Rural tourism lifts income of Guiyang farmers

Guiyang in Southwest China's Guizhou province has created a group of agricultural tourism projects to help boost the incomes of local farmers.

Wang Xianchao is one of the beneficiaries. In 2014, Wang responded to the Guiyang government's policy to develop leisure agriculture by establishing an agritainment business. The project has already improved his living and economic conditions.

During the National Day holiday in October, Wang earned 90,000 yuan ($13,539) through his agritainment project, which was almost as much as his total annual income before 2014.

However, local agritainment hosts like Wang have struggled to adapt to the cycle of high and low seasons common in the tourism industry.

To solve the problem, Guiyang government has been developing several tourist attractions to make Guiyang into a year-round destination since 2015.

This measure has already benefitted 150,000 farmers directly. The rural tourism revenue for Guiyang in 2015 was 9,503 million yuan.

In 2016, Guiyang constructed a number of characteristic small towns, aiming to widen the channels for famers to increase their incomes.

Guiyang has built 39 provincial parks and 15 rural showcase areas in the past five years. Moreover, Guiyang plans to increase the number of provincial parks to more than 50 by 2020.

Tourists take pictures in a field of flowers in a park in Guiyang, Guizhou province. [Photo from www.gywb.cn]