Marketing practices in the Spanish rural tourism sector and their contribution to business outcomes

Abstract

This paper sets out to highlight the importance of entrepreneurial and market orientations for the success of enterprises operating out of a rural base. Using these two strategic frameworks, this paper identifies the marketing practices undertaken by rural enterprises, and evaluates their effect on business performance, on the local entrepreneur, and on the rural area itself. Enterprises operating from a rural location play a strategic role in the sustainable development of economies, in the context of which the rural tourism sector particularly stands out. The use of marketing practices appropriate to the aims, capacities and resources of such enterprises is proposed as a mechanism for improving their performance. Using the Spanish rural tourism sector as the basis, a scale measuring marketing practices, and another scale reflecting three different types of outcomefinancial, those linked personally to the entrepreneur, and those in terms of development of the rural environment -are proposed and validated, and the effect of marketing practices on the performance of such enterprises is analysed. The findings, which reveal that marketing practices have a significant effect on the achievement of outcomes, have implications of interest for the literature and for practitioners in the rural enterprise sector.

Entrepreneurship, tourism and regional development: a tale of two villages

“…Meanwhile, the natural, cultural and historic heritage of many rural areas creates opportunities for tourism activities (Ateljevic 2009;Crvelin, Kuvacic, and Bakula 2008;Polo-Peña, Frías-Jamilena, and Rodríguez-Molina 2012;Siemens 2010;VisitEngland 2011;Wilson et al 2001).…”

Impact of Customer Orientation and ICT Use on the Perceived Performance of Rural Tourism Enterprises

“…Therefore, as the objectives of the present work focus on studying the outcomes achieved by RTEs, the approach to outcomes submitted by Polo- Peña et al (2012) is appropriate as the scale embraces a wider vision of the outcomes RTEs seek.…”

“…Polo-Peña et al (2012) apply and validate a scale that measures the outcomes achieved by smaller enterprises based in rural locations and that includes a more complete set of outcomes that need to be taken into account in order to comprehensively measure the performance of smaller rural enterprises. As well as financial results, the scale includes outcomes reflecting improvements to the rural destination and those of an intangible nature relating personally to the owner-manager.…”

“…It is also of value to determine whether the implementation of CO and ICT constitutes a valid strategy for RTEs to achieve better outcomes. "Outcomes" in this sense encompass both financial results and also other results of particular significance for RTEs-such as the development of the rural destination itself, and benefits for the individual RTE owner (Polo-Peña, Frías-Jamilena, & Rodríguez-Molina, 2012).…”

The Rural Tourism as Development Opportunity or Farms. The Case of Direct Sales in Sicily

“…The arrival of tourists-consumers in rural areas generate a demand for goods and services which it translates into an increase of value for the territory and farms (Renko et al, 2010;Polidori et al, 2008).…”