Evaluating Rural Tourism Experience: An Exploratory Study

In the last few decades rural tourism has attained significant importance both in academics and industry. There is a greater demand from tourists visiting rural areas. Although tourism experience has been studied in the literature, however specifically rural tourism has received little attention from the academia. The rural tourism has a potential to shape rural economies together with giving rich and diversified experience to the tourists visiting these areas. The paper attempts to explore the concept of tourism experience in the context of rural tourism at Pahalgam, India. The study is based on interviews conducted at the study site and an in-depth analysis of the interviews regarding tourist experience at the rural site was carried out. It was concluded that rural tourism experience is a complex phenomenon and requires an integrated approach ensuring participation from all the stakeholders and the experience must be co-created in line with the destination resources and the visitor expectations in order to deliver satisfaction and value.