China News Service, Changsha, September 28 (Reporter Tang Xiaoqing) In recent years, Changsha County, Hunan Province has jumped out of the traditional single model of sightseeing and tourism, and has continued to promote iterations of cultural tourism formats, scene updates, and model innovations, and cultivated new differentiated cultural tourism formats according to local conditions, forming a development pattern of "one town, one feature, one region, one format", promoting the transformation of rural cultural tourism from "single sightseeing" to "in-depth experience, overnight consumption, and increased industrial income", fully activating the vitality of the suburban micro-resort market, and creating a benchmark for the integrated development of rural culture and tourism in Changsha.
The children came to Chunhua Town to conduct farming research. Photo courtesy of Changsha County Party Committee Propaganda Department
A traditional village transformed into a trendy resort space
The reporter’s on-site visit found that Changsha County is focusing on revitalizing idle rural resources, using old houses, old courtyards, and ancient venues as carriers to implant new, youthful and immersive scenes, and strive to make up for the shortcomings of scattered rural cultural tourism businesses and single experiences. Beishan Town relies on platforms such as the Youth Business Alliance to gather the power of makers, revitalize Beishan's idle courtyard resources, focus on building a "Beishan courtyard" cluster, and cultivate diverse business formats such as food education handcrafts, mountain tea and coffee, medicine, food and health care, catering and accommodation, and team building complexes. Represented by Beishan Shi Nian, Xianchun Banshan Farm, Xiangjian B&B Courtyard, and Hexin Medicine and Food Source, immersive real-life experience, parent-child handicrafts, and rural courtyard leisure have become mainstream consumer choices. Beishan's "small courtyard economy" has burst out in many places, turning idle farmhouses into new consumption scenes for urban people to relax.
"We will seize the opportunity of the Tourism Development Conference and continue to integrate resources such as ecological tourism, leisure vacations, and cultural experiences to create the 'back garden of Changsha City' and make 'Beishan in Changsha' the first choice for citizens' weekend 'micro vacations.'" said the relevant person in charge of Beishan Town. Based on local resources such as Beishan Forest Park, we have developed a number of hiking routes and launched three high-quality cultural tourism check-in routes: "Forest Breathing", "Slow Life" and "Leisurely Leisure", which connect landscapes, cultural relics, small courtyards and farming experiences to create a new cultural tourism in Beishan with scenery in all seasons and materials every day.
In addition, Beishan Town breaks the static viewing mode of cultural relics, revitalizes the century-old Beishan Bookstore ancient building resources, and implements the two-day and one-night Republic of China immersive reasoning script entertainment. The project relies on the actual scene of the entire Republic of China mansion to carry out evidence-based interpretation. It is different from urban boxed script entertainment. The core customer group is aimed at young and middle-aged people, attracting many enthusiasts to experience it repeatedly. Old ancient buildings are transformed into young and trendy cultural tourism check-in spots, achieving two-way synergy between the revitalization and utilization of cultural relics and cultural tourism consumption.
Dashali Village, Qingshanpu Town, Changsha County, has also revitalized idle residential houses and forested fields, introduced young maker teams, and gathered diversified business formats such as cafes and bookstores, boutique B&Bs, natural healing halls, and intangible cultural heritage bamboo weaving halls. It has also added trendy scenes such as a flying bicycle track, a live variety show experience base, and an affordable luxury picking orchard. It will receive more than 40,000 tourists in 2025, driving an increase in income of more than 500,000 yuan.
Wild Children Natural Farm in Qingshanpu Town. Photo courtesy of Changsha County Party Committee Propaganda Department
Local IP activates rural consumption increase
In Changsha County, various localities are based on local characteristic industries and cultural resources, deeply exploring exclusive cultural and tourism IP, promoting in-depth cross-border integration of agriculture, culture, tourism and sports, and opening up the transformation link of "resources into products, traffic into sales".
Among them, Beishan Town has deeply explored the unique resources of Beishan plum, a national geographical indication agricultural product, and organized activities such as the "Green Plum Garden Party" agricultural and cultural tourism promotion season to guide the mutual empowerment of ecology, agriculture, culture, and sports, and promote the extension of "Beishan Green Plum" from selling fresh fruits to intensive processing. It develops green plum wine, green plum coffee, perilla plum jam, green plum bread and other high value-added products, and continues to strengthen the Beishan plum IP through the linkage of festival activities, cultural and creative products, and special agricultural products.
