Boutique B&Bs lead mountain village's revival

SHIJIAZHUANG — Duan Jinghe is renovating his courtyard home in Nanyu village, located in Laishui county in Hebei province.

The 32-year-old runs two guesthouses with a total of nine rooms in the village in the Taihang Mountains, which lie on the border between Hebei and Beijing.

"Although it is low season here now, we can take advantage of the time to improve the guesthouses," Duan said.

Duan worked elsewhere after graduating from university, but as he saw tourism develop in the village, he decided to return home to start a business. In 2019, he turned his unused house into a B&B. The rooms, which are fashionably designed, and his enthusiastic service brought in a steady stream of customers.

"For the past two years, although we were affected by the epidemic, profits in peak season were really good. In the summer of last year, we earned 300,000 yuan ($43,075)," he said.

Nanyu was once poverty-stricken. In 2012, per capita income there was less than 2,000 yuan, and 52 out of the village's 220 households were classified as poverty-stricken.

"We are located in deep mountains," said Duan Chunting, village Party chief. "In the past, transportation was inconvenient, there was little farmland, and people were not rich. Most young people chose to leave the village for work."

In 2014, thanks to the opening of a major highway that has an exit nearby, Nanyu's fortunes were turned around. With the transportation problem solved, the village's geographical advantages began to drive the development of tourism.

"Our village borders Beijing's Fangshan district, and there are some beautiful and famous scenic spots nearby. The mountains, the water and the air here are good and suited to developing tourism," Duan Chunting said.

In recent years, Nanyu has also begun to develop rural tourism by building roads and bridges and turning old farmhouses into boutique homestays, so now villagers can earn money at home and lead better lives, Duan Chunting added.

In April 2016, the village set up a cooperative that was responsible for the transformation of old houses and the creation of a boutique B&B brand. Traditional rural food and farming culture are integrated into tours so that people from the city can experience village customs.

"Our cooperative brings in professional companies to operate the B&Bs, and the revenues are shared between the cooperative and the operators," Duan Chunting said. "Fifty percent of the cooperative's share is distributed as dividends, and the other 50 percent is used as follow-up development funds. Each villager invests 1 yuan, and they all share the profits."

With its natural scenery and exquisite B&Bs, Nanyu village has become popular online, attracting many tourists from the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.

At the end of 2018, the village was officially declared to have been lifted out of poverty. Its boutique B&Bs have also generated good economic benefits. By 2021, they had brought in cumulative revenue of more than 11.6 million yuan, 1.8 million yuan of which has been distributed as dividends.

In recent years, Nanyu has been declared a "national rural governance model village" and a "provincial beautiful village", among other honors. It now has 70 medium and high-end B&Bs with more than 400 rooms, and attracts around 30,000 tourists a year.

At present, the county has 500 B&Bs, mostly family-run, said Li Weimin, director of Laishui county's culture, radio, television and tourism bureau. In 2021, the county's B&B revenues rose to more than 41 million yuan, creating jobs for some 1,300 people, and resulting in social benefits of more than 100 million yuan.

Xinhua