Abstract
This paper aims to suggest a new research agenda for rural tourism, including for a smiling future for the countryside, in reversing the current trend to distinguish the destination, to aim at supersegmentation of tourism and to target a cultural, elitist, tourism. Indeed most tourist activities can be done and are done in a relative vicinity, by ordinary tourists aiming to have a good time. Moreover, the countryside does not always offer extraordinary sights that attract people from the whole continent. We argue that there should be a place and more attention for ordinary tourism development. By ordinary tourism, we do not mean mass tourism but just the fact that some people spent a few days away from home. We do not want to reject the appealing concepts of cultural tourism, ecotourism, adventure tourism, ethnic tourism, gastronomic tourism, farm tourism and so on. We just want to be realistic and call to rethink the importance of ordinary tourism and its current challenges: facing new ways of traveling (e.g. Low cost), of buying vacation (e-commerce), of enjoying holidays (more frequently/with friends, alone or with the family/ being active or passive).