Curating the countryside: Emerging business models in cultural tourism in rural areas

COVID-19 underlined the potential of rural areas for cultural tourism as urban dwellers flocked to the relative isolation of the countryside. Following the pandemic, the expected growth of rural tourism failed to emerge, leading to a reassessment of rural tourism strategies. As localities seek to increase their attractiveness for tourism, the basic natural resources of rural areas are being transformed and enhanced through a number of new developments, including new types of cultural tourism. These emerging cultural tourism business models are being selected and disseminated through expert curation, algorithmic curation, and social curation. Based on recent literature and drawing on data from the Crocus Project, this chapter aims to highlight the influence of curational strategies on the development of rural cultural tourism. Our analysis identifies a wide range of business models, including value propositions centred on the provision of accommodation, the staging of experiences, co-creating culture, and mobility. Curated "gastroscapes" are particularly prominent in the packaging of the rural area for tourist consumption, and festivals and events also provide a means of making rural culture accessible to tourists. Digitalisation is also ushering in a host of platforms that algorithmically and socially curate the rural to make it more accessible and readable for outsiders. The main conclusions are that rural areas are gradually being colonised by formerly urban models of curation, in which the consumption of the rural is aligned to the tastes of the urban dwellers who constitute the main audience for rural tourism.