Abstract

Although determinants of life satisfaction in older adults have been well documented, research has to date failed to fully address the experience of older adults living in places with different levels of urbanization. Furthermore, there are conflictive findings regarding the type of residence environment that offers the greatest benefits for the wellbeing of older adults. Our study proposes an integrative research model to determine the nature of the relationships between loneliness, self-esteem and life satisfaction, with a particular focus on the living environment (rural-urban) of the older adults. Using a cross-sectional survey design volunteers (aged 60+) from rural (n = 198) and urban (n = 198) in Galicia (Spain) completed a questionnaire. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was used to test the relationships between loneliness, self-esteem and life satisfaction and multigroup analysis was performed to analyse the existence of differences in the relationships based on the area of residence of older adults. We found that higher levels of loneliness were a significant predictor of reduced life satisfaction and reduced self-esteem. Self-esteem not only increases life satisfaction, but also reduces the negative impact loneliness may have on it. Where the older adults lived had a significant effect on the relationships between loneliness, self-esteem and life satisfaction. The relationships were stronger for older adults living in urban areas. Differentiated policy initiatives should be considered, depending on the area of residence in order to increase the life satisfaction of older adults.

Introduction

In recent decades, the European Union (EU) has experienced two parallel processes: population aging and urbanization. The urban population rose from 58 % in 1960 to over 75 % in 2022 [1]. The proportion of population aged 65 and over stands at almost 21 % and forecasts suggest that in 2050, the old-age dependency ratio will exceed 52 % [2,3]. Within this process, a significant number of older adults live in urban areas, many of whom have relocated from rural environments, whilst others remain in their familiar surroundings in line with what is known as “aging in place”. In any case, the residential environment, whether rural or urban, poses various challenges for older adults [4].

Older adults’ quality of life is influenced by a large number of factors that range from social support and relationship networks to the environment, residence conditions, financial resources, older adults’ degree of activity, autonomy and independence when making decisions, as well as physical and mental health [5,6]. In fact, the World Health Organization’s quality-of-life scale, known as the WHOQOL-BREF questionnaire, includes 26 questions grouped into four domains: physical health, psychological health, social relationships and environmental health [7,8]. The environmental dimension of the WHOQOL-BREF questionnaire includes items designed to identify aspects including not only the home environment, opportunities for acquiring new information and skills and for recreation, the physical environment and transport, but also health and social care, security and, of course, financial resources.

Conclusions

The main aim of this study was to examine the association between loneliness, self-esteem and life satisfaction among older adults in Galicia (Spain), with a particular focus on the (rural-urban) residence environment of the older adults. The data support an association between these variables in the predicted direction and the results provide strong support to the theoretical model proposed.

Older adults’ life satisfaction depends significantly on loneliness. The greater the perceived loneliness, the lower the degree of life satisfaction. Loneliness also impacts significantly and negatively on self-esteem. In turn, self-esteem has a positive and significant influence on life satisfaction. Self-esteem not only increases life satisfaction, but it also reduced the negative impact of loneliness on life satisfaction.

Where older adults live had a significant effect on the relationship between loneliness, self-esteem and life satisfaction, which was stronger for older adults living in urban areas. These results may be partly explained by the slightly higher means for loneliness reported among urban older adults. Reported self-esteem mitigated the impact of loneliness on life satisfaction in older adults living in the city.

Abstract

Keywords

References

Abstract

The diffusion of e-commerce has played a significant role in recent rural economic development in China. E-commerce is also considered as an efficient channel to alleviate poverty in rural China. Voluminous studies have investigated the contribution of e-commerce to agricultural development, yet it is lacking empirical evidence as to the effects of e-commerce on rural poverty alleviation. Since the year of 2014, in order to develop rural e-commerce, Chinese government launched the National Rural E-commerce Comprehensive Demonstration Project. This gradual involvement policy offered a natural experiment for evaluation of e-commerce. Based on village-level survey data from rural China and Heckit method, our study finds that rural e-commerce has a significantly positive effect on rural income. Moreover, the effect is inverted U-shaped for the relative-poverty villages. The estimation of the propensity scores matching model confirms that the results are robust. The following policy recommendations are proposed: (1) policy support to rural e-commerce should prioritize the poverty-stricken villages. By doing so, the marginal income effects of e-commerce will be maximized. (2) Investment in internet infrastructure and establishment of human resources for e-commerce in rural areas will have spillover effects, increasing rural income through the “digital dividend”.

