Expanding rural markets means attracting more people to rural areas where they can then purchase local goods and services. This offers the potential for increased margins and improved returns for rural producers.

The creation of ‘rural destinations’ can help brand rural areas to tap into trends around the ‘experience economy’ and ‘slow tourism’. ‘Food tourism’ is a particularly exciting opportunity for many rural areas where they can brand themselves as food destinations. There are new opportunities for marketing rural destinations through websites, smartphone applications and social media. These can increase visitor numbers to an area and also help consumers to locate individual rural businesses. Rural producers can take advantage of these tools to attract consumers to their door and/or develop online sales.