The transition to sustainability is crucial in the contemporary era. Addressing the critical issues of contemporary sustainable tourism is essential. This transition requires the involvement of various stakeholders as it encompasses changes across multiple sectors with sustainability norms. Adopting a multilevel perspective in tourism is vital for the development of rural tourism. This research aims to analyze the transition to sustainable rural tourism, tourist mobility to rural destinations, and the economic resilience of rural tourism and to formulate future directions for rural tourism development based on supplementary measures. The research paradigm employed is qualitative with a focused ethnographic approach. A focused ethnographic method, centered on a single case study, is used in this research. Data are collected through triangulation to enhance data validity. In-depth interviews are conducted with informants such as academics, businessmen, government officials, the community as tourism entrepreneurs, tourists, and the media. The data analysis method used is appreciative inquiry (AI), which is one of the participatory planning and development approaches. AI employs a qualitative approach used to discover concepts or theories based on the analysis of patterns, themes, and common categories derived from observational data. The results of this research indicate that the development of rural tourism product components has been quite rapid and is controlled by local communities through tourism awareness groups and other supporting groups such as agriculture and fisheries. However, capacity building for the community is required to manage it effectively and efficiently in the future. The flow of tourist movements to regional tourism destinations has continued to grow rapidly to date. However, this movement is driven by interests in “sustainability, serenity, and spirituality.” The economic resilience of rural tourism is still very minimal in its development. Although the tourism potential is massive, it has not yet received comprehensive innovative touches. One of the approaches in this tourism transformation is supplementary tourism. The implications of this research are to propose strategic approaches in the transition of tourism development to accelerate the achievement of sustainable development goals through rural tourism.