1. Introduction

Since 1978, China has lifted more than 700 million people out of poverty. China was the first developing country that achieved the Millennium Development Goal for poverty alleviation set by the United Nations (Liu et al. 2019). Although the Chinese government has prioritized policies that target at improving rural residents’ welfare, poverty remains a critical problem with 16.6 million people estimated to live in poverty and an poverty incidence rate of 1.7% in 2018 (NBSC 2019). Poverty alleviation remains a massive task for the Chinese government, which is determined to eradicate absolute poverty by 2020.

Thanks to the development of information technology and increasing use of smartphones in rural areas, e-commerce penetration in the rural economy has been on the rise in recent years. Rural e-commerce is a direct approach to take advantage of information technology and achieve higher profits. It adapts to the requirements of rural industrial transformation and upgrade. By doing so, it provides new drivers for the revitalization of rural industry. In recent years, “empowerment” to players of rural e-commerce has also attracted much attention (Ogutu et al. 2014; Leong et al. 2016; Zeng et al. 2018). In these literature, rural e-commerce was considered as an efficient tool to enable people to develop modern agriculture and commerce. Especially, e-commerce promoted agricultural value chain development and commodity circulation (Baorakis et al. 2002; Mintert 2003; Jalali et al. 2011; Parker et al. 2016; Song et al. 2019). E-commerce, unlike traditional commerce in which employees need to be present in stores, enables its staff to work from home. It is a highly accessible form of offfarm work for those constrained in rural areas due to either agricultural production or caring responsibilities. In some rural areas, e-commerce has become a potential engine for farmers’ income growth. As an innovative solution, poverty alleviation through e-commerce began to emerge.

1- Introduction

2- Synergies between renewable energy and rural development as socio-ecological fixes

3- Denmark

4- Scotland

5- Discussion: mismatches and potentials

6- Potentials: bringing the rural into the discussion

7- Conclusion

References

Abstract

Energy transition is increasingly regarded as a promising opportunity for the economic development of rural areas. This possibility is associated with the siting and (co-)ownership of decentralized (small-scale) renewable energy facilities. The underlying productive link, however, has been taken for granted, rather than conceptually and practically cultivated. Thus, while renewable energy-based rural development has been stated as a desired by-product of energy transitions, its potential has remained largely unfulfilled. This review aims to illuminate the ambiguous interplay between renewable energy and rural development in the context of the current trajectories of the energy transition. In doing so, we first examine different ways renewable energy may contribute to rural development and explore how the synergetic conflation of renewable energy and rural development has played out in Denmark and Scotland, as two countries that have forged ahead with renewable energy in rural areas. Second, we draw on the different experiences in the two countries to critically discuss policy-related mismatches that hamper a more efficient contribution of renewable energy to rural development, and sketch out some thoughts about the need to bring rural matters and rural communities into the discussion if the synergies between energy transition and rural development are to be taken seriously.

