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The primary purpose of this study was to segment and profile the needs of rural tourists so as to provide a better understanding of rural tourism in Portugal. A self-administered survey in four languages was obtained from 200 visitors in the study area. Four useful benefit segments were identified, and implications for market development are discussed.

The countryside hosts an increasing number of alternative food networks: rural tourists can play an important role in acting as both consumer and "cultural broker" between these networks. This paper provides a theoretical framework for niche marketing food specialties in rural tourism by combining two different consumer behavioural theories, the "experience economy" and the "intimacy" model, representing a reorientation from classical marketing thinking. It explores the meaning of local food, including the pursuit of reconnection with nature, resilience to globalisation, the role of local food in reinforcing personal identity, the search for freshness, taste and authenticity, support for local producers, and environmental concerns. It considers the challenges for rural entrepreneurs and policy makers in marketing food specialties and rural regions to the post-modern consumer. Using examples derived mostly from secondary literature it identifies seven dimensions that elevate food products to an appealing culinary niche, namely, coherence, anti-capitalistic attitude, struggle against extinction, personal signature, mutual-disclosure, rituals of spatial and physical proximity, and sustainabilityrelated practices. Food providers may use these features to signal food distinctiveness to rural tourists; policy makers can include them in their regional development models to enhance rural tourism without altering historically, socially, and environmentally layered culinary traditions.

h i g h l i g h t s < We did a data-driven segmentation study about tourists' perceived risks. < There is heterogeneity among tourists in their behaviors and risk perceptions. < International tourists can be segmented in 7 distinct clusters. < The clusters differ in amounts and types of risk perceptions.

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This article studies the effect of ‘cultural proximity’ on the way tourists perceive North Portugal as a rural holiday destination. Based on results of a one-year-long survey ( N= 2280), the author questions if there is a relationship ‘the culturally closer the tourist, the better destination image’, as expected when following assumptions from product[destination]-self-congruity theory. Eventual moderating effects of Plog’s ‘psycho-graphic traveler type’ are also studied. Results confirm an impact of ‘cultural proximity’ on destination image, however not exactly in the direction indicated by product-self-congruity theory. Indeed, those visitors that are neither closest nor most distant in terms of ‘cultural proximity’ reveal the most positive destination image. The need most tourists feel for a balance between novelty and familiarity, as suggested by some researchers, appears as a reasonable explanation of these findings.