a reliable connection is unavailable.”

The Political Economy of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Business-Cooperative Service Josh Matti. Economic Development Quarterly, April 2019.

The study: The author uses data on grants and loans made from 2006 to 2014, across the 40 states where they were disbursed, to explore whether rural development funding through the Rural Business-Cooperative Service reaches those areas and business most in need — and how members of Congress on influential agricultural committees affect which areas get federal money.

The findings: Each state receives about $1.1 million in funding, on average, via the Rural Business-Cooperative Service, the author finds. Each senator on the overall federal budget appropriations committee is associated with an additional $1.1 million, on average, in rural development funding for the state they represent — a 100% increase. Each member of Congress on House or Senate agricultural committees is associated with a 50% funding increase, on average, the author finds.

The author uses the phrase “Congressional dominance,” which originated in a 1983 paper on the Federal Trade Commission, to describe the relationship between rural development and having a member of Congress in a position to influence funding.

The author writes: “The results indicate that factors that are supposed to determine the allocation of funding do not. Congressional dominance is a plausible mechanism helping to explain why federal rural development funds do not always reach the areas of greatest need.”

About The Author

Clark Merrefield

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Family Roots Run Deep Growing Aquaponic Produce in Montana

Dinner plates in Billings, Montana, will have more leafy greens thanks to a family-owned farm and grant from USDA Rural Development.

Taking its name from family and honoring its deep Montana history, Swanky Roots is a year-round aquaponics greenhouse specializing in organically grown mixed lettuce, produce, vegetables, and herbs which they sell to consumers, local restaurants, and retailers in southeastern Montana. 

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As USDA Rural Development (RD) highlights National Cooperative Month, one worker owned co-op in Massachusetts stands out as a model for sustainability, collaboration, and local food system resiliency. The saying goes “it’s not easy being green.” But for Real Pickles in Greenfield, Massachusetts, the co-op wouldn’t have it any other way; they went green in 2011 with the addition of solar panels on the roof and are still going strong.

Gullah Co-op: Growing Food, Preserving Culture

St. Helena Island, South Carolina, is home to the Black-owned Gullah Farmers’ Cooperative. The co-op is named after the Gullah Geechee, an African American community known for its careful preservation of African cultural heritage in South Carolina and Georgia. 

Journal of Rural Development

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Chief Editor : Dr. G. Narendra Kumar, IAS, Director General, NIRDPR Online ISSN : 2582-4295 Print ISSN : 0970-3357 Frequency : Quarterly Publisher/s : National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj

Our Mission To examine and analyse the factors contributing to the improvement of economic and social well-being of people in rural areas on a sustainable basis with focus on the rural poor and the other disadvantaged groups through research, action research and consultancy efforts. To facilitate the rural development efforts with particular emphasis and focus on the rural poor by improving the knowledge,skills and attitudes of rural development officials and non-officials through organising training, workshops and seminars.

Information dissemination is an integral part of training and research activities. NIRD&PR is actively engaged in publishing and disseminating information on rural development. So far, NIRD&PR has published over 200 books and reports research monographs and occasional papers on various aspects of rural development

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Rural Development

Related sdgs, end hunger, achieve food security and improve ....

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Publications.

As the United Nations Secretary-General, Mr Ban Ki – Moon noted in the Millennium Development Goals Report 2015 , “ disparities between rural and urban areas remain pronounced ” and big gaps persist in different sectors:

• It is estimated that in 2015 still roughly 2.8 billion people worldwide lack access to modern energy services and more than 1 billion do not have access to electricity. For the most part this grave development burden falls on rural areas, where a lack of access to modern energy services negatively affects productivity, educational attainment and even health and ultimately exacerbates the poverty trap.
• In rural areas, only 56 per cent of births are attended by skilled health personnel, compared with 87 per cent in urban areas.
• About 16 per cent of the rural population do not use improved drinking water sources, compared to 4 per cent of the urban population.
• About 50 per cent of people living in rural areas lack improved sanitation facilities, compared to only 18 per cent of people in urban areas.

Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2 of the Post-2015 Development Agenda calls to “ end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture ”. In particular, target 2.a devotes a specific attention to “ Increase investment, including through enhanced international cooperation, in rural infrastructure, agricultural research and extension services, technology development and plant and livestock gene banks in order to enhance agricultural productive capacity in developing countries, in particular least developed countries ".

Background information

Promoting sustainable agriculture and rural development (SARD) is the subject of chapter 14 of Agenda 21 .

The major objective of SARD is to increase food production in a sustainable way and enhance food security. This will involve education initiatives, utilization of economic incentives and the development of appropriate and new technologies, thus ensuring stable supplies of nutritionally adequate food, access to those supplies by vulnerable groups, and production for markets; employment and income generation to alleviate poverty; and natural resource management and environmental protection.

The Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) first reviewed Rural Development at its third session in 1995, when it noted with concern that, even though some progress had been reported, disappointment is widely expressed at the slow progress in moving towards sustainable agriculture and rural development in many countries.

Sustainable agriculture was also considered at the five-year review of implementation of Agenda 21 in 1997, at which time Governments were urged to attach high priority to implementing the commitments agreed at the World Food Summit , especially the call for at least halving the number of undernourished people in the world by the year 2015. This goal was reinforced by the Millennium Declaration adopted by Heads of State and Government in September 2000, which resolved to halve by 2015 the proportion of the world's people who suffer from hunger.

In accordance with its multi-year programme of work, agriculture with a rural development perspective was a major focus of CSD-8 in 2000, along with integrated planning and management of land resources as the sectoral theme. The supporting documentation and the discussions highlighted the linkages between the economic, social and environmental objectives of sustainable agriculture. The Commission adopted decision 8/4 which identified 12 priorities for action. It reaffirmed that the major objectives of SARD are to increase food production and enhance food security in an environmentally sound way so as to contribute to sustainable natural resource management. It noted that food security-although a policy priority for all countries-remains an unfulfilled goal. It also noted that agriculture has a special and important place in society and helps to sustain rural life and land.

