Mobility and border tourism development contributed to the social and spatial interactions among residents dwell in cross-border areas and further contextualized the blueprint of rural border areas in terms of tourism development. Mobility has become so crucial that either seasonal or permanent residents get involved and inspired to adapt to the spatial changes of living, working, trading and travelling conditions. With such context, understanding how mobility shapes the residents’ motives and expectation towards tourism and to what extent residents in rural border areas perceive tourism development is of vital importance. This article aims to identify attitude of individual residents with diverse social demographic characteristics who got involved in border tourism and cross-border mobility in Kyirong Vally of Sino-Nepal border. This study employed a mixed method explanatory sequential design by conducting quantitative survey questionnaire with a qualitative follow-up semi-structured interview to identify residents’ attitude towards tourism development. Finally, this article demonstrates that motility is indeed a form of capital highly connected with economic, social, or cultural capital, present as a factor in social cultural interaction and both seasonal and permanent residents held positive attitude and high expectations towards border tourism development.

Key words: mobility, tourism development, rural border areas, Kyirong Vally