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Abstract Rural tourism is a form of tourism relying on rural environment, with rural unique natural scene and cultural characteristics (production pattern, life style, folk customs, and rural culture) as object, and integrating sightseeing, vacation, recreation and shopping. Rural tourism provides recreation products for urban residents, promotes national and local economy, promotes rural employment, keeps traditional culture, improves rural ecological environment, and promotes urban and rural exchange. From concept and characteristics of rural tourism, this paper made a brief overview of development background, realistic significance, influence factors , development mode, and existing problems , in the hope of providing favorable references for grasping development situation of rural tourism in China.
Key words Rural tourism, Overview, Influence factor, Development mode
1 Introduction
At the same time of rapid development of tourism economy in China, both tourism types and contents become varied. With constant increase in income and demand level, tourists are no longer satisfied with traditional urban sightseeing items. In addition to hustle and bustle urban environment, nervous and depressed rhythm of life makes urban residents generate strong desire of returning to nature. In this situation, rural tourism arises. Vast in territory, China has abundant natural scene and agricultural resources and folk customs are varied. These provide congenital conditions for development of the rural tourism. Convenient modern traffic and policy support provide postnatal guarantee for development of the rural tourism. However, due to starting late, there are still some problems in theoretical guidance, policy regulation, and operation experience. Thus, it is necessary to make overview of current development situation of China's rural tourism development.
2 Connotation of the rural tourism
2.1 Basic concept of the rural tourism Domestic and foreign scholars have slightly different opinions about definition and understanding of the rural tourism. According to Gilbert ( 1990) , the rural tourism is a type of tourism in which farmers provide board and lodging for tourists conducting various recreational activities in typical rural environment such as farms and pastures"1'. Bill Bramwell and Bernard Lane (1994) stated that rural tourism is a complex and multi-level concept, and it includes sports and recreational tourism, ecological tourism, and cultural and folk custom tourism in rural areas apart from agriculture-based tourist activities, such as horse riding, mountaineering, exploring,...