【正文】 3)most small tourism business, especially those in rural areas, do not have the individual resources to promote either themselves or the munity as a tourist product (Gunn 1988。 (5) hospitality: how tourists are treated by both munity residents and employees in tourism businesses and attractions (Gunn 1988). Left out of this list are tourism entrepreneurs and their role in fostering these ponents. While the above ponents and a munity’ s assets are clearly important to tourism development, only the widespread ４ participation and contribution of rural tourism entrepreneurs can ensure a broadbased foundation for successful tourism development. A research literature has emerged on how to best facilitate the development of tourism. One view, drawing heavily on the economic literature, argues that tourism and its associated entrepreneurship opportunities are best developed by helping and creating individuals businesses and then letting them pete in the marketplace for a review and description of this view). This view, however, has been critiqued because (1) it views tourism and tourismrelated businesses as isolated from the larger munity and its issues。(3) tourism infrastructure: access facilities (roads, airports, trains, and buses),water and power services, parking, signs, and recreation facilities。 additionally, rural tourism need not involve dependency on outside firms and their decisions on whether they want to be in an area. Rural tourism provides a base for these small businesses that might not otherwise be in rural munities because of their small populations. Tourism particularly helps two types of small businesses in rural areas— those directly involved in tourism (., attractions and hotels/motels) and those indirectly involved in tourism (., gas stations and grocery stores). Additionally, rural tourism works well with existing rural enterprises such as farms (., UPick farms) and can generate important secondary ine for farm households (Oppermann 1996).Noheless, rural tourism remains one of the few viable economic options for rural munities .Like other economic development strategies, rural tourism requires several ponents to be successful. Tourism development involves(1) attractions: the natural and manmade features both within and adjacent to a munity。s ability to bring in dollars and to generate jobs and support retail growth. The purpose of this study was to identify and examine those factors that have helped rural munities successfully develop tourism and its entrepreneurship opportunities. Several focus groups were conducted with local businesspersons and leaders in six rural Illinois munities. The results clearly demonstrate the importance of the munity approach to tourism development and that rural tourism development and entrepreneurship cannot work without the participation and collaboration of businesspersons directly and indirectly involved in tourism. ２ Since the 1970s, economic restructuring and the farm crisis have severely reduced rural munities’ economic restructuring has caused a loss of rural manufacturing plants and many jobs. The 1980s farm crisis in the Midwest also led to a decline in the numbers of farmers and restructured farm ownership, forcing some farm families to augment their ines with offfarm jobs, to depart farming, or to declare bankruptcy. The farm crisis and the loss of manufacturing jobs had substantial ripple effects in rural munities. As rural joblessness rates rose above urban levels, real ine growth stagnated in rural areas (Sears and Reid 1992). Many stores and agribusinesses disappeared from small rural towns. Not surprisingly, a 1992 statewide survey in Illinois found that 39% of rural residents perceived their economic prospects as worsening (Walzer 1993). These changes limited rural munities’ economic development options, making older develo