Guoyuan Town relies on the characteristic industry of flower and fruit shrimp and Tianhan cultural IP to promote the three-dimensional planting and breeding model of "rice and shrimp ecological complementary symbiosis". After ten years of intensive cultivation, the scale of flower and fruit shrimp farming has reached 3,000 acres, and the brand is getting louder and louder; it simultaneously promotes the "courtyard +" model, revitalizes idle farmhouse resources, polishes the "Sister's Courtyard" brand, launches outdoor parent-child formats such as Dream Island Mountain Wilderness Park and Xiaobingjun Paradise, and builds a strong new media empowerment alliance to deepen the rural countryside. Operated by the CEO, we will expand Orchard Bochuang Valley, attract Internet celebrities to live broadcast and bring goods, and build a rural leisure system for daytime play and full-chain consumption.
"Since the beginning of this year, projects such as Xiaobingjun Paradise and Dream Island Mountain Wilderness Park have continued to operate vigorously, and a series of scene upgrades have given Tian Han's hometown a unique youthful appeal." The relevant person in charge of Guoyuan Town said that the town also uses special activities as a medium to continue to amplify " The effect of "a shrimp brings fire to a town" has driven the hot sales of local agricultural products such as morels and orchard chickens. It has successfully upgraded the "shopping around" to the in-depth travel mode of "stay one night, play for a day and bring a basket", which has significantly enhanced the thickness and warmth of rural tourism.
Using new scenes to attract tourists, new consumption to retain tourists, and new agricultural and commercial industries, Guoyuan Town continues to transform the profound cultural heritage of the hometown of the national anthem into strong consumption momentum for suburban micro-vacation, striving to create a model of rural cultural tourism in Changsha.
Qingshan Craftsmanship Workshop. Photo courtesy of Changsha County Party Committee Propaganda Department
Traffic economy empowers all-region cultural tourism
By focusing on events, festivals, and theme activities, Changsha County innovates the "sports + cultural tourism + agriculture" development model, accurately introduces external traffic, and achieves "gathering guests through competitions and promoting industry through festivals." It is understood that Beishan Town regularly undertakes high-quality outdoor events. In May this year, Beishan Town successfully hosted a municipal youth orienteering competition, attracting nearly 2,000 tourists to participate. It connected scenic spots and pastoral scenery along the route, and simultaneously carried out exhibitions and sales of agricultural products. The Changsha Station of the National Rural Orienteering Series will soon be held in the town. Beishan Town will also launch new outdoor formats such as forest hiking, mountain biking, and river-tracing camping to continue to amplify the ecological cultural tourism brand effect.
Guoyuan Town relies on the resources of the mountains, rivers and fields, focusing on activities such as the cherry blossom season, flower, fruit and shrimp carnival, and rural fun runs, to upgrade rural markets, mountain biking, camping and barbecue diversified business formats, and activate rural leisure, cultural and tourism consumption; among them, the 10th carnival welcomed more than 30,000 visitors in just three days, and sales of agricultural products exceeded 3 million yuan. The activity is combined with the consumer coupon policy to benefit the people, effectively stimulating on-site consumption and boosting the sales of local agricultural products. The series of events break the seasonal shortcomings of rural cultural tourism and achieve full-region and full-time traffic promotion.
In Dashali, Qingshanpu Town, through continuous iteration and upgrading of cultural tourism products, we continue to enrich consumption scenarios, fill in the shortcomings of the business format, and create multiple new experience projects. Among them, Flying Cycling World relies on the original ecological mountain and forest topography to carefully create multi-level and multi-dimensional professional cycling tracks, integrating outdoor sports, leisure fitness, and mountain sightseeing. It fills the gap in mountain sports and cultural tourism in the suburbs and has become a new popular scene for young people to experience mountain sports and light outdoor experiences.
Scenario innovation, business upgrades, IP empowerment, and mechanism innovation. At present, Changsha County's rural cultural tourism has completely gotten rid of the shortcomings of "something to see, no experience, and no ability to retain guests", and has achieved a qualitative change from "passing sightseeing" to "immersive vacation". In the next step, the county will continue to integrate cultural tourism resources across the region, connect red study, mountain outdoor, pastoral leisure, intangible cultural heritage experience, and night consumption diversified business formats, continue to enrich the supply of micro-vacation products in the suburbs, and polish the characteristic business card of Changsha's rural cultural tourism in the suburbs. (over)
