Xijingyu Village, with only 500 inhabitants and hidden away in the mountains of Jizhou District of Tianjin, has reinvented itself into a must-see tourist site in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region over the past few years.

Established in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), Xijingyu is a veritable "stone village," with roads paved with stones, houses built with stones, together with the ubiquitous stone-built public facilities. It is also part of a national geological park.

The turning point came in 2014. That year, Li Qian, CEO of Beijing-based Jiulue Tourism Advisory Firm, made a proposal to the Jizhou District Government to transform old farmhouses in Xijingyu into boutique homestays with fewer rooms, highlighting the village's unique architectural characteristics.

"This modest and intact village appealed to us at first sight. It was surprising how well-preserved and long-hidden it was between Beijing and Tianjin, the two most populous cities in north China," Qiu Tian, manager of Jiulue's homestay program in Xijingyu, told Beijing Review.

Xijingyu's updated courtyard houses satisfy tourists' needs for country life as well as a premium accommodation experience. "It's totally different from those rustic rural farmhouses in my mind. It is an oasis of peace and tranquillity to have a taste of authentic country life," said a tourist on Dianping, China's location-based review site.

In July, a total of 320 villages across China, including Xijingyu, were designated rural tourism demonstration destinations by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism (MCT) and the National Development and Reform Commission. "Strengthening rural characteristics, sustainable development and protection, and the restoration of rural landscapes are the key goals of the designation," Luo Shugang, Minister of Culture and Tourism, said at a national conference in Chengdu, southwest China's Sichuan Province.

An exemplary village

Many villages have recently become popular weekend getaways for tourists. In the first half of 2019, 1.51 billion Chinese urban dwellers chose rural areas as their travel destinations, up 10.2 percent year on year. As a result, tourism has become a new driver for rural areas to vitalize the local economy and protect cultural, architectural and ecological diversity.

Agritainment, a farm destination for urban people to experience country life, used to be the major model of rural tourism in China. It appealed to urban tourists with low-cost packages including meals, lodgings and sightseeing, despite poor services. Now, villages are rolling out new measures—country-style premium homestays—in order to break away from this outdated model.

The shift has received enormous attention from the MCT. Emphasizing the role of homestays in rural tourism, the ministry has called for an eco-friendly approach that adapts to local conditions and retains local flavor in developing the industry. "Country homestays should not become a clone of hotels in cities or a refurbishment of agritainment," Luo said.

In Xijingyu, 40 percent of villagers have directly or indirectly participated in the tourism industry through the local government's Optimal Farm program, which encourages villagers to turn their rustic and spare farmhouses into boutique homestays.

For villagers who volunteer to participate in the program, the government offers interest-free loans, free redesign and remodeling of old farmhouses, and other supporting services. Funds have also been allocated to improve the public infrastructure and the landscape of the village.

Zhou Zhifu, a villager in Xijingyu, and his wife run a 10-room homestay, which opened in 2016. "Tourists love our refurbished house that preserves Xijingyu's distinctive architectural style. Our income has tripled since we transformed our old farmhouse into a premium country-style homestay," Zhou said.

Making a new living

Some 300 km away from Xijingyu, Zhonghaoyu Village in Zibo, east China's Shandong Province, is famous for its peach blossoms that cover the woods each spring. Once stuck in serious poverty, Zhonghaoyu turned its eye toward tourism in 2003, focusing on its ecological resources. However, many homestays operated by local farmers closed down in the following years due to poor management and price wars.

In 2011, Zhao Shengjian, a returned university graduate, set up Youyougu Tourism Development Co. in Zhonghaoyu. He invited villagers to join the company as shareholders and promised to reward them with dividends according to the money and manpower they invested. Upon the villagers' agreement, all the homestays in the village are priced and managed by the company. In addition, homestay staff is regularly trained by professionals.

About 400 farmhouses in Zhonghaoyu have been renovated into homestays with sightseeing terraces, from where tourists can enjoy the magnificent spectacle of the peach blossoms.

Visitors can enjoy meals cooked from vegetables freshly planted and picked from homestays' backyards. They are also encouraged to be "one-day farmers" and pick peaches, dates and persimmons in villagers' 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 villagers' 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 issue 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 company and a lot of young natives run small businesses.

The collaboration between the government, businesses and individual farmers has unearthed these villages' tourism potential and brought employment and new vitality to their economy.

In the first half of 2019, China's total rural tourism income increased 11.7 percent year 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 demonstration villages a total credit line of 100 billion yuan ($14.5 billion) in the next five years.

"With more support from the government, 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 development," Qiu said.

Copyedited by Rebeca Toledo

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