Introduction

In recent years, rural areas have become significant battlegrounds for the implementation of energy transitions. Not only are they meaningful as the location for the siting of renewable energy (RE) facilities, but they also hold a great potential for the creation of significant synergies for sustainable rural development (RD) (e.g. Benedek et al., 2018). Hence, at the overall policy level, the development of RE has received explicit acknowledgement as a promising means for advancing RD and supporting rural economies (OECD, 2012; ECA, 2018; IEA-RETH, 2016). In particular, the EU policy framework for RE has stated the desire to foster RD through the designation of specific funding programs (ECA, 2018) and focus areas (ENRD, 2014). Policy documents identify potentially positive impacts of RE on RD; the Renewable Energy Directive (RED) and its recast RED II include references to the opportunities renewables may have for employment and regional development, “especially in rural and isolated areas” (ECA, 2018, 18). Similarly, several evaluations and supranational policy briefs indicate that RE projects can be developed in a way that benefits local interests and sustainable RD (IEA-RETH, 2016; OECD, 2012; Nordregio, 2017). In order to maximize the economic benefits of RE deployment for rural areas, the evaluations generally underline the need for an approach to RD that is well adapted to local conditions and focuses on the competitiveness of rural areas. However, while policy strategy papers claim and envision positive effects of RE-based rural development, it is less clear as to how these are reasoned and realized, and how they relate to the current politicaleconomic conditions of the energy transition. An overall finding from international evaluations suggests that most countries have not developed strategies for linking RD and RE (OECD, 2012; Pedroli and Langeveld, 2011; EESC, 2016; ECA, 2018). An EU audit straightforwardly concluded that synergies between RE policy and sustainable RD remain mostly unrealized (ECA, 2018). Similarly, other studies raised the observation that RE does not automatically translate into RD (Pedroli and Langeveld, 2011; OECD, 2012, 3; IEA-RETD, 2016; Taylor, 2019). For example, an OECD report concludes that the productive linkage of RE production and RD in terms of economic development, job creation, human capital, infrastructure, and rural empowerment cannot easily be taken for granted and instead requires a complex and flexible policy framework, a long-term strategy, and a realistic appreciation of the potential gains from RE deployment (OECD, 2012).

This paper demonstrates the optimum design and techno-economic assessment of hybrid renewable energy system (HRES) for rural electrification in the remote district of Korkadu, India. The renewable energy resources namely solar photovoltaic, wind turbine and bio generators are considered as the main sources because of its high potential in Korkadu district. This paper estimates the load forecasting for the selected district, which is a mixture of different load patterns namely residential, commercial, institutional and agricultural demands. The desired HRES has to meet the forecasted load demand for reliable electrification. The optimum design and techno-economic analysis of proposed HRES system is carried using powerful tool HOMER. This study also compares HRES’s operational behavior with different operational strategies such as load following strategy, cycle charging strategy and combined strategy of the system. The outcome of the proposed dispatched strategy expressed the contribution of solar power as 86.8%, wind as 12.7% and bio gen power as 0.5% to meet out developed rural load pattern with 6.8% of battery bank losses and 1.78% of converter losses. This research work also illustrate the HRES based power generation can be a cost effective sustainable power alternative to the conventional grid extension system.

Introduction

Total power generation capacity of India was 340 GW as on March 2018, a major portion of which 65% was from fossil fuels such as coal, oil etc. whole the renewable energy, natural gases based energy generation contributed to 19.2% [1]. The research says that still 240 millions of India are living in dark without electricity and most of the electrified villages have poor quality of electricity especially during the peak demand period i.e., during summer [1,2]. Government of India has initiated several schemes, namely, Remote Village Electrification Program (RVEP), Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana (RGGVY), Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar mission (JNNSM) etc., for addressing this issue and for ensuring electrification of the rural areas in India [1,3]. The main objective of these schemes is to ensure clean source of electricity generation for the electrification of un-electrified villages in India. Various researchers have proposed an attractive solution called the Renewable Energy based Hybrid Rural Electrification System (REHRES). But the main challenges in this proposed solution relate to system reliability, power management and economical cost of energy. In addition, wide variations are seen in the renewable energy availability and its potential depending on their geographical location. Hence the optimum sizing is considered as an important parameter for the development of an efficient and economical REHRES. In recent years, various researchers have proposed the solution for REHRES worldwide such as Hydrogen fuel system based hybrid energy system has been deployed in Newfoundland [4], Solar/wind/hydrogen based HRE [5], solar/wind powered reversed osmosis system [6], PV/ wind/battery based isolated island system [7] these study clearly expressed the issues related with HRE system sizing and necessity of performance optimization of the system.

