Influential factors in agrarian households' engagement in rural tourism development

Abstract

To understand the most significant factors that influence agricultural households' decision whether or not to work in rural tourism in China, this study applies Elinor Ostrom's Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) extension model. It also constructs a model of influence consisting of five key variables: land consolidation, market characteristics, institutional arrangements, farming household's understanding of tourism, and household information. Based on a binary logistic regression model, the results indicate that market characteristics and cognition have direct positive influences, and the source of household income has a negative influence, on farmers' willingness to be involved in providing tourism services. Results also indicate that there is no difference between farmers who work in tourism and those who do not in terms of risk assessment, but there are significant differences among other factors. Finally, some implications are provided to optimize rural tourism development.