The development of the rural tourism industry conforms to the basic requirements of the rural revitalization strategy. It focuses on the multiple values of rural tourism from the perspective of sustainable development, and provides a lasting impetus for the integration of rural industries, economic development and farmers’ employment and income. Based on the framework theory of Integrated Rural Tourism (IRT) and taking typical rural tourism villages in Shandong Province as examples, this paper examined the internal basis and stage characteristics of the collaborative development of rural tourism and analyzed the driving mechanism and realizing path of the rural tourism’s collaborative development. Results demonstrate that 1) the initial development stage of rural tourism relies on resource endogeneity and benefit sharing; 2) the market operation stage emphasizes organizational embedding and large-scale operation; 3) the rapid expansion stage focuses on the community empowerment and endogenous development; and 4) the sustainable development stage demands a balance of benefits and cooperative symbiosis. In addition, the research also finds that the community participation, multiple empowerment and value recognition, multi-stakeholder participation, association and coordination, continuous and effective institutional supply and regulation are the operating foundations for the coordinated development of rural tourism. In response to the problems and challenges at different development stages of rural tourism, including the imbalanced interests of multiple subjects, insufficient endogenous resources, alienation of rural culture, low degree of community empowerment, and the inefficient flow of urban and rural elements, this paper suggests to enhance the following cooperative development mechanisms: cooperative network construction and cooperative management mechanism, interest coordination mechanism of multiple subjects, protection and construction mechanism of rural social culture, and capital embedding, competition and cooperation mechanism.