Yunnan pushes for high-quality growth of rural tourism

The Work Meeting on Yunnan Rural Tourism was convened in Kunming on November 30. According information released thereat, the rural-tourism sector in Yunnan province received 924 million visitors from 2016 to 2019, making up 39.3% of all the visitors to Yunnan in the same period. The rural-tourism income added up to 730.14 billion yuan (around 111.47 billion USD), accounting for 23.7% of the gross income of Yunnan tourism. The sector employs 561,700 directly and 1,920,000 in directly, increasing the income of 750,000 poor residents in rural areas. In the future, Yunnan will continue to push forward with high-quality development of rural tourism, giving new impetus to rural revitalization. 

In the coming five years, Yunnan will include rural tourism into the planning on culture and tourism development, while the prefectures and cities of the province, as well as its counties and districts, will speed up tiered and systemic planning dedicated to rural tourism. Based on its distinct resources, Yunnan will also pushes ahead with the mingling of sightseeing, leisure, rehabilitation, outdoor sports and study tours, while stepping up branding distinct tourist towns, tour villages, farmhouse inns, tourist farms and starred home stays. 

To make the tourism dividends better shared by villagers, Yunnan province will turn farmers and villages into shareholders of rural-tourism cooperatives and tourist companies, encouraging firms to have a minimum dividend. By setting up family farms, model cooperatives and agro-enterprises, the province will promote shared farms and homestays, as well as the rural-tourism growth modes of “company plus household” and “farmer plus cooperative”.

Among other things, Yunnan will further specifications on developing rural home stays. While streamlining the examination and approval procedures, the province will build up model home stays for rural tourism, with one or two examples to be set annually in each county, county-level city or district. 

Source: Yunnan Tourism and Culture Times and Yunnan Net;  Trans-editing by Wang Shixue