Rural Tourism Niche-Market as a Development Strategy on Rural Community: Reference to Hiriwadunna Village Track, Meemure and Heeloya Knuckles Valley Tourism Village, Sri Lanka

Tourism is one of the main economic sectors as well as a foreign exchange earner to Sri Lanka. Rural tourism is one of the niche markets catered to rural lifestyles and events. The study investigated the rural tourism destinations; Hiriwadunna Village Track, Meemure, and Heeloya Knuckles Valley village, which conduct rural tourism activities on a regular basis as one of their main livelihood. The objectives are to identify the impact of destination attributes on visitor satisfaction and assess the contribution of rural tourism initiatives on the household economy and socio-culture of tourism stakeholders. Purposive sampling method was conducted with dual sets; 100 foreign and local visitors and 12 tourism stakeholders from a rural community. Data were gathered through the survey, and structured interviews and study adopted mixed methods; descriptive and multiple regression with destination attributes (6A’s) model as quantitative analysis and thematic analysis as the qualitative analysis method. Findings exhibited a significant influence on the visitor satisfaction of all destination attributes (6A’s), and ancillary services have highlighted as the most influential attribute on rural tourism destinations. Further, the thematic analysis revealed, rural tourism is positively influenced by socio-economic benefits on residents’ livelihood. As recommendations, (a) promoting sustainable tourism concepts catering to the niche market of “rural tourism”, (b) folk culture with the rural tourism experience, (c) mechanism on safety and security of the rural tourism destinations, (d) strategies to popularize the events catering rural lifestyle and activities and (e) marketing programmes on sustainable tourism segments, are provided.