China releases guideline on sustainable development of rural tourism

BEIJING — A guideline on the sustainable development of rural tourism has been jointly released by China's Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the National Development and Reform Commission and 15 other departments.

The guideline put forward five major measures, such as strengthening planning to achieve coordinated regional development in rural tourism, and improving infrastructure and public services to make rural tourism more convenient.

The others include enhancing the quality of products and the level of service and management, innovating the marketing mode of rural tourism, and paying more attention to the benefits of rural residents to help poverty alleviation via rural tourism.

It also suggested other supporting measures such as improving the mechanism for financial investment, and further guarantees for land use for rural tourism, among others.

According to Ning Zhizhong, chief designer of the tourism research center at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, around 70 percent of the country's tourism resources are in rural areas, proving that the potential for rural tourism is huge, and including rural tourism in regional social and economic development is significant to the prosperity of rural industries.

The guideline will help create a win-win situation where the rural population leads better-off lives, investors are granted with their due rewards, and the rural environment keeps improving, said Wu Liyun, an associate researcher at the China Tourism Academy.