In an effort to bridge the gap of economic and social inequality among the community, rural areas in Indonesia are encouraged to be self-sufficient in generating income. This makes the central government create various policies so that the regional government maximizes the management of its potential as an economic resource for the well-being of its people. One of the ways to manage this potential is to encourage rural areas to create tourism products that can be sold to the public. The Indonesian governments openly use the tourism sector as a tool for the development in many rural areas. Next, efforts to achieve successful development of the district will be closely related to the strategic planning and long-term cooperation of each local government with stakeholders in its implementation. These two points are the basic elements of the new regionalism theory. This theory states that the role of local governments is very important in initiating and making policies for new economic activities for a significant improvement in the quality of their population. Therefore, this study tries to explore how the new theory of regionalism can include rural development from a tourism perspective as a way to stimulate the fading economy in rural area of Indonesia. The study found that the new theory of regionalism needs support from various aspects such as social-cultural, community participation, the three pillars of sustainable development namely economic, social, and environmental as well as basic aspects to shape sustainable rural development through tourism.

The coronavirus pandemic has reinforced the need for sustainable, smart tourism and local travel, with rural destinations gaining in their popularity and leading to increased potential of smart rural tourism. However, these processes need adjustments to the current trends, incorporating new transformative business concepts and marketing approaches. In this paper we provide real life examples of new marketing approaches, together with new business models within the context of the use of new digital technologies. Via hermeneutic research approach, consisting of the secondary analysis of the addressed subject of smart rural tourism in adversity of the COVID-19 and 6 semi-structured interviews, the importance of technology is underscored in transforming rural tourism to smart rural tourist destinations. The respondents in the interview section were chosen based on their direct involvement in the presented examples and geographical location, i.e. France, Slovenia and Spain, where presented research examples were developed, concretely within European programmes, i.e. Interreg, Horizon and Rural Development Programme (RDP). Interviews were taking place between 2022 and 2023 in person, email or via Zoom. This two-phased study demonstrates that technology is important in transforming rural tourism to smart tourist destinations and that it ushers new approaches that seem particularly useful in applying to rural areas, creating a rural digital innovation ecosystem, which acts as s heuristic rural tourist model that fosters new types of tourism, i.e. smart rural tourism.

Most researchers have recognized the importance of tourism for economic growth and have concluded that the growth of tourism can also affect the economic and socio-cultural development of society. Our study proves that this relationship can exist, as there is a very strong relationship between tourism and economic development, especially in GDP, which challenges the concept of tourism as an engine of economic development for developing countries such as Kosovo. Our results show that the relationship between GDP growth and tourism development has a bilateral and positive long-term causality. But the low level of tourism development in Kosovo during the years of the study (2010–2022), analyzed according to the Robuts model, shows that in our country during these 12 years the increase in GDP has influenced the development of tourism and not vice versa.

Rural tourism plays a crucial role in rural development in Indonesia by providing employment opportunities, livelihood, infrastructure, cultural preservation, and environmental preservation. However, it is prone to external shocks such as natural disasters, public health events, and volatility in the national and global economy. This study measures the resilience of rural tourism to external shocks caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in 24 rural tourism destinations in Indonesia covering four years from 2019 to 2022. A synthetic composite index of the Adjusted Mazziotta-Pareto index (AMPI) is used to measure rural tourism resilience followed by clustering analysis to determine the typology of the resilience. The AMPI measure is also compared with the conventional Mazziotta-Pareto index (MPI) method. The resilience index is composed of capacity and performance components related to resilience. The results show that in the first year of COVID-19, most tourism villages in Indonesia were severely affected by the pandemic, yet they were able to recover afterward, as indicated by positive differences in the AMPI index before and after COVID-19. Thus, rural tourism villages in Indonesia have a strong capacity and performance to recover from pandemic shock. Lessons learned from this analysis can be applied to policies related to rural tourism resilience in developing countries.

"One Village, One Product" is an effective measure to fully tap local resources, develop rural characteristic industries, innovate economic growth methods, and drive rapid regional economic development. Rural tourism is an important component of industrial revitalization in rural revitalization. Under the "one village, one product" model, the development of rural tourism needs to optimize the industrial structure, explore unique culture, vigorously promote the construction of "beautiful rural characteristic countryside", achieve the transformation and upgrading of traditional rural tourism, and promote the high-quality development of rural characteristic tourism.

Rural tourism, which offers authentic cultural and nature-based experiences, is increasingly recognized as a vital tool for sustainable development. Ethiopia, with its rich rural landscapes and cultural heritage, holds immense potential for rural tourism, but the sector remains underdeveloped. This study assesses the facilitating conditions and challenges of rural tourism in Ethiopia using a mixed-methods approach. Results indicate that Ethiopia’s economic growth, improved rural infrastructure, large rural population, higher ethnic and religious diversity index, and 11 UNESCO World Heritage Sites provide strong foundations for rural tourism. However, significant challenges such as inadequate infrastructure, limited marketing, restricted access to financing, ethnic conflicts, environmental degradation, and insufficient stakeholder cooperation hinder its growth. To address these barriers, the study proposes a model encompassing strategic investments in infrastructure, enhancing marketing and promotion, access to finance initiatives, conflict resolution strategies, sustainable tourism practices, enhancing stakeholder coordination, and supportive policy frameworks. By employing these strategies, Ethiopia can harness the full potential of its rural tourism sector, contributing to economic development and community well-being while promoting cultural preservation and environmental sustainability. Also, the proposed model is highly applicable to other developing economies that share similar contexts. Besides, given the importance of the seven fundamental pillars of the model, it remains relevant across tourism types like coastal destinations.