The Mechanism of Rural Tourism Development—Taking Yangshuo County as An Example

Rural tourism plays a crucial role in promoting the process of urban-rural integration and regionally coordinated development. Drawing on theories of tourism system drive and system science, this study constructed a rural tourism system dynamics model with four subsystems: demand, supply, media, and support. Subsequently, we predicted the optimal mechanism for rural tourism development using scenario simulation methods. The findings were four-fold. (1) The rural tourism development dynamics system constructed in this study overcame the limitations of previous subsystem divisions. (2) Under the development scenarios of Natural development mechanism (NDM), Demand driven mechanism (DDM), Supply driven mechanism (SDMe), Media driven mechanism (MDM), Support driven mechanism (SDMu), and Synergistic driven mechanism (SDMy), the rural tourism development index values in 2035 were 0.678, 0.702, 0.755, 0.715, 0.776, and 0.836, respectively. Among these scenarios, SDMy emerged as the ideal mechanism for rural tourism development in Yangshuo County. (3) Based on the characteristics of the rural tourism development index, rural tourism in Yangshuo County has undergone three stages: fluctuating growth, rapid development, and recession. (4) Yangshuo County's rural tourism supply index grows slowly and is always below 0.8, which is a key link for future structural optimization. This study proposes a direction for rural tourism development in Yangshuo and a later impetus, which can accelerate the process of urban-rural integration in Yangshuo and similar areas.