PROMOTING RURAL TOURISM BY EXPERIENTIAL MARKETING: A CASE OF HAKKA COMMUNITY, PINGTUNG ZHÚTIÁN IN TAIWAN

With industrialization, urbanized and socio-economic development, people go to rural areas engaged in recreation and tourism activities in order to obtain relaxation, entertainment and restore physical and mental leisure benefits. The other hand, rural areas also reconstruct and support local economic and social transformation by leisure tourism industry. How to promote rural tourism within a community, there are many different practices in different communities. This study introduces a successfully case, Zhútián of Pingtung county in Taiwan. Zhútián comprehensive community building committee combined rural tourismand community resources to improve the local economic benefits. The committee offers several experiential courses which devised by experiential modules. These courses were managed in experiential marketing include sensory experiences, affective experiences, creative cognitive experiences, physical experiences, behaviours and lifestyles, and socialidentity experiences that result from relating to areference group or culture. They made tourists experience traditional Hakka culture and Zhútián traditional railway station.