Rural Tourism
Rural tourism focuses on actively participating in a
rural lifestyle. It can be a variant of ecotourism. Many rural villages can
facilitate tourism because many villagers are hospitable and eager to welcome
(and sometime even host) visitors. Agriculture is becoming highly mechanized
and therefore, requires less manual labor. This trend is causing economic
pressure on some villages, which in turn causes young people to move to urban
areas. There is however, a segment of the urban population that is interested
in visiting the rural areas and understanding the lifestyle. This segment in
the tourism industry has been rapidly growing in the past decade, leading to
rural tourism becoming not just a good business prospect, but a genuine
vacation trend.
Rural tourism can be defined as the ‘country
experience’ which encompasses a wide range of attractions and activities that
take place in agricultural or non-urban areas. Its essential characteristics
include wide-open spaces, low levels of tourism development, and opportunities
for visitors to directly experience agricultural and/or natural environments.
Rural tourism is not just farm-based tourism. It
includes farm-based holidays but also comprises special interest nature
holidays and ecotourism, walking, climbing and riding holidays, adventure,
sport and health tourism, hunting and angling, educational travel, arts and
heritage tourism, and, in some areas, ethnic tourism. A major form of tourism
is agritourism, which refers to, “the act of visiting a working farm or any
agricultural, horticultural or agribusiness operation for the purpose of
enjoyment, education, or active involvement in the activities of the farm or
operation. There are a wide and innovative set of rural/agritourism products
and services available to the traveling public in all Canadian provinces. It
includes agritourism, agricultural festivals, special events and festivals, the
celebration of village historic sites, country fairs, agricultural travel
routes that feature themes. All provincial governments, as well as local
communities, are actively involved in rural tourism deployment and support
agritourism networks.
As a general rule, however, rural communities are
challenged to take full advantage of the tourism industry due to lack of
sufficient infrastructure to support year round visitors. Therefore, in a bid
to exploit the cash injection that tourism provides, with minimal additional
resources, many rural communities have opted to host tourism events on a yearly
basis. However, the single yearly basis events have limited potential benefits
to the communities.
Tourism is not the panacea for all rural problems
but it has number of positive attractions. It is one of the many opportunities
that rural communities might consider to improve productivity and incomes.

























