Empirical research on the competitiveness of rural tourism destinations: a practical plan for rural tourism industry post-COVID-19

Abstract

Purpose Following COVID-19, the emphasis on tourism development has shifted to rural tourism and eco-destinations for preventive practice of the three Cs – confined spaces, close contact and crowded spaces. Given the potential growth of rural tourism destinations, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is conceivably the first to provide empirical evidence for rural tourism development post-COVID-19, and this study aims to examine the relationship between the potential development of rural tourism destination competitiveness alongside the inherited, created and supporting resources as perceived by domestic tourists. Design/methodology/approach This study sampled 172 respondents who were all domestic tourists in Malaysia. A partial least square (PLS)-structural equation modeling approach was used to evaluate the developed model, with PLS estimation and hypothesis testing performed using WarpPLS software. Findings Interestingly, the findings indicate that rural tourism destinations in Sarawak derive competitive advantage from factors that are closely associated with urban destinations (i.e. created and supporting resources), whereas rural-related factors (i.e. inherited resources) are not perceived as a contributor to their competitive advantage. Practical implications The findings will assist tourism planners in constructing a deployable rural tourism destination competency index to develop policies and programmes that address specific tourism or rural development objectives in Malaysia and beyond. Originality/value The value of present study lies in its examination of the tourists’ perspectives on the factors that provides addition to rural competitive advantage, with an emphasis on a relatively new and contentious post-COVID-19 topic, namely, rural tourism destinations.