Back Issues 11-20
CONSTRUCTING INTEGRATED RURAL TOURISM INNOVATION DEVELOPMENT INDICATORS
CONSTRUCTING INTEGRATED RURAL TOURISM INNOVATION DEVELOPMENT INDICATORS
Ping-Tsan Ho*
Assistant Professor, Department of Leisure and Sports,
College of Life and Creativity, Cheng Shiu University, Taiwan
*Corresponding Author: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Chun-Te Lee
Associate Professor, Department of Leisure and Sports,
College of Life and Creativity, Cheng Shiu University, Taiwan
Abstract
This study is based on the principle of tourism supply and demand to integrate the concept of integrated rural tourism and destination branding. This study has the following purposes: 1) to explore the relationship between integrated rural tourism, rural capital and destination branding, 2) to analyze and evaluate the rural tourism innovation development and its integrated indicators, and 3) to construct and analyze integrated rural tourism innovation development indicators in Taiwanese context. Delphi method and Analytic Hierarchy Process are used to construct an integrated rural tourism development indicator structure. The obtained indicator structure has a total of 4 subsystems, 12 dimensions, and 52 indicators. The weight of subsystem is 0.37 for rural destination branding, 0.288 for rural tourism sustainability, 0.173 for rural tourism capital, and 0.169 for rural tourism networking. The research findings draw the following conclusions. First, the evaluative indicators were established based on the concept of holistic rural development, and the finding suggested that building stakeholders’ mutual interest and interaction is important. Second, destination branding strengthens the foundation of integrated development, in turn increasing destination identity and respectfulness of the destination. Finally, a rurality of evaluative indicators used in a rural context can discriminate them from other indicators. This study suggests future research can take a comparative study with other region or explore dimensions from different stakeholders’ perspectives.
Key Words: Rural Tourism; Integrated Rural Tourism Innovation Development; Destination Branding; Evaluative Indicator.