PINGSHAN VILLAGE: Students of fine arts paint the gorgeous scenery of Pingshan Village in Yixian County, Anhui Province (WANG LEI)

Tourism exploded in Hongcun thanks to these preservation efforts. According to data from Yixian County Tourism Bureau, the number of travelers to the village grew from 23,100 in 1997 to 1.03 million in 2009, an incredible 44.6-fold increase.

Hongcun, once a poor village, has turned into an affluent one. Local residents said that a local household in the area has an annual income on average between 100,000 yuan ($15,725) to 500,000 yuan ($78,625).

Zhongkun's Chairman Huang said that of the millions of dollars of proceeds from entry tickets to Hongcun, the company returns one third to local residents. In addition, local farmers also benefit by engaging in tourism-related businesses, such as operating hotels, restaurants and shops.

Every year, the Yixian County Government also levies 20 percent of ticket proceeds from Zhongkun Group to protect and restore cultural heritage sites.

A failed follower

Between Hongcun and Xidi lies Pingshan Village, which is also listed among the 169 famous rural habitats of historical and cultural significance in China. The village has followed Hongcun's development model, but fails to achieve the same success.

Pingshan, named after a mountain to its north, is also well-endowed with heritage properties. The village has seven temples built in the Ming Dynasty and 200 plus residential houses built in Ming and Qing dynasties.

In 2000, Pingshan contracted a private company, Pingshan Tourism Co. Ltd., to manage the village's tourism development program for 50 years. The contract has specifications to protect the village's heritage properties.

Several years later, Pingshan decided to terminate the contract. In November 2008, the Huangshan City Arbitration Committee ruled that the contract was revoked. In 2009, Pingshan commissioned Hongcun to develop its tourist resources.

"Pingshan's tourism grew too slowly," villager Yu Zhuanhao told Xinhua News Agency. Yu said that the company was making money from existing resources.

But Ge Fulong, the company owner, argued that his company planned to lay a solid foundation in the first 10 years, and vigorously develop tourism 10 years later.

He said that when his company took over Pingshan's tourism development program, the village was not easily accessible. The company invested 7.99 million yuan ($1.26 million) in repairing and paving roads and repairing ancient buildings, which had not been offset by ticket revenue. According to Ge, revenue had grown from 20,195 yuan ($3,176) in 2000 to 280,000 ($44,040) yuan in 2007 in Pingshan.

During a visit to Pingshan shortly after the contract was terminated, a Xinhua reporter found that while some of the ancient structures like gate towers had been restored, many other structures such as temples and archways were not well preserved. In addition, the river flowing through the village was littered with garbage.

"Although theoretically speaking, protecting ancient villages and developing tourism are complementary rather than contradictory, problems will arise if heritage preservation is to be completely financed by revenue from tourism," said Sun Jiahua, head of Jiangxi Province's Cultural Relics Bureau.

Sun believes the government should neither do too little nor too much in regard to preserving ancient villages. He said that some local governments had micromanaged tourism while handing over heritage protection—a public resource—to private operators.

"When ancient villages are left to contract companies to develop their tourism, their development plan should first be approved by relevant government departments," said Sheng Xuefeng, an expert with Anhui's Dianfeng Luyou Research Center. He suggested that county-level tourism and cultural heritage authorities should set up expert panels to carefully evaluate development plans of ancient villages and monitor the development process.

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