Rural transformation development is an important issue in China’s urbanization. As a highly correlated andcomprehensive industry that is related to many sectors of the national economy, tourism is regarded as one of the significant driving force of rural transformation development. Tourism development can effectively promote the rural transformationdevelopment in the aspects of upgrading rural industry structure, renovating “hollow village”, increasing farmer’s income and reconstructing rural space. In this paper, based on a systematic review of existing researches on the driven mechanism of rural transformation development, the interactive relationship between tourism and rural development was discussed.Then the mechanism and theoretical analytical framework for tourism driven rural transformation development was exploredby using the PSR (Pressure-State-Response) model which is widely used in the research on the interactive relationshipbetween human society and the geographical environment. At last, an empirical analysis was conducted through a casestudy of rural tourism planning in Panjin Municipality, Liaoning Province, in order to put forward the viable model forrural tourism development, and identify the critical success factors of tourism-driven rural transformation development,including local based on resource endowments, aligning with modern requirements, paying attention to integration ofeconomic sectors, strengthening interaction between city development and tourism, keeping landuse balance, stressingeco-environment protection, enhancing development innovation and promoting public participation. This paper proposedthe feasible and future prospects of the tourism-driven rural transformation development in Northeast China, and provides a reference for other similar rural areas in China.