Rural Development was included as one of the thematic areas along with Agriculture, Land, Drought, Desertification and Africa in the third implementation cycle CSD-16/CSD-17 .

A growing emphasis is being placed on the Nexus approach to sustainable rural development, seeking to realize synergies from the links between development factors such as energy, health, education, water, food, gender, and economic growth.

In this regard and as part of the follow up to the 2012 Conference on Sustainable Development or Rio+20 , the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN-DESA) , in collaboration with SE4All , UN-Energy and the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) , organized Global Conference on Rural Energy Access: A Nexus Approach to Sustainable Development and Poverty Eradication , in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Dec 4 – 6, 2013.

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• Published: 31 March 2023

The benefits of tourism for rural community development

• Yung-Lun Liu 1 ,
• Jui-Te Chiang 2 &
• Pen-Fa Ko 2  

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume  10 , Article number:  137 ( 2023 ) Cite this article

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• Business and management
• Development studies

While the main benefits of rural tourism have been studied extensively, most of these studies have focused on the development of sustainable rural tourism. The role of tourism contributions to rural community development remains unexplored. Little is known about what tourism contribution dimensions are available for policy-makers and how these dimensions affect rural tourism contributions. Without a clear picture and indication of what benefits rural tourism can provide for rural communities, policy-makers might not invest limited resources in such projects. The objectives of this study are threefold. First, we outline a rural tourism contribution model that policy-makers can use to support tourism-based rural community development. Second, we address several methodological limitations that undermine current sustainability model development and recommend feasible methodological solutions. Third, we propose a six-step theoretical procedure as a guideline for constructing a valid contribution model. We find four primary attributes of rural tourism contributions to rural community development; economic, sociocultural, environmental, and leisure and educational, and 32 subattributes. Ultimately, we confirm that economic benefits are the most significant contribution. Our findings have several practical and methodological implications and could be used as policy-making guidelines for rural community development.

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Introduction

In many countries, rural areas are less developed than urban areas. They are often perceived as having many problems, such as low productivity, low education, and low income. Other issues include population shifts from rural to urban areas, low economic growth, declining employment opportunities, the loss of farms, impacts on historical and cultural heritage, sharp demographic changes, and low quality of life. These issues indicate that maintaining agricultural activities without change might create deeper social problems in rural regions. Li et al. ( 2019 ) analyzed why some rural areas decline while others do not. They emphasized that it is necessary to improve rural communities’ resilience by developing new tourism activities in response to potential urban demands. In addition, to overcome the inevitability of rural decline, Markey et al. ( 2008 ) pointed out that reversing rural recession requires investment orientation and policy support reform, for example, regarding tourism. Therefore, adopting rural tourism as an alternative development approach has become a preferred strategy in efforts to balance economic, social, cultural, and environmental regeneration.

Why should rural regions devote themselves to tourism-based development? What benefits can rural tourism bring to a rural community, particularly during and after the COVID pandemic? Without a clear picture and answers to these questions, policy-makers might not invest limited resources in such projects. Understanding the contributions of rural tourism to rural community development is critical for helping government and community planners realize whether rural tourism development is beneficial. Policy-makers are aware that reducing rural vulnerability and enhancing rural resilience is a necessary but challenging task; therefore, it is important to consider the equilibrium between rural development and potential negative impacts. For example, economic growth may improve the quality of life and enhance the well-being index. However, it may worsen income inequality, increase the demand for green landscapes, and intensify environmental pollution, and these changes may impede natural preservation in rural regions and make local residents’ lives more stressful. This might lead policy-makers to question whether they should support tourism-based rural development. Thus, the provision of specific information on the contributions of rural tourism is crucial for policy-makers.

Recently, most research has focused on rural sustainable tourism development (Asmelash and Kumar, 2019 ; Polukhina et al., 2021 ), and few studies have considered the contributions of rural tourism. Sustainability refers to the ability of a destination to maintain production over time in the face of long-term constraints and pressures (Altieri et al., 2018 ). In this study, we focus on rural tourism contributions, meaning what rural tourism contributes or does to help produce something or make it better or more successful. More specifically, we focus on rural tourism’s contributions, not its sustainability, as these goals and directions differ. Today, rural tourism has responded to the new demand trends of short-term tourists, directly providing visitors with unique services and opportunities to contact other business channels. The impact on the countryside is multifaceted, but many potential factors have not been explored (Arroyo et al., 2013 ; Tew and Barbieri, 2012 ). For example, the demand for remote nature-based destinations has increased due to the fear of COVID-19 infection, the perceived risk of crowding, and a desire for low tourist density. Juschten and Hössinger ( 2020 ) showed that the impact of COVID-19 led to a surge in demand for natural parks, forests, and rural areas. Vaishar and Šťastná ( 2022 ) demonstrated that the countryside is gaining more domestic tourists due to natural, gastronomic, and local attractions. Thus, they contended that the COVID-19 pandemic created rural tourism opportunities.

Following this change in tourism demand, rural regions are no longer associated merely with agricultural commodity production. Instead, they are seen as fruitful locations for stimulating new socioeconomic activities and mitigating public mental health issues (Kabadayi et al., 2020 ). Despite such new opportunities in rural areas, there is still a lack of research that provides policy-makers with information about tourism development in rural communities (Petrovi’c et al., 2018 ; Vaishar and Šťastná, 2022 ). Although there are many novel benefits that tourism can bring to rural communities, these have not been considered in the rural community development literature. For example, Ram et al. ( 2022 ) showed that the presence of people with mental health issues, such as nonclinical depression, is negatively correlated with domestic tourism, such as rural tourism. Yang et al. ( 2021 ) found that the contribution of rural tourism to employment is significant; they indicated that the proportion of nonagricultural jobs had increased by 99.57%, and tourism in rural communities had become the leading industry at their research site in China, with a value ten times higher than that of agricultural output. Therefore, rural tourism is vital in counteracting public mental health issues and can potentially advance regional resilience, identity, and well-being (López-Sanz et al., 2021 ).

