LAUSR

Abstract This study aims to offer a basis for developing appropriate response strategies through understanding tourists’ natural perceptions related to their rural tourism experiences and the characteristics of the rural tourism market segments. To achieve this purpose, the netnography methodology, which is an online participatory observation technique based on user-generated online content that enables market researchers to observe natural consumer behaviors, was conducted on 1002 tourists’ opinions in three online communities. Qualitative information derived from netnography combined with quantitative tools, multiple correspondence analysis and cluster analysis, allows for the segmentation of the rural tourism market. It has been confirmed that three market segments exist in rural tourism in Spain and three corresponding themes have also been derived from the results; comfort-driven visitor, rural ambiance spender, and active leisure seeker. This study is significant in that it began with the qualitative collection of user-generated online content from netnography and finished with the quantitative segmentation of the market based on tourist experiences.