Rural tourism may be defined as the movement of people from their normal place of residence to rural areas for a minimum period of twenty-four hours to the maximum of six months for the sole purpose of leisure and pleasure. Rural tourism refers to all tourism activities in a rural area. The concept of rural tourism is by no means well defined and is subject to a number of interpretation. Fleischer and Pizam associate rural tourism with the ‘country vacation’ where the tourist spends the vast proportion of his/her vacation period engaging in recreational activities in a rural environment on a farm, ranch, country home, or the surrounding areas. OECD defines the rural area as, ” at the local level, a population density of 150 persons per square kilometer is the preferred criterion. At the regional level, geographic units are grouped by the share of their population that is rural into the following three types: predominantly rural (50%), significantly rural (15-50%) and predominantly urbanized regions (15%). The Council of Europe employed the term ‘rural area‘ to denote the following characteristics: A stretch of inland or coastal countryside, including small towns and villages, where the main part of the area is used for:

Agriculture, forestry, aquaculture, and fisheries. Economic and cultural activities of country-dwellers. Non-urban recreation and leisure areas or nature reserves. Other purposes such as housing.