Announcing the return of the world’s largest small event — the 2009 Rural Tourism Fair takes place January 19-30 in Oaxaca City and surrounding towns. The fair is hosted each year by Planeta.com and friends.

“This year’s event expands on what we’ve accomplished the past few years in Oaxaca, Mexico,” explained Planeta.com founder Ron Mader, who created the fair in 2001 as a way of conducting an inexpensive grassroots event to bring together locals and visitors. Among the advances — many of the local artisans and tour providers have their own websites and online photo galleries. The fair has also changed from a one-day market to a series of micro-events held over the last two weeks of January.

The fair encourages the integration of Web 2.0 tools including Facebook, Flickr, Twitter and YouTube to document best practices in rural tourism. Those not in Oaxaca are encouraged to create their own rural tourism events and to share their stories online the Rural Tourism Photography Group.

Among the highlights — local food tastings, photography walks, indigenous language lessons and videonights where we show locally made videos and photo galleries. Join us for a walk with the weavers in the town of Teotitlán del Valle, dining adventures at the Caldo de Piedra Restaurant and a hand’s on visit to a community garden.

The event — now in its 9th year — is held in late January as a way to kick start the new year. The program will be updated before and during the fair online http://planeta.wikispaces.com/ruraltourism2009.