1- Introduction

2- Methods

3- Results

4- Discussion

References

Abstract

Introduction: There is scarce data available on community based prevalence of Anxiety Disorders (ADs) amongst adolescents in north Indian settings.
Objective: To determine the prevalence of anxiety disorders, and associated factors amongst adolescents in a rural community of Ballabgarh block, district Faridabad, Haryana. Methods: Participants (10–19 years) were enrolled through simple random sequence from a sampling frame of adolescents residing in 28 villages of Ballabgarh block using household survey technique. They were screened using Screen for Childhood Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED) tool and then subjected to confirmatory diagnosis using Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview for Children/Adolescent (MINI KID). All adolescents with ADs were assessed for co-psychiatric morbidities using MINI-KID and functional impairment using Children Global Assessment Scale (CGAS). Prevalence and 95% Confidence intervals are reported. Additionally, socio-demographic factors were elicited using a semi-structured interview schedule and associations were determined using multivariable logistic regression analysis.
Results: A total of 678 adolescents participated in this study with mean age (SD) as 14.2 (2.5) years. The age adjusted prevalence of anxiety disorders was found to be 16.6% (95% CI: 16.0–17.2). The most prevalent anxiety disorder among participants was social anxiety disorders followed by specific phobias. Female sex and low socioeconomic status were associated with anxiety disorders. Two third of adolescents with ADs had no functional impairment and almost one third were found to have one or more co-existing psychiatric co-morbidity.
Conclusion: We found a high prevalence of ADs in rural north Indian community settings warranting adequate health system response at primary care level.

Introduction

Adolescence, a transitional phase between childhood and adulthood, is characterized by a number of physical, psychological, personality, cognitive, and attitudinal changes. World Health Organization (WHO) defines adolescents as those aged 10–19 years (WHO, 2014). As a result of improved child survival along with high fertility rate, adolescent population is increasing across the globe. Adolescent age group constitutes almost 18% of world’s population and 88% of them are living in developing countries (Anthony, 2011). In India, the estimated size of adolescent population is 253 million constituting 21% of country’s total population (Census India, 2011). Many of the common mental health problems like anxiety disorders appear during adolescence, but often go unidentified and left untreated, resulting in wide ranging sequel (Patton et al., 2014). Anxiety disorders are among the most common and functionally impairing mental health disorders to occur in adolescence (Ollendick et al., 2010). Anxiety disorders share common features, including excessive fear, avoidance of whatever is feared, and anticipation and worry when expected to encounter whatever is feared. Globally, it is estimated that almost 3.6% of the population suffer from anxiety disorders. The prevalence among adolescents is similar to the global prevalence (WHO, 2017). Nair et al.

1. Introduction

2. Materials and methods

3. Results

4. Discussion

Acknowledgements

References

Abstract

Human interaction with animals has been implicated as a primary risk factor for several high impact zoonoses, including many bat-origin viral diseases. However the animal-to-human spillover events that lead to emerging diseases are rarely observed or clinically examined, and the link between specific interactions and spillover risk is poorly understood. To investigate this phenomenon, we conducted biological-behavioral surveillance among rural residents in Yunnan, Guangxi, and Guangdong districts of Southern China, where we have identified a number of SARS-related coronaviruses in bats. Serum samples were tested for four bat-borne coronaviruses using newly developed enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA). Survey data were used to characterize associations between human-animal contact and bat coronavirus spillover risk. A total of 1,596 residents were enrolled in the study from 2015 to 2017. Nine participants (0.6%) tested positive for bat coronaviruses. 265 (17%) participants reported severe acute respiratory infections (SARI) and/or influenza-like illness (ILI) symptoms in the past year, which were associated with poultry, carnivore, rodent/shrew, or bat contact, with variability by family income and district of residence. This study provides serological evidence of bat coronavirus spillover in rural communities in Southern China. The low seroprevalence observed in this study suggests that bat coronavirus spillover is a rare event. Nonetheless, this study highlights associations between human-animal interaction and zoonotic spillover risk. These findings can be used to support targeted biological behavioral surveillance in high-risk geographic areas in order to reduce the risk of zoonotic disease emergence.

