http://www.bjreview.com AUGUST 29, 2019 BEIJING REVIEW 31
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About 400 farmhouses in Zhonghaoyu
have been renovated into homestays with
sightseeing terraces, from where tourists
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peach blossoms.
Visitors can enjoy meals cooked from
vegetables freshly planted and picked from
homestays’ backyards. They are also en-
couraged to be “one-day farmers” and pick
peaches, dates and persimmons in villag-
ers’ orchards in summer and fall. A stream
meandering across the woods adds vitality
to mountain life and tourists can drift its
currents on rafts.
Specialty snacks and tourist attractions
such as rafting and valley adventures have
also become selling points in Zhonghaoyu.
In 2017, the village welcomed 780,000
tourists. Its income from tourism exceeded
28 million yuan ($3.97 million), and vil-
lagers’ per-capita annual income reached
38,000 yuan ($5,400), according to Xinhua
News Agency.
Along with running homestays, rural
tourism sheds light on the longtime is-
sue of population loss from rural areas.
Young people who left their hometowns
for job opportunities in cities years ago are
returning. Currently, 20 college graduates
work in Zhonghaoyu’s tourism com-
pany and a lot of young natives run small
businesses.
The collaboration between the govern-
ment, businesses and individual farmers
has unearthed these villages’ tourism po-
tential and brought employment and new
vitality to their economy.
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ral tourism income increased 11.7 percentyear on year, while the employment in rural
tourism-related sectors rose 7.6 percent,
according to the National Rural Tourism
Development Monitoring Report.
At the conference in Chengdu, China
Agriculture Bank announced that it would
give the designated rural tourism demon-
stration villages a total credit line of 100
billion yuan ($14.5 billion) in the next five
years.
“With more support from the govern-
ment, we will focus on establishing standards
for rural homestays in Xijingyu and training
villagers to become professionals in the rural
tourism industry to contribute to local devel-
opment,” Qiu said. QXINHUAZhao Shengjian, founder of Youyougu Tourism Development Co., interacts with a resident in Zhonghaoyu Village in Zibo, east China’s Shandong Province, on June 13, 2017
NATION