The paper investigates the axiological approach to rural tourism in terms of resolving the conflict of values that arises from the features of rural life opposed to those of city life. The paper postulates the axiological approach as one of the lines of research into rural tourism in terms of its value component. The need to refer to the axiological approach is determined by the importance of values as a component of personal experience in a modern economy focused on the production of services, which competitiveness is determined by their uniqueness. Based on R. Inglehart's theory, the author has proposed an approach to tourism as an activity, which includes both material and post-material values to form an internal conflict of values. It is concluded that rural tourism in the aspect of the axiological approach can resolve the internal conflict of values, material and post-material ones, which are formed under the impact of mythology widespread in society. The prerequisite for interest in rural tourism as a way to resolve the conflict is the mythological nature of the concept of the rural area as a lost paradise, which has developed in modern Russian society under the impact of social history and traumatic urbanization processes. The paper reveals the relationship between the axiological principle of rural tourism and the ethical component of the rural tour organization. The value of the authenticity of personal experience is shown as a fundamental component of the ethics in rural tourism.