HANGZHOU, July 3 (Xinhua) — About 20 years in the past, the architect Chen Gu returned to his hometown to arrange to start out a enterprise, however as a substitute took over a challenge to renovate a hole village administered by Hengshanwu Village in Anji County, east China’s Zhejiang Province.
Hengshanwu was on the time a poor village with a deteriorating surroundings as a consequence of mining actions. The native vegetation was destroyed and the sewage ditches gave off a foul odor. As a outcome, most locals selected to maneuver away.
“Previously, I had to carry my bicycle on my shoulder to walk back to the village on rainy days because of the muddy dirt roads here,” mentioned Cai Mingfu, Party chief of Hengshanwu Village.
The village noticed a turning level in 2003, when Zhejiang launched the Green Rural Revival Program, which concerned renovating about 10,000 integrated villages and remodeling about 1,000 central villages amongst them into examples of reasonable prosperity in all respects. Thanks to this system, the village began a marketing campaign of rural renovation and building, and made important enhancements in hardening its roads, waste assortment and dredging its river ditches within the following years.
With a brand-new look, Hengshanwu Village started vigorously growing its tourism financial system primarily based on its superior nature sources. Local authorities invited the Anji native Chen to assist construct the as soon as hole village right into a vacationer group.
“I grew up in the mountains here and wanted to create a modern, earthy countryside,” the 52-year-old skilled architect mentioned.
Chen spent years on the general planning and panorama design of the village, in addition to the renovation and ornament of the native dwellings. On the idea of preserving the unique look of the village, he created a cluster of homestays in Hengshanwu and named the realm “Xiaoyin” in Chinese, which means an “escape” from town.
Locals can hire their homes to Chen’s skilled administration workforce, or they will run the homestays by themselves. “We don’t want to drive the people away, but to do a good job in the rural cultural tourism industry and achieve common prosperity together,” Chen mentioned.
Before building started, Chen developed a cultural theme and elegance for every homestay based on the persona and areas of experience of the host. In 2019, the homestay space formally started operations.
“We focus on differentiation and have built 19 homestays with different styles, such as traditional Chinese and Japanese styles,” Chen mentioned. The homestays even have assorted themes corresponding to parenting, tea, studying and mountains. There are additionally amenities corresponding to a library, eating places, espresso and dessert retailers, bars and artist studios within the space.
In 2022, Xiaoyin grew to become a preferred spot for social media customers, receiving greater than 350,000 guests, bringing in an annual income of over 67 million yuan (about 9.29 million U.S. {dollars}). Its common every day turnover was greater than 40,000 yuan through the May Day vacation this yr.
“We believe the greatest luxury in the future will be rural life,” Chen mentioned.
Anji native Huang Dong, 45, introduced his restaurant chain, Huang Mama’s Cuisine, to Xiaoyin in 2018. After its environmental and repair upgrades, the mist-shrouded, garden-style restaurant has attracted loads of diners from afar.
“Although our restaurant is in a village, the per capita consumption of customers can reach about 200 yuan, and it is often full during holidays,” Huang mentioned.
Even by way of the COVID-19 pandemic, the restaurant maintained a mean annual income of about 20 million yuan. “Our revenue is expected to hit about 25 million yuan this year,” Huang mentioned.
He mentioned the success of the restaurant is inseparable from the village’s glorious enterprise surroundings. The native authorities not solely offers coverage assist for enterprises, but in addition helps to eliminate waste and perform regional greening work. As one of many main companies within the space, Huang’s restaurant additionally receives a subsidy of 300,000 yuan from the federal government yearly.
“We can really feel that the government is serving the business, and it gives us a lot of autonomy. But for us, we have more pressure and build the area like home,” Huang mentioned.
In 2022, the tourism income of Hengshanwu Village was 108 million yuan, and the per capita web revenue of locals exceeded 55,000 yuan.
“The biggest change brought about by the Green Rural Revival Program was the uniting of people’s hearts. When people are united and full of vigor, the road to common prosperity becomes wider and wider,” Cai mentioned.