The purpose of this paper is to understand the potential of niche market-based tourism routes to facilitate sustainable development in a rural destination context. Using Astro Tourism as the focal niche, a proposed framework depicts the stakeholder linkages eminent in an integrated process of product development. Towns in the Karoo arid region of the Northern Cape Province, South Africa, were selected as a region with limited resources and extreme poverty, yet housing two world-class astronomy projects (the South African Large Telescope (SALT) and the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). The study framework highlights the importance of establishing a coordinating forum through which the tourism offering can be conceptualised as both a developmental and promotional initiative plan undertaken collectively.