The preservation of cultural heritage has become an important component of government policies of the EU and, of course, Latvia. Along with the preservation of cultural heritage, the use of it is also important. The aim of the research is to choose the best scenario for the use of cultural heritage in developing rural tourism in Latvia. The paper focuses on the problem of use of cultural heritage in the rural tourism development. The paper defined three scenarios for the use of cultural heritage in developing rural tourism: the initiative of entrepreneurs, public organisations and residents; the programme funded by national and regional institutions; the EU fund for the preservation of cultural heritage. A decision on the choice of the most appropriate scenario was made based on an expert decision-making method – the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). Out of the three scenarios seven experts: rural craftsmen, a municipality vice leader, a civil servant from the Latvia Ministry of Finance, representatives from rural tourism organisations and the Association of Rural Female organisations, chose the third scenario – the EU fund for the preservation of cultural heritage.

The paper presents theoretical and practical aspects of content marketing decision application for rural tourism development using a case of a farmstead ʻĮlankos sodybaʼ. The first part of the article deals with theoretical insights into content marketing ability to stimulate rural tourism development. Results of literature review reveal that there are connections between elements of the content marketing and rural tourism development, which means that the use of content marketing can be economically valuable for the wider range of the farmsteads. The second part of the paper focuses on the case analysis of the farmstead ‘Įlankos sodybaʼ. In order to explore how the application of content marketing decisions can impact rural tourism development, an experiment of content marketing usage in search advertisement of selected farmstead was carried out. Separate content marketing elements were involved in search advertisement and changes of advertisement effect upon the customers were measured. The given results show that content marketing elements can improve the chosen advertisement effect upon the customers. This leads to presumption that the wider use of content marketing can improve not only the effect of separate marketing tool, but also can contribute to the development of rural tourism. The paper concludes with findings and discussion; limitations and future research possibilities are given as well.

Tourism industry is becoming one of the fastest growing industries in the world. Considering its significance in the economy of many countries, the research in tourism is growing, as well. Achieving to develop tourism industry, tourist satisfaction becomes a considerable goal for many countries. In this article, rural tourism is taken into consideration. However, scientific research in the field of Lithuanian rural tourist satisfaction is still scarce. Therefore, the level of Lithuanian rural tourist satisfaction and the factors determining their satisfaction are being determined in current research aiming to elaborate Rural Tourist Satisfaction Index in Lithuanian framework. Research results highlighted that the determinants of Lithuanian rural tourist satisfaction are: ‘accommodation and catering’, ‘destination aesthetics’, ‘environmental preservation’, ‘destination marketing’ and ‘perceived value’. Rural tourists in Lithuania value the benefits of ‘green marketing’, amenities and the efforts of expanding the variety of activities; the emphasis of all these aspects is perceived as ‘destination marketing’. On the other hand, levels of activities in rural destinations, quality of accommodation and catering, and aesthetics in Lithuanian rural destinations are insufficient. Enhancing these aspects could result in higher satisfaction and loyalty levels of rural tourists, and that would contribute to the rural tourism development in Lithuania.

The municipalities of Latvia are different in terms of business development level. Latvia’s regions are grouped into clusters based on several indicators: number of economically active individual merchants and commercial companies per 1000 capita, territorial development index, and proportion of working-age population. In addition to the business indicators, the following tourism indicators were selected: number of recreational establishments, number of bedplaces, number of individual rooms, number of farms and individual merchants making use of culinary heritage. All these indicators are statistically significant for clustering municipalities. The clustering was performed by employing K-Means clustering and using the data processing programme SPSS. All Latvia’s municipalities were divided into four clusters based on the business development level and the level of exploitation of tourism infrastructure and culinary heritage. The analysis results enable conclusions to be made that a positive correlation exists between the business environment development level, and the level of use of tourism and culinary heritage. Culinary heritage is an important additional possibility for fostering business and economic growth in Latvia’s municipalities. A linear multifactor regression equation was obtained, which associated the revenues of the operating budget of a municipality with the following statistically significant factors: population density, territorial development index, expenditure on economic activity development, number of economically active entrepreneurs and commercial companies, number of tourism establishments, and number of enterprises dealing with culinary heritage. The analysis of regression equation coefficients points to the positive effects of all the factors included in the equation on the revenues of the basic budget of a municipality.

Considering tourism as a driving force in the growth of rural economy, the research in this industry is gaining its popularity. In the era of the Internet, no business is imaginable without having its own website. However, implementing a website does not already mean that customers will like and approve it. Website quality is a necessary task to maintain in line with its functioning. The aim of the research is to assess the quality of the Lithuanian rural tourism homestead websites. Only understanding the website-related factors that are important for consumers may lead to a proper management of a website and customer attraction as well. The research results show that the information on the websites has to be easy findable, clear, and consistent; photos that substantiate the information are necessary; the information and photos have to be managed properly; and the eWOM part has to be included on the website. Proper management of latter factors can enhance the possibility of maintaining a high quality website that encourages consumer intention to visit the homestead.

rural tourism homestead choice in Lithuania. The aim of the research was to determine the balance between the importance and performance of factors affecting the choice of rural tourism homestead in Lithuania. The questionnaire research was provided in Lithuania in 2014. Tourists’ evaluations regarding five exogenous latent variables: ‘accommodation and catering’, ‘activities in destination’, ‘natural features’, ‘destination aesthetics’, and ‘environmental preservation’, and four endogenous latent variables: ‘destination marketing’, ‘perceived value’, ‘satisfaction’, and ‘loyalty’ were measured. The total effects for the specific endogenous constructs in the structural model (importance) and the average values of the latent variable scores, rescaled to a range of zero and 100 (performance) were measured to compose the importance performance grid. The research results indicate that the most important factors for tourists while choosing a rural tourism homestead in Lithuania are ‘destination marketing’, ‘environmental preservation’, ‘perceived value’ and ‘satisfaction’. Moreover, the highest share of the total investments allocated to satisfy tourists and enhance the level of loyalty should be accrued to the improvement of ‘destination marketing’ and ‘environmental preservation’.