Introduction

In the highly biodiverse southern region of China, interactions among humans, wildlife, and livestock are likely to be common, and are hypothesized to be a risk factor in the emergence of zoonotic infectious diseases [1–3]. Human-animal interactions may pose a particular public health threat in rural communities where frequent contact with animals occurs and where disease prevention measures are likely less well-developed [4]. Although human-animal interactions are thought to be associated with zoonotic disease emergence, few studies have addressed the nature of specific interactions that occur between animals (particularly wild animals) and humans that lead to pathogen spillover.

Bats (order Chiroptera) are reservoirs of a large number of zoonotic viruses, including coronaviruses (CoVs) that have caused disease outbreaks in human and livestock populations [5–13]: Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV), the causative agent of the SARS outbreak affecting 32 countries in 2002-3, infecting 8,096 people and causing 774 deaths [14]; Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), which has caused 823 deaths from 2,374 human cases in 27 countries by the end of February 2019, and is thought to have originally spilled over from bats into camels, in which is it now endemic [15–18]; and Severe acute diarrhea syndrome coronavirus (SADS-CoV) which emerged in the pig population of Southern China and caused the deaths of more than 20,000 piglets in 2017 and 2018 [5].

1- Introduction

2- Data and characteristics of rural household energy consumption

3- Methodology

4- Results and discussion

5- Conclusions

References

Abstract

For a developing country with a large rural population, to understand the rural households’ energy consumption characteristic and energy consumption determinants for further public policy design is of increasing importance. Therefore, this paper provides a detailed analysis of the characteristics of rural households’ energy consumption. Simultaneously, based on the data of 1472 rural households from the Chinese General Social Survey of 2015, the energy consumption determinants of rural households are estimated by Tobit model. Results reveal that rural households with a healthy and old household head reduce the share of coal consumption, and household labors with an off-farm job and high level of education, and a large household size increase the share of LPG and electricity consumption. The good economic condition of rural households contributes to the reduction of biomass consumption. Given the results, the government should work for poverty reduction, subsidies for modern equipment purchase, policies of effective and renewable energy technologies, and educational investment in rural areas, which may help for a positive transition in energy consumption for rural households.

Introduction

The changes in economic development, the process of urbanization, living standards, and climate have made great contributions to the variation in household energy consumption [1]. Especially in developing countries, rural household energy consumption accounts for a significant proportion of total energy consumption of a country. Moreover, tradition fuels, including agricultural and animal waste, fuelwood, and coal play a dominant role in household energy consumption in the rural area of these countries. For example, 92% of households use biomass in the disregarded villages of Bangladesh [2]; fuelwood is the major energy form in Nepal, accounting for 76.20% of the total energy consumption [3]; biomass energy (natural organic fuels) constitutes a high proportion of total national energy use for rural African [4]. Excessive use of biomass energy lead to environment degeneration [5] and emitting of several air pollutants [6]. Moreover, the increasing use of coal also has a negative impact on the rural environment, because the coal combustion plays a vital role in the carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide, and total suspended particulates emissions [7]. Therefore, rural households face a series of considerable, interlocking challenges in the coming transition to a low-carbon energy system with the requirement of reducing emission as well as the use of clean and renewable energy [8]. Similar to most of the developing countries, biomass also accounts for a large share of total energy supply (61.4%) and is the type of fuel most commonly used in rural China [9]. As the largest developing country with about 577 million people living in rural areas at the end of 2017, accounting for 41.5% of the total Chinese population [10], understanding the ways of energy use of rural households in China will be of increasing importance [11].

