Attempt to assess tourist products in rural areas based on the Kano method as basis of customer experience

Abstract

Rural tourism, which is at the same time a kind of broadly understood sustainable tourism, is a concept, although widely used, difficult to define. Many researchers such as M. Jansen-Verbeke distinguish between rural tourism, agritourism and farm tourism (Jansen-Verbeken, 1990). Ecotourism is also often found in many forms with considerable ecological relevance such as tourism to national parks, to areas of high ecological sensitivity, agrotourism to organic farms, wildlife tourism/safari with educational goals, visiting touristic destinations, where sustainable living and use of ecosystem services is presented, etc. Rural tourism in our interpretation embraces all of the aforementioned is a very important part of active participation in the life of a farm, in the socio-cultural life of the village and is inherent in its connection to the natural environment. It is ecologically-oriented farming and the protection of natural and socio-cultural environments that are the foundation of ecotourism. The only significant differences that can be identified are some forms of rural tourism that do not fall into the category of ecotourism, such as alienated tourism, as well as a partial focus of ecotourism, out of cities areas but not in rural areas. In the countryside there is also a particular category of tourist stream called "bleisure" – the mixture of business and leisure, a new trend in business tourism linking work and recreation.