Since the government plays a critical role in rural tourism development, providing valuable insights, perspectives, and recommendations to policy-makers to foster sustainable policies and practices in rural destinations is essential (Liu et al., 2020 ). Despite the variables developed over time to address particular aspects of rural tourism development, there is still a lack of specific variables and an overall measurement framework for understanding the contributions of rural tourism. Therefore, more evidence is needed to understand how rural tourism influences rural communities from various structural perspectives and to prompt policy-makers to accept rural tourism as an effective development policy or strategy for rural community development. In this paper, we aim to fill this gap.

The remainder of this paper is organized as follows: the section “Literature review” presents the literature review. Our methodology is described in the section “Methodology”, and our results are presented in the section “Results”. Our discussion in the section “Discussion/implications” places our findings in perspective by describing their theoretical and practical implications, and we provide concluding remarks in the section “Conclusion”.

Literature review

The role of rural tourism.

The UNWTO ( 2021 ) defined rural tourism as a type of tourism in which a visitor’s experience is related to a wide range of products generally linked to nature-based activity, agriculture, rural lifestyle/culture, angling, and sightseeing. Rural tourism has been used as a valid developmental strategy in rural areas in many developed and developing countries. This developmental strategy aims to enable a rural community to grow while preserving its traditional culture (Kaptan et al., 2020 ). In rural areas, ongoing encounters and interactions between humans and nature occur, as well as mutual transformations. These phenomena take place across a wide range of practices that are spatially and temporally bound, including agriculture, forestry, fishing, hunting, farm tourism, cultural heritage preservation, and country life (Hegarty and Przezbórska, 2005 ). To date, rural tourism in many places has become an important new element of the regional rural economy; it is increasing in importance as both a strategic sector and a way to boost the development of rural regions (Polukhina et al., 2021 ). Urban visitors’ demand for short-term leisure activities has increased because of the COVID-19 pandemic (Slater, 2020 ). Furthermore, as tourists shifted their preferences from exotic to local rural tourism amid COVID-19, Marques et al. ( 2022 ) suggested that this trend is a new opportunity that should be seized, as rural development no longer relies on agriculture alone. Instead, other practices, such as rural tourism, have become opportunities for rural areas. Ironically, urbanization has both caused severe problems in rural areas and stimulated rural tourism development as an alternative means of economic revitalization (Lewis and Delisle, 2004 ). Rural tourism provides many unique events and activities that people who live in urban areas are interested in, such as agricultural festivals, crafts, historical buildings, natural preservation, nostalgia, cuisine, and opportunities for family togetherness and relaxation (Christou, 2020 ; Getz, 2008 ). As rural tourism provides visitors from urban areas with various kinds of psychological, educational, social, esthetic, and physical satisfaction, it has brought unprecedented numbers of tourists to rural communities, stimulated economic growth, improved the viability of these communities, and enhanced their living standards (Nicholson and Pearce, 2001 ). For example, rural tourism practitioners have obtained significant economic effects, including more income, more direct sales, better profit margins, and more opportunities to sell agricultural products or craft items (Everett and Slocum, 2013 ). Local residents can participate in the development of rural tourism, and it does not necessarily depend on external resources. Hence, it provides entrepreneurial opportunities (Lee et al., 2006 ). From an environmental perspective, rural tourism is rooted in a contemporary theoretical shift from cherishing local agricultural resources to restoring the balance between people and ecosystems. Thus, rural land is preserved, natural landscapes are maintained, and green consumerism drives farmers to focus on organic products, green chemistry, and value-added products, such as land ethics (Higham and Ritchie, 2001 ). Therefore, the potential contributions of rural tourism are significant and profound (Marques, 2006 ; Phillip et al., 2010 ). Understanding its contributions to rural community development could encourage greater policy-maker investment and resident support (Yang et al., 2010 ).

