Reinvigorating rural tourism market potential through entrepreneurial self-efficacy and heritage education

Purpose: Rural tourism is a priority for nations in terms of fostering and reviving tourism development. This can be achieved by focusing on rural tourism entrepreneurship. The purpose of the study is to examine the rural tourism market potential by exploring the significant impact of social, economic and technological effects on heritage education and rural entrepreneurial self-efficacy in facilitating and improving the rural tourism market potential in India respectively, to attract more tourists.

Methods: Research was undertaken on a random sample of 646 individuals from rural areas in South India.  An exploratory factor analysis followed by a confirmatory factor analysis was performed using AMOS to assess convergent and discriminant validity and composite reliability. Structural equation modelling was utilised to examine the impacts of all proposed constructs.

Results: The results of SEM reveal that social and technological effects play a crucial role in fostering residents' entrepreneurial self-efficacy ensuring huge tourism market potential.

Implications: The findings emphasise the need for planners to go beyond traditional strategies to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) reinvigorating the rural tourism business in India by empowering host communities.