Rural Tourism Households Adapting to Seasonality: An Exploratory Sequential Mixed-Methods Study

The inherent vulnerability of tourism poses a substantial challenge to maintaining the productivity and stability of livelihoods among rural tourism households. Although tourism seasonality significantly influences the livelihood activities of rural tourism households, research exploring how they adapt their livelihood strategies to achieve optimal outcomes is limited. Employing an exploratory sequential mixed-methods design that combines thematic analysis and fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA), we investigated the relationship between the livelihood strategies and outcomes of rural tourism households under the influence of tourism seasonality in the Lijiang scenic spot of China. The results indicate that livelihood strategies adopted by rural tourism households include “Tourism Persistence”, “Seasonal Employment”, and “Seasonal Farming” during the off-season and “Extending Working Hours”, “Increasing Staffing Input”, and “Increasing Capital Input” during the peak season. Furthermore, these strategies form flexible combinations to realize livelihood outcomes, with “Extending Working Hours” being a necessary condition. The findings also revealed that the four configurations of seasonal livelihood strategies in the two patterns significantly contributed to high livelihood outcomes. One is named “Peak-Season Driven Pattern”; the other is named “Peak-Off Blend-Driven Pattern”. These findings provide theoretical and practical insights for sustainable livelihood research.