Rural electrification has progressed unevenly across the world since 1945, with some rural communities gaining access to power decades earlier than others. We examine the association between early electrification and the quality of electricity service to households, testing the hypothesis that aging infrastructure compromises the quality of electricity service. Using the 2014–2015 ACCESS survey from rural India, we find that early electrification is associated with improvements in the quality of electricity service, even controlling for village size and distance to nearest town. A possible explanation for the finding is that early electrification generates economic gains that allow the rural community to invest in maintenance and upgrades.

Introduction

Rural electrification has progressed across the developing world over the past decades, with rural electrification at the global level reaching 84% by 2014 (IEA, 2016). One important consequence of the considerable variation in the time of electrification is that the equipment used varies across locations. In areas that were electrified early, the core electricity distribution infrastructure can be decades old and, depending on the country, sometimes of Soviet origin. In more recently electrified areas, the equipment can be more modern and recent. In our recent fieldwork in the state of Uttar Pradesh in India, we saw this dynamic in action. In Hardoi district, where many villages had been electrified 3–4 decades ago, villagers complained about very low hours of supply. They noted that the infrastructure had fallen into disrepair and that even on those days when the electricity substations received over twelve hours of supply, many villages received only a fraction of this theoretical maximum. In most respects, early electrification is good for communities. Translating energy access into economic gains takes time, so communities that were electrified early have an economic advantage over communities that were electrified in more recent years. At the same time, however, early electrification means dependence on infrastructure that is by now outdated. If communities that were electrified early have not benefited from regular maintenance, it is possible that the quality of their electricity service is actually worse than that of more recently electrified communities. What is more, such maintenance problems are widespread given that electricity distribution companies in most developing societies have been in serious financial trouble for decades (Victor & Heller, 2007; Urpelainen & Yang, 2017). As a first step toward assessing the possible disadvantages of early electrification, here we use data from villages in six energy-poor states of India. Drawing on the ACCESS data (Jain et al., 2015; Aklin, Cheng, Ganesan, Jain, Urpelainen, & Council on Energy, Environment and Water, 2016; Aklin, Cheng, Urpelainen, Ganesan, & Jain, 2016) for 594 electrified villages, we assess the relationship between the time of electrification and the household electrification rate, daily hours of electricity available, and monthly days without electricity. While it is intuitive that early electrification should boost household electrification rates, the association between the time of electrification and the quality of service (more hours, fewer outages) could be either negative or positive. We find that early electrification has been unambiguously beneficial to the villages in the sample. Not only electrification rates, but also hours of supply increase with early electrification. Similarly, outages are less frequent in villages that were electrified early. These results hold even if we control for distance to nearest town and include district fixed effects (N = 51), so that the finding cannot be attributed to transmission distance, variation in geography, or other factors.

Climate variability is a major source of risk to smallholder farmers and pastoralists, particularly in dryland regions. A growing body of evidence links climate-related risk to the extent and the persistence of rural poverty in these environments. Stochastic shocks erode smallholder farmers’ long-term livelihood potential through loss of productive assets. The resulting uncertainty impedes progress out of poverty by acting as a disincentive to investment in agriculture – by farmers, rural financial services, value chain institutions and governments. We assess evidence published in the last ten years that a set of production technologies and institutional options for managing risk can stabilize production and incomes, protect assets in the face of shocks, enhance uptake of improved technologies and practices, improve farmer welfare, and contribute to poverty reduction in risk-prone smallholder agricultural systems. Production technologies and practices such as stress-adapted crop germplasm, conservation agriculture, and diversified production systems stabilize agricultural production and incomes and, hence, reduce the adverse impacts of climate-related risk under some circumstances. Institutional interventions such as index-based insurance and social protection through adaptive safety nets play a complementary role in enabling farmers to manage risk, overcome risk-related barriers to adoption of improved technologies and practices, and protect their assets against the impacts of extreme climatic events. While some research documents improvements in household welfare indicators, there is limited evidence that the risk-reduction benefits of the interventions reviewed have enabled significant numbers of very poor farmers to escape poverty. We discuss the roles that climate-risk management interventions can play in efforts to reduce rural poverty, and the need for further research on identifying and targeting environments and farming populations where improved climate risk management could accelerate efforts to reduce rural poverty

