Written by Liu Yang / Translated by Li Xiaoting

Bed & Breakfast to Start a New Era of Tourism Industry in Chongzuo

Written by Liu Yang / Translated by Li Xiaoting

More and more tourists transform from single sightseeing to comprehensive holiday travel,which brings the changes of consumption level and service needs, on the other hand, Bed & Breakfast (B&B)also upgrades from the simple architectural concept to the emotional level, many tourists have not been just satisfied with “finding a place” in a hurry, but to “find a distant home.” This has brought new tourism opportunities for B&B development, which also represents different culture and feelings. Nowadays, the large market of small Bed& Breakfast is attracting the attention of the entire world.Tourism industry of Chongzuo, which is in the gateway of South China, is still growing. Its accommodation and other hardware facilities are relatively inadequate, which becomes the development bottleneck of tourism industry needing to overcome. Then, whether small and beautiful Bed &Breakfast can become a breakthrough to speed up the tourism industry development of Chongzuo?

Chongzuo's unbeatable charm is waiting for you

Walking along Heishui River to north, the majestic atmosphere of transnational waterfall and fascinating rural scenery are more “fairy”; Near Nanning, Longgu Gulf-Fusui leisure tourism group has the dinosaur culture; Along Zuojiang River, rock paintings on both sides are full of primitive and mysterious colors; To south, Youyi Pass and Rosewood Cultural Expo City are with more border feelings; Dukang Pastoral of Tiandeng, Longzhou Fairyland,White-headed Black Langur National Nature Reserve,Daxin Longgong Fairyland...more than 500 small and large landscape sceneries, cultural relics, rare animals, rare ancient trees spread in Chongzuo of 17,300 km2land, which show its rich and marvelous tourism resources.

Green landscape, white waterfalls, red rock paintings...a group of colors comprise the brightest characteristic of Chongzuo landscape. According to tourism planning,Chongzuo city will build three national 5A scenic spots and 14 national 4A scenic spots the next three years.

Magni fi cent landscape is accompanied by the characteristic culture of local culture, which gives Chongzuo landscape abundant connotation and powerful vitality. For thousands of years, Chongzuo Zhuang ancestors lived near mountains and along water, which forms a variety of Zhuang culture,customs and habits and village architecture. Traditional folk culture such as Zuojiang Zhuang folk songs, Longzhou Tianqin Art, Tiandeng Zhuang Dalang Dance have become the reason to attract more tourists to visit besides the landscape.

Chongzuo has a group of high-quality resources and should give full play to the geographical and resource advantages to develop the tourism industry. However, it is easy to be restricted by multiple factors in the development because it is located in Guangxi border of China. Therefore, Chongzuo tourism industry development always lags behind relatively.What are the problems with this? How to revitalize Chongzuo tourism resources as soon as possible?

Some Chongzuo scenic spot data analysis showed that day tourist fl ow of Chongzuo is about 3,000, however, almost no one would stay here for the night. Why? It is mainly because there is no place to live around the scenic areas. “We attempt to make it up in 3-5 years,” He Liangjun, Deputy Secretary of the CPC Chongzuo Committee, said firmly. Because of its largely undeveloped stage of scenic spots, local tourism planning space and plasticity are very big and it is more beneficial to implement the top planning of the whole regional tourism. Feng Bo, Chongzuo tourism development committee director, considers that B&B development can solve the problem of “no place to live in Chongzuo scenic spots”.

Chen Shuo, vice president of Yangshuo Bed & Breakfast association and founder Yi Mutian, said: “Chongzuo has beautiful and pleasant sceneries and possesses the unique strengths such as natural resources and cultural resources to develop homestay industry.”

“We don’t want to enjoy the beautiful scenery alone, so we invite the Bed & Breakfast owners all over the country to bear witness together to the new chapter opening of Chongzuo tourism,” As a B&B industry pioneer, Xia Yuqing, the vice president of Let’s Start and Jiesu CEO, witnessed the magic of “having a B&B in a beautiful place” in the countryside renaissance from Mount Mogan Zhejiang to Songyang.

Chongzuo B&B Conference was held on September 8, 2017,and Xia Yuqing said they would start a new development era of Chongzuo tourism industry with some B&B brands hand in hand.

Bed & Breakfast as the distant home for tourists

In order to protect cultural heritage and achieve sustainable development, B&B is more suitable for the heritage areas compared with large hotels. Relying on landscapes, countryside and folk custom, B&B represents different culture and feelings,and gives people a different tourism experience.

There is no doubt that its well-preserved ancient villages such as Babutun of Houyi Village of Leiping Town in Daxin County, Baixuetun of Feng Village of Shangjin Countryside in Longzhou County, Laijiangtun of Yaoda Village of Ningming County, etc., are the most poetic carriers. Old-fashioned tile-roofed houses, towering old trees, ponds in front of villages, clear streams...all of these are the good bases for the development of Chongzuo ethnic customs B&B.

“According to the standards, the B&B industry is still a white paper in Chongzuo,” Zhang Di, the president of Guilin Bed& Breakfast association, said. It is this “white paper” where Chongzuo will “paint” out a Bed & Breakfast cluster.

In the Chongzuo B&B Conference, more than 600 people,including famous B&Bs, hotels, and local tourism industry practitioners and investors, gathered together to Chongzuo from Hangzhou, Lijiang, Dali, Xiamen and other places, talked about B&B industry development situation, and discussed B&B cluster construction. On the conference day, 10 domestic famous B&B brands signed in “a group” and settled down in Chongzuo, planning to set up the fi rst B&B cluster project of China in Chongzuo.

Karst landform of Chongzuo is similar with the famous Guilin landscape. In recent years, Chongzuo tourism industry is carrying out “Develop Chongzuo Landscape to Realize Dreams Different From Guilin” tourism development plan.Vice Secretary He confessed that besides the Chongzuo Bed& Breakfast Conference, he focused more on the new media promotion, which most B&Bs are good at, and each of them has a large number of fans. “Chongzuo hopes to get a chance to attract the attention from the whole industry, to combine more power of practitioners, and to be built as a Chinese famous international tourist destination in the coming 3-5 years, and it will open up to ASEAN as well.”

In addition to attract professional B&B practitioners’investment, Chongzuo specifically issued the policy to encourage B&B industry development the next 3 years.

According to the policy of “Four Supports, Three Swards and One Preferential Policy”, it encourages and supports the high-and-mid-end B&B brands, which have more than 4 million investments, and it has extra incentive policy especially for the high-end brands with big influences. In addition, it will provide enterprises supports such as tax support, training, etc.

Li Zhentang, deputy mayor and head of the publicity department of the CPC Chongzuo committee, said in accordance with the requirements of the synchronous construction of standard boutique B&Bs and general countryside houses, Chongzuo will build 3-5 new B&B clusters and villages, increase and cultivate 5-8 new B&B clusters and villages ever year after 2017, and achieve 15 B&B clusters and 20 B&B villages by 2020, to make Chongzuo as the best domestic B&B tourist destination.

Detian Waterfall

In August 2017, the fi rst product of Huashanli B&B series has been completed and built in Laijiangtun of Ningming County in Chongzuo. The old houses and yards were renewed into two hacienda-style B&B subjects, which have become the samples for villagers to use B&Bs to develop tourism. According to the introduction of Chongzuo tourism development committee, Chongzuo city received 20 million tourists in 2016, which increased 27.09% from the previous year; Total tourism consumption was RMB 18.279 billion yuan, increased 38.01% from the previous year. Chongzuo is exploring new paths to develop tourism industry now and with promising future.