Contributions of rural tourism to rural community development

Maintaining active local communities while preventing the depopulation and degradation of rural areas requires a holistic approach and processes that support sustainability. What can rural tourism contribute to rural development? In the literature, rural tourism has been shown to bring benefits such as stimulating economic growth (Oh, 2005 ), strengthening rural and regional economies (Lankford, 1994 ), alleviating poverty (Zhao et al., 2007 ), and improving living standards in local communities (Uysal et al., 2016 ). In addition to these economic contributions, what other elements have not been identified and discussed (Su et al., 2020 )? To answer these questions, additional evidence is a prerequisite. Thus, this study examines the following four aspects. (1) The economic perspective: The clustering of activities offered by rural tourism stimulates cooperation and partnerships between local communities and serves as a vehicle for creating various economic benefits. For example, rural tourism improves employment opportunities and stability, local residents’ income, investment, entrepreneurial opportunities, agricultural production value-added, capital formation, economic resilience, business viability, and local tax revenue (Atun et al., 2019 ; Cheng and Zhang, 2020 ; Choi and Sirakaya, 2006 ; Chong and Balasingam, 2019 ; Cunha et al., 2020 ). (2) The sociocultural perspective: Rural tourism no longer refers solely to the benefits of agricultural production; through economic improvement, it represents a greater diversity of activities. It is important to take advantage of the novel social and cultural alternatives offered by rural tourism, which contribute to the countryside. For example, rural tourism can be a vehicle for introducing farmers to potential new markets through more interactions with consumers and other value chain members. Under such circumstances, the sociocultural benefits of rural tourism are multifaceted. These include improved rural area depopulation prevention (López-Sanz et al., 2021 ), cultural and heritage preservation, and enhanced social stability compared to farms that do not engage in the tourism business (Ma et al., 2021 ; Yang et al., 2021 ). Additional benefits are improved quality of life; revitalization of local crafts, customs, and cultures; restoration of historical buildings and community identities; and increased opportunities for social contact and exchange, which enhance community visibility, pride, and cultural integrity (Kelliher et al., 2018 ; López-Sanz et al., 2021 ; Ryu et al., 2020 ; Silva and Leal, 2015 ). (3) The environmental perspective: Many farms in rural areas have been rendered noncompetitive due to a shortage of labor, poor managerial skills, and a lack of financial support (Coria and Calfucura, 2012 ). Although there can be immense pressure to maintain a farm in a family and to continue using land for agriculture, these problems could cause families to sell or abandon their farms or lands (Tew and Barbieri, 2012 ). In addition, unless new income pours into rural areas, farm owners cannot preserve their land and its natural aspects; thus, they tend to allow their land to become derelict or sell it. In the improved economic conditions after farms diversify into rural tourism, rural communities have more money to provide environmental care for their natural scenic areas, pastoral resources, forests, wetlands, biodiversity, pesticide mitigation, and unique landscapes (Theodori, 2001 ; Vail and Hultkrantz, 2000 ). Ultimately, the entire image of a rural community is affected; the community is imbued with vitality, and farms that participate in rural tourism instill more togetherness among families and rural communities. In this study, the environmental benefits induced by rural tourism led to improved natural environmental conservation, biodiversity, environmental awareness, infrastructure, green chemistry, unspoiled land, and family land (Di and Laura, 2021 ; Lane, 1994 ; Ryu et al., 2020 ; Yang et al., 2021 ). (4) The leisure and educational perspective: Rural tourism is a diverse strategy associated with an ongoing flow of development models that commercialize a wide range of farming practices for residents and visitors. Rural territories often present a rich set of unique resources that, if well managed, allow multiple appealing, authentic, and memorable tourist experiences. Tourists frequently comment that the rural tourism experience positively contrasts with the stress and other negatively perceived conditions of daily urban life. This is reflected in opposing, compelling images of home and a visited rural destination (Kastenholz et al., 2012 ). In other words, tourists’ positive experiences result from the attractions and activities of rural tourism destinations that may be deemed sensorially, symbolically, or socially opposed to urban life (Kastenholz et al. 2018 ). These experiences are associated with the “search for authenticity” in the context of the tension between the nostalgic images of an idealized past and the demands of stressful modern times. Although visitors search for the psychological fulfillment of hedonic, self-actualization, challenge, accomplishment, exploration, and discovery goals, some authors have uncovered the effects of rural tourism in a different context. For example, Otto and Ritchie ( 1996 ) revealed that the quality of a rural tourism service provides a tourist experience in four dimensions—hedonic, peace of mind, involvement, and recognition. Quadri-Felitti and Fiore ( 2013 ) identified the relevant impact of education, particularly esthetics, versus memory on satisfaction in wine tourism. At present, an increasing number of people and families are seeking esthetic places for relaxation and family reunions, particularly amid COVID-19. Rural tourism possesses such functions; it remains a novel phenomenon for visitors who live in urban areas and provides leisure and educational benefits when visitors to a rural site contemplate the landscape or participate in an agricultural process for leisure purposes (WTO, 2020 ). Tourists can obtain leisure and educational benefits, including ecological knowledge, information about green consumerism, leisure and recreational opportunities, health and food security, reduced mental health issues, and nostalgia nurturing (Alford and Jones, 2020 ; Ambelu et al., 2018 ; Christou, 2020 ; Lane, 1994 ; Li et al., 2021 ). These four perspectives possess a potential synergy, and their effects could strengthen the relationship between rural families and rural areas and stimulate new regional resilience. Therefore, rural tourism should be understood as an enabler of rural community development that will eventually attract policy-makers and stakeholders to invest more money in developing or advancing it.

Methodology

The literature on rural tourism provides no generally accepted method for measuring its contributions or sustainability intensity. Although many statistical methods are available, several limitations remain, particularly in terms of the item generation stage and common method bias (CMB). For example, Marzo-Navar et al. ( 2015 ) used the mean and SD values to obtain their items. However, the use of the mean has been criticized because it is susceptible to extreme values or outliers. In addition, they did not examine omitted variables and CMB. Asmelash and Kumar ( 2019 ) used the Delphi method with a mean value for deleting items. Although they asked experts to suggest the inclusion of any missed variables, they did not discuss these results. Moreover, they did not assess CMB. Islam et al. ( 2021 ) used a sixteen-step process to formulate sustainability indicators but did not consider omitted variables, a source of endogeneity bias. They also did not designate a priority for each indicator. Although a methodologically sound systematic review is commonly used, little attention has been given to reporting interexpert reliability when multiple experts are used to making decisions at various points in the screening and data extraction stages (Belur et al., 2021 ). Due to the limitations of the current methods for assessing sustainable tourism development, we aim to provide new methodological insights. Specifically, we suggest a six-stage procedure, as shown in Fig. 1 .

Steps required in developing the model for analysis after obtaining the data.

Many sources of data collection can be used, including literature reviews, inferences about the theoretical definition of the construct, previous theoretical and empirical research on the focal construct, advice from experts in the field, interviews, and focus groups. In this study, the first step was to retrieve data from a critical literature review. The second step was the assessment of omitted variables to produce items that fully captured all essential aspects of the focal construct domain. In this case, researchers must not omit a necessary measure or fail to include all of the critical dimensions of the construct. In addition, the stimuli of CMB, for example, double-barreled items, items containing ambiguous or unfamiliar terms, and items with a complicated syntax, should be simplified and made specific and concise. That is, researchers should delete items contaminated by CMB. The third step was the examination of construct-irrelevant variance to retain the variances relevant to the construct of interest and minimize the extent to which the items tapped concepts outside the focal construct domain. Variances irrelevant to the targeted construct should be deleted. The fourth step was to examine intergroup consistency to ensure that there was no outlier impact underlying the ratings. The fifth step was to examine interexpert reliability to ensure rating conformity. Finally, we prioritized the importance of each variable with the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (AHP), which is a multicriteria decision-making approach. All methods used in this study are expert-based approaches.