Introduction: climate risk and rural poverty

Significant gains in food security and rural poverty reduction, associated with the Green Revolution, resulted from a combination of investments that increased production, reduced risk and enhanced market access. Subsidized inputs, such as irrigation, reduced the production risk faced by farmers and in part account for their willingness to invest in increased on-farm production and productivity. Because agricultural development efforts in the 1960s–1980s focused more on intensification of favorable areas than on the constraints in more marginal and risk-prone environments, the Green Revolution’s contribution to rural poverty reduction was less evident in marginal production environments (Pingali, 2012). Despite continued efforts to improve farmer’s living standards, poverty and food insecurity are still prevalent across large portions of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Prevalence is often high in the drylands (i.e., rain-fed areas in dry subhumid to arid agro-ecological zones), where climate variability exposes smallholder farmers and pastoralists to major risk (Hyman et al., 2008; Dercon, 2002; Walker and Ryan, 1990; Zimmerman and Carter, 2003). Today, there are increasing calls for a second Green Revolution targeted at regions with precarious agricultural conditions such as Sub-Saharan Africa. A central challenge is to go beyond increased agricultural production per se, and mitigate risks posed by increasing variable climate and marginal production conditions to ensure that large numbers of farmers move out of poverty and increase rural prosperity

1. Introduction

2. Material and methods

3. Results and discussions

4. Conclusions

Acknowledgements

References

The consumer of rural and farm tourism has evolved in the direction of being associated with types of fun and educational leisure activities. Tourism consumers search for new types of tourism, such as: farming entertainment. The aim of an educational trip in the rural areas is: to know the life and activity of the farmers, to create a positive image of the agriculture in the eyes of the next generations/ urban resident consumers. The educational rural tourism has various activities, i.e.: basic classes/ full courses/ short term workshops on the school farms. The educational activities for children include: floral arrangements, cooking classes on the farm, preparing natural herbal remedies, demonstrations of traditional ways of obtaining beer and wine, experience historical reconstruction of the traditional villages, etc. The recreational rural tourism includes: art of the plants, agricultural labyrinths, wine tasting tourism, vegetable picking, identification of spontaneous plant and wildlife species, etc. The authors present the steps have to be followed in order to develop new brand tourism products that meet the requirements for consumer’s education.

Introduction

Understanding the reasons for which consumers behave the way they do, i.e.: the factors that influence their behaviour – helps us determine their purchasing and consumption behaviour function to their education. Traditionally, it is believed that the factors that influence consumers’ behaviour are the following: environment, education level (culture) and psychological profile (Parsons et al: 2009; Pender and Sharpley, 2005; Robert and Hall, 2001; Momir et al, 2014; Petroman et al. 2014). Everything around us determines everything we do, including the purchases we make and the way in which we do these shopping: we buy or consume the same things as our favourite people, in the desire to identify ourselves with them, even if it is in this way only. We always buy and consume a product because it satisfied us, it is a family tradition, the product has an affordable price, as far as quality price ratio is concerned or simply because someone recommended it. Nowadays, “in the globalization age, interculturality has undeniably become a political, educative, social and geographical issue (Constantin & Lungu Badea, 2013, p.3548). The culture (education) is what defines a specific group of people in a particular moment in time and in a particular place. Culture is the total sum of knowledge, values and beliefs that people irrespective of the age have in common, and therefore is in a constant state of evolution and change. It is a fact that: “The rational tendencies, immanent to values and culture norms too, vary function to the country category, its mentality” (Constantin & Lungu Badea, 2013, p.3549) and that each country has its own culture and subcultures, ethnic cultures; the demographic and social cultures have a significant impact on what we are, on what we believe in and how we act or react.

