Village tour is booming with the progress in Village Revitalization in China. Jason was invited to attend a forum of Village Revitalization in Berry Village of Chengdu on last Friday.
Village Revitalization has been a concept and national strategy in China for years pushed out by the government and strategy experts. There are 600 million peasants in China, but because of the great difference of economic output between cities and villages, most of labor in villages have moved into various industries of cities in the past 30 years, left only their olds and kids in villages. Villages were abandoned.
So village revitalization was called by the government and experts everywhere in China. The entrepreneurs and peasants riched in cities were encouraged to invest in the village, either in both farm planting or tourism development. Normally under the united plan of local government considering agriculture, economy and culture-tour, investors went to villages to develope various business, such as operating farms, building village hotel and restaurants, eco factories, etc. Many successful cases of villages revitalization have appeared in China.
The Bamboo Arts Village and Bright Moon Village are two successful cases in Chengdu. Local state owned capital invested in the village firstly for confidence, and then many private capitals followed later, the former traditional village of planting only rice and vegetables turned out to be extremely hot villages of attracting eco industries, artist opening workhouse, entrepreneurs building village hotels and eco-farms, tourist visiting and consuming, and peasants backing from cities to find jobs in local villages. Thousands of tourists go to the two villages every day for sightseeing and experience learning. And local villagers find jobs of guide, shops, restaurant, agriculture products sales, etc.
There are great progress in village revitalization around some big cities, but it is still a long way to go, because there are more villages in the over 2,000 small cities in China.