Selection of experts

Because this study explores the contributions of rural tourism to rural community development, it involves phenomena in the postdevelopment stage; therefore, a few characteristics are essential for determining the choice of experts. The elements used to identify the experts in this study were (1) the number of experts, (2) expertise, (3) knowledge, (4) diversity, (5) years working in this field, and 5) commitment to participation. Regarding the number of experts, Murphy-Black et al. ( 1998 ) suggested that the more participants there are, the better, as a higher number reduces the effects of expert attrition and rater bias. Taylor-Powell ( 2002 ) pointed out that the number of participants in an expert-based study depends not only on the purpose of the research but also on the diversity of the target population. Okoli and Pawlowski ( 2004 ) recommended a target number of 10–18 experts for such a purpose. Therefore, we recruited a group of 18 experts based on their stated interest in the topic and asked them to comment on our rationale concerning the rating priorities among the items. We asked them to express a degree of agreement or disagreement with each item we provided. We adopted a heterogeneous and anonymous arrangement to ensure that rater bias did not affect this study. The 18 experts had different backgrounds, which might have made it easier for them to reach a consensus objectively. We divided the eighteen experts into three subgroups: (1) at least six top managers from rural tourism businesses, all of whom had been in the rural tourism business for over 10 years; (2) at least six academics who taught subjects related to tourism at three different universities in Taiwan; and (3) at least six government officials involved in rural development issues in Taiwan.

Generating items to represent the construct

Step 1: data collection.

Data collection provides evidence for investigation and reflects the construct of interest. While there is a need to know what rural tourism contributes, previous studies have provided no evidence for policy-makers to establish a rural community strategy; thus, it is essential to use a second source to achieve this aim. We used a literature review for specific topics; the data we used were based on the findings being presented in papers on rural tourism indexed in the SSCI (Social Sciences Citation Index) and SCIE (Science Citation Index Expanded). In this study, we intended to explore the role of rural tourism and its contributions to rural development. Therefore, we explored the secondary literature on the state of the questions of rural development, sustainable development, sustainability indicators, regional resilience, farm tourism, rural tourism, COVID-19, tourist preferences, and ecotourism using terms such as land ethics, ecology, biodiversity, green consumerism, environmentalism, green chemistry, community identity, community integration, community visibility, and development goals in an ad hoc review of previous studies via Google Scholar. Based on the outcomes of this first data collection step, we generated thirty-three subattributes and classified them into four domains.

Step 2: Examine the face validity of omitted variables and CMB

Face validity is defined as assessing whether a measurement scale or questionnaire includes all the necessary items (Dempsey and Dempsey, 1992 ). Based on the first step, we generated data subattributes from our literature review. However, there might have been other valuable attributes or subattributes that were not considered or excluded. Therefore, our purposes for examining face validity were twofold. First, we assessed the omitted variables, defined as the occurrence of crucial aspects or facets that were omitted (Messick, 1995 ). These comprise a threat to construct validity that, if ignored by researchers, might result in unreliable findings. In other words, face validity is used to distinguish whether the researchers have adequately captured the full dimensions of the construct of interest. If not, the evaluation instrument or model is deficient. However, the authors found that most rural tourism studies have not assessed the issue of omitted variables (An and Alarcon, 2020 ; Lin, 2022 ). Second, we mitigated the CMB effect. In a self-report survey, it is necessary to provide a questionnaire without CMB to the targeted respondents, as CMB affects respondent comprehension. Therefore, we assessed item characteristic effects, item context effects, and question response process effects. These three effects are related to the respondents’ understanding, retrieval, mood, affectivity, motivation, judgment, response selection, and response reporting (Podsakoff et al., 2003 ). Specifically, items containing flaws from these three groups in a questionnaire can seriously influence an empirical investigation and potentially result in misleading conclusions. We assessed face validity by asking all the experts to scrutinize the content items that we collected from the literature review and the questionnaire that we drafted. The experts could then add any attribute or subattribute they thought was essential that had been omitted. They could also revise the questionnaire if CMB were embedded. We added the new attributes or subattributes identified by the experts to those collected from the literature review.

Step 3: Examine interexpert consensus for construct-irrelevant variances

After examining face validity, we needed to rule out items irrelevant to the construct of interest; otherwise, the findings would be invalid. We examined the interexpert consensus to achieve this aim. The purpose was to estimate the experts’ ratings of each item. In other words, interexpert consensus assesses the extent to which experts make the same ratings (Kozlowski and Hattrup, 1992 ; Northcote et al., 2008 ). In prior studies, descriptive statistics have often been used to capture the variability among individual characteristics, responses, or contributions to the subject group (Landeta, 2006 ; Roberson et al., 2007 ). Many expert-based studies have applied descriptive statistics to determine consensus and quantify its degree (Paraskevas and Saunders, 2012 ; Stewart et al., 2016 ). Two main groups of descriptive statistics, central tendencies (mode, mean, and median) and level of dispersion (standard deviation, interquartile, and coefficient of variation), are commonly used when determining consensus (Mukherjee et al., 2015 ). Choosing the cutoff point of interexpert consensus was critical because we used it as a yardstick for item retention and its value can also be altered by a number on the Likert scale (Förster and von der Gracht, 2014 ). In the case of a 5-point Likert scale, the coefficient of variation (CV) is used to measure interexpert consensus. Hence, CV ≤ 0.3 indicated high consensus (Zinn et al., 2001 ). In addition, based on the feedback obtained from the expert panel, we used standard deviation (SD) as another measurement to assess the variation in our population. Henning and Jordaan ( 2016 ) indicate that SD ≤ 1 represents a high level of consensus, meaning that it can act as a guideline for cutoff points. In addition, following Vergani et al. ( 2022 ), we used the percentage agreement (% AGR) to examine interexpert consensus. If the responses reached ≧ 70% 4 and 5 in the case of a 5-point Likert scale, it indicated that the item had interexpert consensus; thus, we could retain it. Moreover, to avoid the impact of outliers, we used the median instead of the mean as another measurement. Items had a high consensus if their median value was ≥4.00 (Rice, 2009 ). Considering these points, we adopted % AGR, median, SD, and CV to examine interexpert consensus.

