Rural tourism is such a new industry which combines primary
industry with tertiary industry. Rural tourism is based on agriculture, aiming at
developing tourism in rural area and serving the urban residents by providing
various services. Rural tourism can develop landscape resources in rurban
fringe to promote eco-tour-ism and to realize the coordinated development of
the cities and countryside. In China, rural tourism successive-ly experiences
three stages, eg. early rising stage, initial development stage and later normative
operating stage. This paper, based on the background and the concept of rural
tourism, comprehensively discusses the develop-ment of rural tourism in
China, analyzes the current situations and the main patterns of rural tourism,
and puts forward some relevant countermeasures for the current problems.
Finally, the paper discusses the prospect of the future sustainable development
of rural tourism in China.