Rural Tourism: a Sustainable Tool for Rural Development (original) (raw)

Tourism has been an important human activity since time immemorial. The tourism as a source of economy has gradually been gaining prominence worldwide and now is one of the world's most rapidly growing industries.Rural tourism is that kind of tourism which takes place in the countryside. Lane (1994)[1] attempts to clarify the concept and says that rural tourism is a tourism located in the rural areas i.e., the areas which are rural in scale, character and function reflecting the unique patterns of the rural environment, economy, history and location. In that sense, rural tourism is a tool which can increase the capacity of rural communities to control their rural milieu in a more gainful way. The destination of the rural tourism covers a wider area dominated by the natural environments where specific natural, economic and socio-cultural features, such as tradition, local cooperation , trust and reciprocity are harmoniously embedded and as such create a unique tourist product tha...