Rural Marketing - Rural (Tourism) Marketing

Rural Tourism as a Collective Endeavour
Jan Megannon, Entrepreneur, Australia
I see rural tourism as a community industry, rather than an enterprise/corporate initiative. Saw the potential for this in South Africa, Indonesia and now again in Russia.
The rural industry (regardless of country) will give the tourist a 'native/ethnic' experience, versus a 'western' experience in a foreign country.
The opportunities for a collective offering (even in urban environments) existed during soccer world cup in South Africa, but they were never developed. The same opportunities still exist, but will require greater marketing effort as they are unable to encash on the benefits of a global event (e.g. guerilla marketing).

What is Rural Marketing? How is it Done?
Victor BIGWI, Accountant, Rwanda
Who can tell more about rural marketing, how it's done etc. What are differences with traditional marketing?

The 4 A's of Rural Marketing
Pushyamitra, Entrepreneur, India
Rural marketing is somewhat different from traditional marketing as far as India is concerned. In India there are many definitions given on the basis of theory and practicability. We can define it on the basis of quantitative and qualitative criteria:
- If we are defining rural areas on a quantitative basis we might say: we'll consider a place with less than 10000 population as a rural market.
- If we are defining rural areas on a qualitaitve basis, then traditions, majority of occupation, lack of technology etc. are major factors to define a rural market.
In rural marketing the 4P's of traditional marketing are replaced by the 4A's:
- Acceptability (product size, color and packaging is acceptable or not)
- Affordability (price is under the budget of rural consumer or not)
- Availability (place or distribution channel to avail the product to consumer in rural market)
- Awareness (promotional activities to make people aware about the use of the product).
If you need more about it please let me know. Thanks.

The Opportunity for Rural Travel and Tourism
Rakesh Gudur, Strategy Consultant, India
This is a very good concept. A good market exists for it indeed.
Due to urbanization, the younger generations (Gen X, Millennials) do not know about their roots. People can be taken to nearby villages over the weekend to help them understand various aspects of cattle, crops and local specialities.
The target market could be school and college students.
Caution: care should be taken so as to not pollute and disturb the village culture and environment.

The Paradox of Using Rural Tourism to Fight Unemployment
Jaap de Jonge, Editor, Netherlands
@Rakesh Gudur: Regarding your caution, I agree and the callenge I recommend is to look for ways to use rural tourism on one hand to alleviate poverty and unemployment, but at the same time preserve the small scale village culture. One has to reconcile BOTH.