In the digital age, e-commerce has emerged as a transformative force in the domain of rural tourism, infusing traditional practices with renewed dynamism. This study employs the spatiotemporal extreme entropy value method to assess the evolution of rural tourism in China. The investigation delves into the influence of e-commerce on the qualitative enhancement of rural tourism, utilizing a dynamic panel data model to analyze its effects and conducting heterogeneity tests based on geographic and economic criteria. According to the weights assigned by the spatiotemporal extreme entropy method, the quality of rural tourism development in China generally increased between 2013 and 2023, with a notable dip to 0.3005 in 2020. The heterogeneity analysis, implemented through a fixed-effects model, reveals significant positive impacts in both the eastern and central regions at the 5% significance level. Moreover, regions with a medium level of economic development exhibit a robust positive effect, with a regression coefficient of 0.429. The developmental impact of e-commerce on high-quality rural tourism is statistically significant at the 1% level, and all control variables demonstrate significant positive correlations. These findings underscore the substantial role that e-commerce development plays in advancing high-quality rural tourism.