Step 4: Examine intergroup consistency

In this expert-based study, the sample size was small. Any rater bias could have caused inconsistency among the subgroups of experts; therefore, we needed to examine the effect of rater bias on intergroup consistency. When the intergroup ratings showed substantially different distributions, the aggregated data were groundless. Dajani et al. ( 1979 ) remarked that interexpert consensus is meaningless if the consistency of responses in a study is not reached, as it means that any rater bias could distort the median, SD, or CV. Most studies have used one-way ANOVA to determine whether there is a significant difference between the expected and observed frequency in three or more categories. However, this method is based on large sample size and normal distribution. In the case of expert-based studies, the expert sample size is small, and the assessment distribution tends to be skewed. Thus, we used the nonparametric test instead of one-way ANOVA for consistency measurement (Potvin and Roff, 1993 ). We used the Kruskal‒Wallis test (K–W) to test the intergroup consistency among the three subgroups of experts. The purpose of the K–W test is to determine whether there are significant differences among three or more subgroups regarding the ratings of the domains (Huck, 2004 ). The judgment criteria in the K-W test depended on the level of significance, and we set the significance level at p  < 0.05 (Love and Irani, 2004 ), with no significant differences among groups set at p  > 0.05 (Loftus et al., 2000 ; Rice, 2009 ). We used SPSS to conduct the K–W test to assess intergroup consistency in this study.

Step 5: Examine interexpert reliability

Interexpert reliability, on the one hand, is usually defined as the proportion of systematic variance to the total variance in ratings (James et al., 1984 ). On the other hand, interexpert reliability estimation is not concerned with the exact or absolute value of ratings. Rather, it measures the relative ordering or ranking of rated objects. Thus, interexpert reliability estimation concerns the consistency of ratings (Tinsley and Weiss, 1975 ). If an expert-based study did not achieve interexpert reliability, we could not trust its analysis (Singletary, 1994 ). Thus, we examined interexpert reliability in this expert-based study. Many methods are available in the literature for measuring interexpert reliability, but there seems to be little consensus on a standard method. We used Kendall’s W to assess the reliability among the experts for each sample group (Goetz et al., 1994 ) because it was available for any sample size or ordinal number. If W was 1, all the experts were unanimous, and each had assigned the same order to the list of objects or concerns. As Spector et al. ( 2002 ) and Schilling ( 2002 ) suggested, reliabilities well above the recommended value of .70 indicate sufficient internal reliability. In this study, there was a strong consensus when W  > 0.7. W  > 0.5 represented a moderate consensus; and W  < 0.3 indicated weak interexpert agreement (Schmidt et al., 2001 ). To measure Kendall’s W , we used SPSS 23 to assess interexpert reliability.

Step 6: Examine the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process

After examining face validity, interexpert consensus, intergroup consistency, and interexpert reliability, we found that the aggregated items were relevant, authentic, and reliable in relation to the construct of interest. To provide policy-makers with a clear direction regarding which contributions are more or less important, we scored each attribute and subattribute using a multicriteria decision-making technique. Fuzzy AHP is a well-known decision-making tool for modeling unstructured problems. It enables decision-makers to model a complex issue in a hierarchical structure that indicates the relationships between the goal, criteria, and subcriteria on the basis of scores (Park and Yoon, 2011 ). The fuzzy AHP method tolerates vagueness and ambiguity (Mikhailov and Tsvetinov, 2004 ). In other words, fuzzy AHP can capture a human’s appraisal of ambiguity when considering complex, multicriteria decision-making problems (Erensal et al., 2006 ). In this study, we used Power Choice 2.5 software to run fuzzy AHP, determine weights, and develop the impact structure of rural tourism on sustainable rural development.

Face validity

To determine whether we had omitted variables, we asked all 18 experts to scrutinize our list of four attributes and 33 subattributes for omitted variables and determine whether the questionnaire contained any underlying CMB. We explained the meaning of omitted variables, the stimuli of CMB, and the two purposes of examining face validity to all the experts. In their feedback, the eighteen experts added one item as an omitted variable: business viability. The experts suggested no revisions to the questionnaire we had drafted. These results indicated that one omitted variable was revealed and that our prepared questionnaire was clear, straightforward, and understandable. The initially pooled 34 subattributes represented the construct of interest, and all questionnaires used for measurement were defendable in terms of CMB. The biasing effects of method variance did not exist, indicating that the threat of CMB was minor.

Interexpert consensus

In this step, we rejected any items irrelevant to the construct of interest. Consensus measurement played an essential role in aggregating the experts’ judgments. This study measured the AGR, median, SD, and CV. Two items, strategic alliance (AGR = 50%) and carbon neutrality (AGR = 56%) were rated < 70%, and we rejected them accordingly. These results are shown in Table 1 . The AGR, median, SD, and CV values were all greater than the cutoff points, thus indicating that the majority of experts in this study consistently recognized high values and reached a consensus for the rest of the 32 subattributes. Consequently, the four attributes and 32 subattributes remained and were initially identified as determinants for further analysis.

