Using flowers as a medium to promote the revitalization of Qingyuan's countryside

In recent years, Qingyuan has made full use of the achievements of comprehensive rural reform and beautiful rural construction to vigorously develop the flower-viewing tourism industry in rural areas. Nanfang Daily reporter Zeng Liangchao photographed

There are grass finches in the south, peach blossoms and pear blossoms in the north, and rape flowers in the north... Qingyuan is located in the mountains of northern Guangdong, with a unique diversity of climate and natural environment, and nature has created the "back garden" of the Pearl River Delta. In Qingyuan in the spring, dozens of ornamental flowers bloom from south to north, and various flower viewing festivals have been held throughout the city, attracting a large number of tourists from the Pearl River Delta and other places to admire the flowers.

In recent years, Qingyuan has made full use of the achievements of comprehensive rural reform and beautiful rural construction to vigorously develop the flower-viewing tourism industry in rural areas. Nowadays, one flower ornamental scenic spot with different characteristics has settled in the "Flower Township of Northern Guangdong", which has also greatly promoted the revitalization and development of rural areas. However, narrow village roads, few toilets, etc. are still the shortcomings of many places, how can Qingyuan build on its strengths and avoid its weaknesses, and use the "flower economy" to achieve rural revitalization?

●Nanfang Daily reporter He Pengchong Coordinator: Wei Jinfeng

▶ ▷ North and South "blossom everywhere"

Qingyuan Flower Viewing Festival is full of excitement

"Heque Blossoms, Raider Tingting Yuli..." In a song of "Heque Flower Love Story", the 13th China Lingnan (Qingyuan Cattle Fish Mouth) Wild Heque Flower Viewing Festival recently kicked off, and Qingyuan "City Flower" Heque Flower bloomed again in March to welcome guests.

Since 2006, Relying on the Niuyuzui Primitive Ecological Scenic Area, which is the research and demonstration base for the cultivation of grass-finch plant varieties in the South China Botanical Garden of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingcheng District has successfully established the "golden signboard" of this Qingyuan flower viewing festival. After more than 10 years of publicity and promotion, it has become a habit of many pearl river delta tourists to go to Qingyuan every spring to watch the flowers, and the average annual number of tourists can reach about 100,000.

Located in the hinterland of Lingnan, the "Three Lians and One Yang" region also has a wide variety of flower ornamental resources, due to the relatively low temperature, so the blooming period is late and the flowering period is longer. Due to the "time difference" with the flowering period in the Pearl River Delta region, it is more suitable to hold flower viewing festivals at different peaks.

Since March, the Lianzhou Peach Blossom Festival and the Yangshan Libu Pear Blossom Festival have attracted a large number of tourists, and the special activities are colorful. According to incomplete statistics, more than 10 flower viewing festivals have been held in various parts of Qingyuan City recently, and rural tourism has achieved "Wangding and Wangcai".

▶ ▷Leverage the "flower economy"

Promoting Agriculture with Tourism enriching the people with tourism

The reason why all kinds of flower viewing festivals can blossom everywhere in Qingyuan is due to the remarkable achievements made in deepening the comprehensive reform of rural areas and the construction of beautiful villages, and "rural beauty" has laid a solid foundation for holding flower viewing festivals. At present, many towns and villages throughout the city will vigorously develop the "flower economy" as an important starting point for promoting rural revitalization and development, aiming to achieve the purpose of "promoting agriculture with tourism and enriching the people with tourism".

The reporter saw at the opening ceremony of the Yangshan Libu Pear Blossom Festival that in order to further expand the sales channels of agricultural and sideline products of local poor households, the event site specially set up agricultural and sideline products and Hakka food booths, and The specialties of Libu such as Liugu Pear Blossom Chicken, Swan Pond Landscape Crayfish, and Dalong Green Vegetables were favored by the majority of tourists. As a "demonstration town of leisure agriculture and rural tourism in Guangdong Province" and "Hakka style characteristic town", the town relies on the construction achievements of beautiful villages and famous villages in Lingnan, and has continuously promoted the development of rural tourism industry in recent years, developed comprehensive tourism products such as flower viewing photography and melon and fruit picking, and realized the upgrading of rural tourism quality.

In Jiuyaoshui Village, Longping Town, Lianzhou City, the blooming Kelsang flowers are competing for glory, and the white mu flower sea is also an important result of the local agricultural comprehensive reform. Since the launch of the "Thousand Villages and Hundred Flowers" project, Lianzhou City has vigorously developed the rural flower planting industry, and will vigorously develop tourism projects such as flower ornamentation and leisure vacations as a breakthrough for rich peasants to benefit the people.

After integrating the collective land of the village, Jiuyaoshui Village invited Yu Chunhua, a Taiwanese agricultural expert known as the "Lavender Grandfather", to create the first phase of the Lavender World Flower Industry Project covering an area of 200 acres with a total investment of 50 million yuan. Today, villagers can not only obtain stable income after land integration, but also earn labor remuneration for their work as gardeners and cleaners in lavender world, and can enjoy the dividends brought by the rural tourism industry without leaving the village.

▶ ▷ Ecological advantages are favored

Qingyuan Flower Sea "Stars and Moons"

Located near Liannan County, Yunhai Flower Valley Scenic Area is a large-scale flower viewing scenic spot built in accordance with the national 4A level scenic spot standards. Although the scenic spot is still under construction, many tourists and travel agencies have come to see it and discuss cooperation.

