Abstract: The research on tourist preference is an important research direction in rural tourism and provides basis for rural planning. Taking residents in the Yangtze River Delta region as research objects, this paper analyzes tourists' rural tourism preference and time payment willingness based on the stated preference method. Through the Wenjuanxing platform, the choice behavior of rural tourism destinations is simulated from five aspects of ‘scenery, activity, meal, accommodation, journey’. Distinguish multiple tourist groups, summarize the rural tourism preference, and time payment willingness according to the model fitting results. The results show as follow:(1) For tourists in the Yangtze River Delta region, the most prominent positive effects of rural tourism elements are in the order of ‘natural landscape’, ‘star-level homestay’ and ‘farm work experience’. (2) The main group of rural tourism is parent-child families, who have a good acceptance of driving, and have a high demand for ‘farmhouse restaurant’ and ‘standard accommodation’. The research results can provide design ideas and suggestions for rural tourism planning from the perspective of tourist needs.