摘要：The paper explores the traditional rural identity and the possibility of its integration in the rural tourism product. There are two main objectives of the research. Firstly, to define traditional rural identity and secondly, to find the model to include it in the rural tourism product. Regarding these goals the hypothesis of the paper was that by including traditional rural identity in the rural tourism product it becomes more interesting, more acceptable and more competitive on the market. In order to prove the hypothesis, research was conducted in the rural tourist destination of Istria. The methods we used were interview and survey. We interviewed the inhabitants of Istria, at the age of 60 and over who lived in and knew the identity of a traditional village. We asked the tourists in Istria whether they found the traditional village identity interesting and accepted it in the rural tourism product.
关键词：traditional rural identities; rural tourism product; rural environment; competitiveness; the values of traditional rural practice; natural environment
