The purpose of this paper is to explore strategies for expanding tourism in poor rural areas. It draws on an overview of the likely challenges and motivations involved in promoting rural tourism, and on two new case studies from the Czech Republic and Uganda, complemented by insights from other rural tourism initiatives elsewhere. It does not focus on rural tourism at well-established or high-value sites (such as gorilla habitat, famous mountains or reserves), but on bringing tourism into wider rural areas.
Pro-Poor Tourism Partnership http://www.propoortourism.org.uk) PPT Working Paper No. 12
It outlines the importance and likely obstacles of rural tourism, setting out the key challenges on which practical lessons are needed. It briefly provides some key background on different types of approaches, thus providing distinctions and definitions for the discussion. In particular, it outlines the differing context for rural tourism strategies in Eastern Europe and sub-Saharan Africa.
It looks in detail at two case studies
- initiatives in the Czech Republic to establish Heritage Trails, focusing initially on Southern and Northern Moravia,
- development of cultural sites and trails in Ugandan villages in the traditional kingdom of Buganda.
The motivations, institutional processes, practical steps, progress and obstacles are identified.
Key lessons from these studies include
- for the more typical rural areas (not the exceptional sites), use of a trail concept or other means of packaging and branding can be useful ways to strengthen local tourism product
- ensuring sufficient quality of rural tourism services can be a big challenge, particularly in poor developing countries, and requires substantial investment in training
- that marketing emerges as a major challenge for rural tourism entrepreneurs
- building rural tourism is a long-term and slow process, and needs to be planned and resourced as such
- the need for local associations, to unite entrepreneurs or manage collective assets needs to be assessed and may require substantial investment
- successful development of rural tourism may be partly dependent on the success of the national tourism product. At the same time, it can be negatively affected by outside events that affect the tourism industry (such as security issues, volatility of the market etc.). The linkage between the new rural product and existing products, whether it is an add-on for the same market or a new offering for a new market, needs to be identified as part of the development strategy.