"Our corporate headquarters is in Huadu, Guangzhou, and the reason why we chose to invest in such a large tourism project in Liannan is mainly to see the ecological environment here, because the ecological environment is the biggest selling point of our scenic spot!" Manager Liu, the project leader of Yunhai Flower Valley Scenic Area, introduced it. As the largest flower theme scenic spot in northern Guangdong in the future, the scenic spot plans to invest 280 million yuan, with a number of functional zones such as flower viewing area, caravan accommodation area, cave experience area, etc., which will absorb nearly 200 local employment after completion and help local poor households achieve accurate poverty alleviation.

In September 2017, the provincial party committee and the provincial government decided to build a special ecological reserve in northern Guangdong, which is undoubtedly a major benefit for Qingyuan and a major strategic support. At the 23rd Standing Committee (expansion) meeting of the Seventh Session, the Qingyuan Municipal Party Committee stressed that it is necessary to firmly establish a new development concept, adhere to the development of protection, and actively plan to promote the construction of the Northern Guangdong Ecological Special Protection Zone.

At present, many counties (districts and cities) in the city will vigorously develop the "flower economy" as the development direction of promoting the development of rural tourism, promoting the integration of agriculture and tourism, and realizing global tourism. With the increasingly prominent advantages of Qingyuan's ecological environment, many investors have also taken a fancy to this hot land of investment and invested in creating large-scale flower viewing scenic spots, so that Qingyuan's flower-viewing tourism products have a "moon".

■ Sound

Bigger and stronger "flower economy"

Polish the Qingyuan tourism brand

As an excellent tourist city in China, Qingyuan currently has six major tourism brands of "family hot spring, passion rafting, leisurely landscape, strange love cave, warm nation, and strong love food". On this basis, spring tourism resources featuring flower ornamentation have added new highlights to Qingyuan tourism.

As early as the 2016 Guangzhou International Travel Exhibition, the Qingyuan Tourism Exhibition Area took "Flowers Blooming beijiang" as the theme, and qingyuan flower-viewing tourism has continued to heat up in the past two years. He Zhifang, deputy director of the Qingyuan Municipal Tourism Bureau, said that the spring characteristic tourism products of "viewing the sea of flowers and visiting Qingyuan" can not only be differentiated with core products such as winter hot spring tourism and summer rafting tour, but also enrich the connotation of Qingyuan tourism, and can also present the tourism characteristics of Qingyuan cuisine and folklore in a panoramic way.

Tourists come to Qingyuan to enjoy the flowers, and a considerable number of them are self-driving tourists who take the family as a unit. Xiang Chunming, executive vice president of the Guangdong Self-driving Tourism Association, said that the number of self-driving tourists who come to Qingyuan to enjoy flowers can reach one million person-times, and on the basis of flower viewing, each scenic spot can also connect the surrounding hot springs, caves, folk customs and other tourist attractions to make the "flower economy" bigger and stronger.

Zhang Xiulian, secretary general of Qingyuan Tourism Association, believes that the "flower economy" industrial chain is long and the comprehensive benefits are good, so it is necessary to inject local characteristics and extend the industrial chain around landscape design and local characteristics, so that tourists have a better tourism experience. "Promoting the integration and development of flower appreciation and other industries is a good way, and scenic spots should promote the development of accommodation, catering, shopping, entertainment and other related industries, while driving the development of weddings, festivals and other industries." She said.

■Depth

The village road is narrow and there are few toilets

Qingyuan's development of the "flower economy" must also make up for shortcomings

Due to the low threshold, good effect and strong popularity, the vigorous development of the "flower economy" in Qingyuan is in the ascendant, and rural flower viewing projects have blossomed everywhere in recent years. However, during the interview, the reporter found that most of the "flower economy" in Qingyuan is still in the stage of extensive development, and many details still need to be improved, especially the shortcomings such as narrow village roads and few toilets need to be filled.

In recent years, Qingyuan has been upgraded through the transformation and upgrading of the national and provincial highways "sub-poor roads", completely changing the history of qingyuan urban exit channels without a good road, and greatly improving the experience of self-driving tourists. However, many county and township rural roads, especially the "last kilometer" village roads into the village, are generally of low grade and narrow roads, which seriously restricts the further development of rural tourism.

The reporter encountered an embarrassing scene when interviewing a flower viewing festival, because the village road was too narrow to pass the car, a large number of vehicles had to reverse in turn under the command of the traffic police, and the dilemma lasted for more than half an hour.

In 2017, the environment of tourism toilet facilities in Qingyuan Has been significantly improved, but the "toilet revolution" of rural tourism has not yet succeeded, and practical problems such as small number and poor environment still exist. The reporter learned that during the rural flower viewing tour, the peak number of tourists can reach more than 10,000 person-times, and it is difficult to meet the toilet needs of the majority of tourists by relying only on the toilet provided by the village committee and the farmhouse.

In addition, many villages in Qingyuan have a short time to carry out flower-viewing tourism, and they are slightly extensive in terms of project design and tourism support, and it is difficult to cultivate "repeat customers" if the tourism content is similar and the elements are incomplete. The development of rural tourism may wish to introduce professional tourism companies for planning and implementation, so that "professional people can do professional things" can do more with less.

Since most of the flower viewing tours take place in the countryside, it does take time to upgrade the infrastructure. Organizers and scenic spots can make up for shortcomings to the greatest extent by strengthening management and services. For example, the narrow village road can take one-way traffic measures to avoid drivers from "dry eyes"; if there are few toilets, the number of temporary toilets should be appropriately increased to meet the needs of tourists to go to the toilet. Although these "soil methods" do not cure the symptoms, with the Qingyuan rural road "narrow road widening" reward and compensation policy, as well as the city's new round of "toilet revolution" and other policy support, it is believed that the city's rural tourism infrastructure conditions will soon be improved.