Tourism and hospitality industry features large numbers of small accommodation businesses (SABs) such as B&B, home stay, and guesthouse. These special forms of accommodation are regarded as in contrast to conventional hotels, and thus are named as “quasi-hotels” (Slattery, 2002). SABs represent the core service and provide a large share of accommodating capacity in most rural destinations, and play a central role in rural tourism development, poverty relief and rural revitalization (Komppula, 2014). Due to a growing market demand in recent decades, most SABs have saw rapid growth in business size, e.g. room number, investment, facilities (Turner, 2011). This trend has been observed in various contexts (Huang, 2008; Iorio and Corsale, 2010; Komppula, 2014; Rogerson, 2004). Scholars envision that with boom of e-business and sharing economy platforms (e.g. Airbnb), SABs will continue to expand in scale and thereby reshape future dynamics of the hospitality industry (Guttentag, 2015; Sigala, 2015). Growth of SABs occurs on the early stage of their business lifecycle, and represents a transition of rural home to commercial business (Lynch, 2003, 2005). Therefore, it has both economic and socio-cultural consequences which are worthy of in-depth investigation. A literature review reveals that there is a disparity of attitudes regarding SAB growth and its impacts. Those who are supportive appreciate the economic significance of SABs as a typical form of indigenous tourism, and expect their growth to bring about more financial reward to rural households and boost local economy (Ateljevic, 2007; Goodwin and Santilli, 2009). Other scholars, in contrast, insist that SAB development should be advocated not only based on income generation, but also on preserving its attractiveness such as traditional lifestyle, quality service and memorable experience (e.g. Shaw and Williams, 1994). Increased SAB business scale, however, may bring about negative changes (e.g. lagged service quality control, eclipsed authenticity, and weakened experiential elements), and thus cause damage to tourist experience and further to destination competitiveness and sustainability in the long-run (Fuller et al., 2005). The afore-mentioned disparity of views alludes to a zero-sum game regarding SAB growth between the short-term economic benefits and long-term sustainability, between commercial value and authenticity, and between financial rewards and rural tourist experience. If this holds for true, then SAB entrepreneurs may face a dilemma when growing their businesses, in terms of whether to satisfy investors (better financial performance) at the cost of satisfying tourists (quality, enjoyable and authentic experience), or the other way around. Despite these suspicions and disputes, few empirical research has been conducted to examine the exact effects of SAB growth. This study aims to fill this gap by investigating the influence of SAB size increase on guest experience and financial performance in the context of rural China. Hypothesized relationships were built based on previous research, and tested with a hierarchical data set comprising 188 rural SABs and 873 guests in five villages in the north of Zhejiang Province. Different effects of SAB size increase were compared and contrasted between financial performance and guest experience.

Many scholars have called for a foregrounding of “Non-Western” knowledge and theory to equip tourism studies to better understand and interpret the new era we are entering, one characterized by the rapidly growing Asian, and particularly Chinese, tourist market (Chambers & Buzinde, 2015). Their aim is to confront the continuing dominance of “Anglo-Western centrism” because it has “provided the basis for misguided claims of universality” in tourism studies (Tucker, 2016, p. 250). One example of this “de-linking from Western epistemologies” (Tucker, 2016) in tourism studies is that researchers have sought to contextualize their discussions of tourism in China by using the terms and conceptual frameworks from Chinese culture. Guanxi, in particular, a unique Chinese concept, has been employed to understand Chinese society and gained its status as a legitimate socio-cultural construct in Western mainstream literatures of cultural anthropology, sociology, social psychology, political science, and business and management research (e.g., Vogel, 1965; Weber, 1968; Yang, 1994). Yet it has been underexplored as a framework for comprehending the lived experience of tourism in China. Even those studies that address the concept of guanxi exhibit a notable blind spot. Generally, in these few studies, guanxi has been interpreted reductively as an instance of more familiar phenomena and universal forms of social relations. In particular, this Chinese-specific phenomenon has been described as a political ideal or a pragmatic tool exerting influence on tourism developing processes. However, the indigenous participants’ localized “way of seeing” (Yeoh & Kong, 1997, p. 56) the roles of guanxi in their own tourism-related experiences is absent or at least muted in the extant literature.