Evaluation of rural tourism development level based on entropy-weighted grey correlation analysis: the case of Jiangxi Province

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to establish a more reasonable evaluation system and model for the development level of rural tourism, and provides a method for quantifying the development level of regional rural tourism.Design/methodology/approachThis paper provides a method for evaluating the development level of rural tourism, constructs an evaluation index system according to the connotation of rural tourism, then calculates the index weight by entropy method, and makes a comprehensive evaluation by grey relational analysis. Taking the development of rural tourism in 11 cities in Jiangxi Province as the research object, the ranking results of 11 cities were obtained by using grey relational analysis.FindingsThe overall development level of rural tourism in Jiangxi Province is positive, but the spatial distribution is uneven, showing the characteristics of “low-level aggregation and high-level dispersion”. The barrier model diagnoses that the degree of financial input is the biggest constraint to the development level of rural tourism in Jiangxi Province.Originality/valueThis study puts forward an evaluation model based on entropy weight and grey relational analysis, which is an important supplement to the grey relational analysis method system and has a positive role in promoting the quantitative evaluation of regional rural tourism level.