How Can Rural Tourism Be Sustainable? A Systematic Review

Abstract

This investigation reviewed articles associated with sustainable rural tourism found on the Web of Science database over a 10-year span from 2009 to 2019. The 76 articles that were selected for their inclusion of the concept of sustainable rural tourism were listed in a comprehensive table, thereby revealing the research purpose, topics, detailed topics, research methods, and data source of the articles. The findings indicate that many papers on sustainable rural tourism were written from a holistic sustainability perspective without being biased towards any one of the environmental, economic, and social aspects. In the field of rural tourism, it is essential to pay attention to interactions in all aspects of the environment, economy, and society, and to analyze them overall. In addition, this study confirmed that efforts to understand sustainable rural tourism from the customer perspective have been increased since customer loyalty is considered important for sustainability. This study is significant in that, since it evaluated the knowledge status for the first time through systematic review and applied content analysis to academic literature related to sustainability in the sector of rural tourism, it can expand and deepen the knowledge and understanding of related topics and raise awareness of a new research direction.