Rural tourism and the challenge of tourism diversification: the case of Cyprus

By R. Sharpley. 2002

623 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Rural tourism has long been considered a means of achieving economic and social development and regeneration. More specifically, it has been widely promoted as an effective source of income and employment, particularly in peripheral rural areas where traditional agrarian industries have declined. More recently, however, a number of established tourism destinations have also turned to rural tourism in order to diversify their tourism products and markets and to spread the benefits of tourism away from the coastal resorts into the hinterland. The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent to which this latter role for rural tourism represents a realistic tourism development policy. Based upon research into the development of ‘agrotourism’ in Cyprus, it highlights the challenges and problems encountered by rural tourism entrepreneurs, identifying a number of issues which militate against the success of rural tourism development. In particular, it identifies high development costs but low returns, low demand, a lack of essential skills and the dominance of mass tourism operators as major challenges. It concludes, therefore, long-term financial and technical support is essential if tourism is to play an effective rural development role.

Subfields: Demography, Sociology and Political Science, Transportation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/aa7237cde509e2c0496b5f878a0a85e538b4347f

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Citations in the corpus

The Role of the Firm and Owner Characteristics on the Performance of Agritourism Farms (2008, background): “Most studies have highlighted the multiple benefits that agritourism brings to the farm, local communities, agriculture heritage and natural resources (Fleischer and Pizam 1997; Busby and Rendle 2000; Ventura and Milone 2000; Sharpley 2002; Wicks and Merrett 2003; Hegarty and Przezbórska 2005).”
Nature-Based Tourism and Poverty Alleviation: Impacts of Private Sector and Parastatal Enterprises In and Around Kruger National Park, South Africa (2007, background): “However, Sharpley (2002) asks whether tourism can realistically form a development panacea, since it is associated with social and environmental costs.”
The Importance of Quality, Satisfaction, Trust, and Image in Relation to Rural Tourist Loyalty (2008, background): “, Frochot, 2005; Gilbert, 1989; Greffe, 1994; Page & Getz, 1997; Sharpley & Sharpley, 1997), and as a diversification possibility for declining mass tourism destinations (Sharpley, 2002).”
The role of individual entrepreneurs in the development of competitiveness for a rural tourism destination – A case study (2014, methodology): “First, the decline of traditional rural activities (i.e. agriculture) and the consequent demographic changes have encouraged the local authorities to develop initiatives in rural tourist development (e.g. Barke, 2004; Cai, 2002; Hall, 2004; Huang, 2006; Iorio & Corsale, 2010; Sharpley, 2002) and sec”
Tourism, trade and growth: the case of Cyprus (2009, background): “The successful growth of international tourism underpinned a remarkable socio-economic development on the island (Ioannides, 1992; Kammas and Salehi-Esfahani, 1992; Seekings, 1997; Ayers, 2000; Sharpley, 2002;).”
Urban-rural imbalance and Tourism-Led Growth in China (2017, background): “The comprehensive benefits of rural tourism (Sharpley, 2002) create high expectations for tourism growth among the Chinese government.”
Entrepreneurship in island contexts: A systematic review of the tourism and hospitality literature (2020, background): “topics (Li, 2008; Ateljevic & Li, 2009), but in common with Solvoll et al. (2015) and Gaudette et al.”
The Contradictions of Agrotourism Development in Greece: Evidence from Three Case Studies (2007, neutral): “A number of case studies, including those discussed in this paper, reveal a quite different picture (see also Anthopoulou et al. 2000; Iakovidou et al. 1999; Apostolopoulos & Sonmez 1999; Sharpley 2002).”
Assessing the sustainability of agritourism in the US: a comparison between agritourism and other farm entrepreneurial ventures (2013, background): “…local customs and crafts, as well as agricultural, natural and built heritage as these farms are embedded in local traditions (Everett & Aitchison, 2008; Fleischer & Pizam, 1997; Hegarty & Przezbórska, 2005; McGehee, 2007; Nilsson, 2002; Ollenburg & Buckley, 2007; Sharpley, 2002; Turnock, 2002).”
Tourism Entrepreneurship – Review and Future Directions (2015, background): “…(Byrd et al., 2009) or wildlife Byrd, Bosley, and Dronberger (2009), Garcı́a, Gómez, and Molina (2012), Manyara and Jones (2007), Ryan (2002), Sharpley (2002), Thompson and Homewood (2002), Williams and Hall (2000), Williams and Shaw (2011), Wilson, Fesenmaier, Fesenmaier, and Van Es…”
Rural tourism: A systematic literature review on definitions and challenges (2021, neutral): “Financially, there is often a reluctance to invest due to low return expectancy (Krol, 2019; Sharpley, 2002).”