LAUSR

ABSTRACT Seasonality, a distinctive feature of the tourism and hospitality industry, refers to the temporal imbalance in tourism demand at a destination. In order to address this issue, the tourism literature often suggests that tourism operators cooperate with each other to create marketing synergies, and that destinations should develop a variety of products and services to cater for different market segments. However, there are limited studies that examine the practicality of these suggestions in the context of small and medium businesses in rural areas. This study addresses this gap via an investigation of the phenomenon of seasonality and its implications for rural tourism destinations. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with 16 local tourism operators and stakeholders in South Gippsland (Victoria, Australia). A key finding revealed in this study is that tourism operators’ views towards seasonality and their own mitigation efforts are not necessarily synonymous; hence, this paper speaks to the challenges rural tourism destinations encounter when attempting to take a collective and collaborative approach to seasonality. The paper concludes with recommendations for rural tourism organisations to assist small and medium operators to manage and mitigate the impacts of seasonality.