Analysis of macro environmental factors influencing the development of rural tourism: Lithuanian case

The purpose of the paper is to look deeper into macro environmental factors and to analyse their impact of those factors on the development of rural tourism in Lithuania. The analysis is based on scientific literature (the analysis involves such scientific methods as systematic-logical, comparative and structural analysis of economic literature; holistic approach to the research problem; synthesis), statistical data (Department of Statistics, the World Bank) and mathematical statistical analysis (correlation analysis). Five groups of macro environmental factors were identified after analysis of various scientific literatures: economic, sociocultural natural-ecological, political-legal and technological factors. These groups of factors were analysed in the example of Lithuanian rural tourism sector much further. (C) 2015 Published by Elsevier Ltd.