For the past several years, interest in rural tourism development has grown. And because of the renewed interest in America's rural communities, it should continue to grow. This nation has discovered that approximately 96 percent of its population lives on four percent of its land, which means that four percent of U.S. citizens are spread out over 96 percent of our landmass. As such, although there are many people who have always been interested in rural research, many of the problems associated with rural communities have become popular over the past few years and are being researched and discussed by both academics and community leaders.

One of the most popular issues is rural community development and the use of tourism as a tool for that development. There is a wealth of information about rural tourism including economic analysis of tourism, its impacts, and its affect on people. In addition, there has been a great deal published that concerns those various topics. In fact, in the September 1993 issue of Parks & Recreation, Brian Hill outlined the opportunities and challenges presented by rural tourism. Rural tourism has grown a great deal since his article, as has the research on the problems and challenges of tourism. However, many of the factors and challenges he talked about in 1993 are still prevalent today.

The intent of this article is to discuss a new issue (not discussed by Hill) in rural tourism development, that of the developmental process itself. One of the greatest challenges to rural tourism has actually been produced by the popularity and growth of tourism in rural communities. Because tourism is so popular, rural community leaders are racing to establish tourism in their communities, yet they often lack the understanding of the tourism development process that makes it difficult to generate tourism. If rural leaders do not understand how tourism begins or what processes are involved with tourism, they cannot possibly understand or deal with the resulting impacts of tourism in their community.

Rural Community Development Tool