Intergroup consistency and interexpert reliability

In this study, with scores based on a 5-point Likert scale, we conducted the K–W test to assess intergroup differences for each subattribute. Based on the outcomes, the K–W test yielded significant results for all 32 subattributes; all three groups of experts reached consistency at p  > 0.05. This result indicated that no outlier or extreme value underlay the ratings, and therefore, intergroup consistency was reached. Finally, we measured interexpert reliability with Kendall’s W . The economic perspective was W  = 0.73, the sociocultural perspective was W  = 0.71, the environmental perspective was W  = 0.71, and the leisure and educational perspective was W  = 0.72. These four groups of W were all ≧ 0.7, indicating high reliability for the ranking order and convergence judged by all subgroup experts. These results are shown in Table 2 .

The hierarchical framework

The results of this study indicate that rural tourism contributions to rural community development comprise four attributes and thirty-two subattributes. The economic perspective encompasses nine subattributes and is weighted at w  = 0.387. In addition, rural tourism has long been considered a possible means of sociocultural development and regeneration of rural areas, particularly those affected by the decline in traditional rural

activities, agricultural festivals, and historical buildings. According to the desired benefits, the sociocultural perspective encompasses nine subattributes and is weighted at w  = 0.183. Moreover, as rural tourism can develop on farms and locally, its contribution to maintaining and enhancing environmental regeneration and protection is significant. Therefore, an environmental perspective can determine rural tourism’s impact on pursuing environmental objectives. Our results indicate that the environmental perspective encompasses seven subattributes and that its weight is w  = 0.237. Furthermore, the leisure and educational perspective indicates the attractiveness of rural tourism from visitors’ viewpoint and their perception of a destination’s value and contributions. These results show that this perspective encompasses seven subattributes and is weighted at w  = 0.193. This specific contribution model demonstrates a 3-level hierarchical structure, as shown in Fig. 2 . The scores for each criterion could indicate each attribute’s importance and explain the priority order of the groups. Briefly, the critical sequence of each measure in the model at Level 2 is as follows: economic perspective > environmental perspective > leisure and educational perspective > sociocultural perspective. Since scoring and ranking were provided by 18 experts from three different backgrounds and calculated using fuzzy AHP, our rural tourism contribution model is established. It can provide policy-makers with information on the long-term benefits and advantages following the completion of excellent community development in rural areas.

The priority index of each attribute and sub-attribute.

Discussion/Implications

In the era of sustainable rural development, it is vital to consider the role of rural tourism and how research in this area shapes access to knowledge on rural community development. This study provides four findings based on the increasing tendency of policy-makers to use such information to shape their policy-making priorities. It first shows that the demand for rural tourism has soared, particularly during COVID-19. Second, it lists four significant perspectives regarding the specific contributions of rural tourism to rural community development and delineates how these four perspectives affect rural tourism development. Our findings are consistent with those of prior studies. For example, geography has been particularly important in the rural or peripheral tourism literature (Carson, 2018 ). In terms of the local geographical context, two contributions could be made by rural tourism. The first stems from the environmental perspective. When a rural community develops rural tourism, environmental protection awareness is increased, and the responsible utilization of natural resources is promoted. This finding aligns with Lee and Jan ( 2019 ). The second stems from the leisure and educational perspective. The geographical context of a rural community, which provides tourists with geographical uniqueness, advances naturally calming, sensory-rich, and emotion-generating experiences for tourists. These results suggest that rural tourism will likely positively impact tourists’ experience. This finding is consistent with Kastenhoz et al. ( 2020 ). Third, although expert-based approaches have considerable benefits in developing and testing underlying phenomena, evidence derived from interexpert consensus, intergroup consistency, and interexpert reliability has been sparse. This study provides such evidence. Fourth, this research shows that rural tourism makes four main contributions, economic, sociocultural, environmental, leisure, and educational, to rural community development. Our results show four key indicators at Level 2. The economic perspective is strongly regarded as the most important indicator, followed by the environmental perspective, leisure and educational perspective, and sociocultural perspective, which is weighted as the least important. The secondary determinants of contributions have 32 subindicators at Level 3: each was identified and assigned a different weight. These results imply that the attributes or subattributes with high weights have more essential roles in understanding the contributions of rural tourism to rural community development. Policy-makers can use these 32 subindicators to formulate rural tourism development policies or strategies.

This study offers the following five practical implications for policymakers and rural communities:

First, we argue that developing rural tourism within a rural community is an excellent strategy for revitalization and countering the effects of urbanization, depopulation, deforestation, and unemployment.

Second, our analytical results indicate that rural tourism’s postdevelopment contribution is significant from the economic, sociocultural, environmental, leisure, and educational perspectives, which is consistent with Lee and Jan ( 2019 ).

Third, there is an excellent opportunity to build or invest more in rural tourism during COVID-19, not only because of the functions of rural tourism but also because of its timing. Many prior studies have echoed this recommendation. For example, Yang et al. ( 2021 ) defined rural tourism as the leading industry in rural areas, offering an output value ten times higher than that of agriculture in China. In addition, rural tourism has become more attractive to urban tourists amid COVID-19. Vaishar and Šťastná ( 2022 ) suggested that the COVID-19 pandemic created a strong demand for rural tourism, which can mitigate threats to public mental health, such as anxiety, depression, loneliness, isolation, and insomnia. Marques et al. ( 2022 ) showed that tourists’ preference for tourism in rural areas increased substantially during COVID-19.

Fourth, the contributions of this study to policy development are substantial. The more focused rural tourism in rural areas is, the more effective revitalization becomes. This finding highlights the importance of such features in developing rural tourism to enhance rural community development from multiple perspectives. This finding echoes Zawadka et al. ( 2022 ); i.e., policy-makers should develop rural tourism to provide tourists with a safe and relaxed environment and should not ignore the value of this model for rural tourism.

