Abstract:
Rural tourism, which is often considered as rural development initiatives, has been extensively
studied in Japanese context, however, usually observed at a community level, and supposed that
host households were homogeneous. The article added to established literature by studying how
rural tourism, contributes to sustainable livelihoods at household level in an ageing community
in a developed economy. For this purpose, a qualitative study was conducted in a farm inn group
in Noto town, a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System (GIAHS) site in Japan. We tested
three hypotheses: 1) rural tourism in a remote/isolated region has changed the livelihood assets
of host households; 2) the economic benefits from rural tourism is marginal to host households;
and 3) the benefits other than income earning exceeds economic benefits for ageing
communities. Generally, host communities have improved their livelihood assets through farm
inn business. The residents’ life quality has been improved in this super ageing rural, although,
economic benefits are still marginal to majority of the host households. Tourists have brought
vitality to these remote villages. The lacking of young residents and inherits of their farm inn
business is a bottleneck to its future development. The social capital should be strengthened
through forming a social network with local government, as well as private sectors.
