December 25, 2016

www.ndwww.cn (By Zhao Qiaohong) Since the beginning of this year, the city, based on the practical reality of the tourism development and scenic area establishment in the countryside, has closely integrated tourism development with targeted poverty alleviation, and initiated the new model of "rural development driven by the scenic area", aiming at pushing the rural economic development through scenic area establishment and rural tourism development, and enabling the impoverished people to increase income and shake off poverty by the tourism market.

The city is rich in rural tourism resources, but how to realize better poverty relief results by taking advantage of the resources and giving play to the coordinated effects of "tourism + "? Departments at all levels in the city have focused on the establishment of special rural scenic spots and routes, and guided and motivated farmers to participate in tourism development through beautiful countryside construction, rural tourism development and rural infrastructure improvement, forming a favorable opportunity to achieve beautiful countryside and rich countrymen.

In addition, the city is actively cooperating with the renowned planning and design teams inside and outside the province by means of scientific design, targeted support, model innovation and project promotion, reassigning the superior resources of different departments to drive the industry integration; devoting greater efforts to the planning, publicity and propulsion of rural tourism projects; reinforcing investment promotion and striving for various policy supports in finance to strengthen the delayed effects of development.

Besides, the city has also organized village and town representatives and rural tourism operators to take part in rural tourism trainings and has held irregular training meetings, exchange meetings and symposiums. Such intelligence support will further improve the management and service level, instruct the rural tourism development and enhance the service quality of rural tourism. At the juncture of "March 3 Holiday", "Peach Flower Festival", and "National Mountain Bike Cross-country Invitational Tournament", the city will bring its rural tourism into the market to stimulate the rural tourism products consumption and boost the villagers' income.

With the continuous efforts in poverty relief via tourism, the demonstration and driving effects of such projects have shown up gradually. The Chixi Village, as the "China's No. 1 Poverty-relief Village", has set up the new model of "rural development driven by the scenic area" for poverty alleviation after the development in three "Ten-Year" programs. Today the diversified touring projects around the Jiulixi and other projects involved as well as the increasing popularity have extended the income channels into mountain farming, farmhouse experience, restaurants and hotels, tourism products and labor services. The rural tourism in Chixi Village has "broken the cocoon into a butterfly" and become one of the pillar industries there.

Driven by the promotion of "rural development driven by the scenic area", great achievements have been made in the poverty relief via tourism citywide. In 2016, the city has experienced general quality improvement in tourism. From January to November, Ningde has received a total of 19.81 million visitors, achieving a year-on-year growth of 18.3%; and its tourism revenue has reached up to RMB 17.3 billion in total, achieving a year-on-year growth of 23.9%. Among the growth performances of tourist amount and tourism revenue citywide, those achieved in the rural scenic areas and related routes have accounted for over 60%. In the past year, scenic areas like Jiulixi were successively awarded as the national demonstration project of "rural development driven by the scenic area" for poverty relief via tourism; Dujia Village (Fuding) and Taoxi Village (Gutian) were awarded with the title of "2016 China's Beautiful Villages for Leisure" by the Ministry of Agriculture; 21 villages/towns (e.g. Qidu Town in Jiaocheng District) were listed in the fifth batch of provincial famous historical and cultural towns.