Fifth, our developed model could drive emerging policy issues from a supporting perspective and provide policy-makers with a more comprehensive overview of the development of the rural tourism sector, thus enabling them to create better policies and programs as needed. For example, amid COVID-19, rural tourism created a safe environment for tourists, mainly by reducing their fears of contamination (Dennis et al., 2021 ). This novel contribution that rural tourism destinations can provide to residents and visitors from other places should be considered and built into any rural community development policy.

This study also has the following four methodological implications for researchers:

First, it addresses methodological limitations that still impede tourism sustainability model development. Specifically, we suggest a six-stage procedure as the guideline; it is imperative that rural tourism researchers or model developers follow this procedure. If they do not, their findings tend to be flawed.

Second, to ensure that collected data are without extraneous interference or differences via subgroups of experts, the assessment of intergroup consistency with the K–W test instead of one-way ANOVA is proposed, especially in small samples and distribution-free studies.

Third, providing interexpert reliability evidence within expert-based research is critical; we used Kendall’s W to assess the reliability among experts for each sample group because it applies to any sample size and ordinal number.

Finally, we recommend using fuzzy AHP to establish a model with appropriate indicators for decision-making or selection. This study offers novel methodological insights by estimating a theoretically grounded and empirically validated rural tourism contribution model.

There are two limitations to this study. First, we examine all subattributes by interexpert consensus to delete construct-irrelevant variances that might receive criticism for their lack of statistical rigor. Future studies can use other rigorous methods, such as AD M( j ) or rWG ( j ) , interexpert agreement indices to assess and eliminate construct-irrelevant variances. Second, we recommend maximizing rural tourism contributions to rural community development by using the general population as a sample to identify any differences. More specifically, we recommend using Cronbach’s alpha, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and structural equation modeling (SEM) to test the overall reliability and validity of the data and results. It is also necessary to provide results for goodness-of-fit measures—e.g., the goodness-of-fit index (GFI), adjusted goodness-of-fit index (AGFI), comparative fit index (CFI), normed fit index (NFI), Tucker–Lewis Index (TLI), standardized root mean square residual (SRMR), or root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA).

Numerous empirical studies have illustrated how rural tourism can positively and negatively affect the contexts in rural areas where it is present. This study reveals the positive contributions of rural tourism to rural community development. The findings show that using rural tourism as a revitalization strategy is beneficial to nonurban communities in terms of their economic, sociocultural, environmental, and leisure and educational development. The contribution from the economic perspective is particularly important. These findings suggest that national, regional, and local governments or community developers should make tourism a strategic pillar in their policies for rural development and implement tourism-related development projects to gain 32 benefits, as indicated in Fig. 2 . More importantly, rural tourism was advocated and proved effective for tourists and residents to reduce anxiety, depression, or insomnia during the COVID-19 pandemic. With this emerging contribution, rural tourism is becoming more critical to tourists from urban areas and residents involved in rural community development. With this model, policy-makers should not hesitate to develop or invest more in rural communities to create additional tourism-based activities and facilities. As they could simultaneously advance rural community development and public mental health, policy-makers should include these activities among their regional resilience considerations and treat them as enablers of sustainable rural development. We conclude that amid COVID-19, developing rural tourism is an excellent strategy for promoting rural community development and an excellent alternative that could counteract the negative impacts of urbanization and provide stakeholders with more positive interests. The proposed rural tourism contribution model also suggests an unfolding research plan.

Data availability

The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Development of a multi-vector framework to translate group housing to eco-housing for rural communities

• Published: 09 April 2024

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• Subhashree Mohapatra 1 , 2 ,
• Gaurav Dwivedi 3 &
• V. S. K. V. Harish   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-3033-690X 4  

Eco-friendly group housing emphasizes sustainability by integrating environmentally responsible design and construction practices. The existing body of research primarily centers on urban sustainability, leaving a significant gap for rural eco-housing in developing nations like India. In the present study, a multi-vector eco-housing modeling framework has been strategically developed. The framework presented in this study integrates multiple vectors such as energy, water, and waste, utilizing modern technologies like rainwater collection systems, greywater treatment plants, and efficient irrigation systems. A comprehensive survey collected data on housing type, location, type of construction material used, gender, social indicators, and livelihoods. PV Syst was used to optimally size and design solar-based net zero energy homes through data-based climatic analysis. Each household's water consumption and waste disposal were analyzed by calculating the usage/pax./day/activity and in kgs/day, respectively. Adopting solar technologies and practices, such as rainwater harvesting and waste management, led to a considerable reduction in resource consumption and environmental degradation. Eco-friendly houses promise long-term savings through efficient water management and reduced maintenance costs, fostering a healthy living environment.

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Primary data has been collected in-person through a survey. Secondary Data has been generated from governmental websites and reports and has been cited at appropriate places in the manuscript.

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Mohapatra, S., Dwivedi, G. & Harish, V.S.K.V. Development of a multi-vector framework to translate group housing to eco-housing for rural communities. Environ Dev Sustain (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-024-04786-0

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Rural Women Entrepreneurship in South Africa: Issues and Challenges

Despite its importance in rural development, women’s entrepreneurship has faced a series of problems in South Africa. For a holistic assessment of such problems, through a literature review approach, this study aims to review prior research on women entrepreneurship, with a focus on the issues and challenges surrounding rural women entrepreneurship in South Africa. Secondary information sources, such as journal articles, theses, books, abstracts, and credible business-affiliated websites, were used to conduct the review. Among the results emerging from the study, some of the key challenges facing South African rural women entrepreneurs include a lack of adequate financing, education and training, gender bias, inadequate business skills, and difficulties in balancing between family and business. In view of these challenges, this study recommends capacity-building programmes, a robust government policy framework, and opening wider channels of funding and awareness to foster entrepreneurial activities among rural women entrepreneurs in South Africa.

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