From 'building villages' to 'developing villagers'

The country should combine investment in physical assets with investment in people to promote high-quality development of rural tourism

At the first meeting of the Central Commission for Financial and Economic Affairs under the 20th Communist Party of China Central Committee in May 2023, Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, stressed that "investment in physical assets should be closely integrated with investment in people".

The fourth plenary session of the 20th CPC Central Committee last October and the Central Economic Work Conference held at the end of 2025 made corresponding arrangements, while the outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) for national economic and social development further specified relevant tasks. The concept of "investing in people" represents a concrete application of the people-centered development philosophy in China's economic and social development in the new era.

As an essential component of Chinese modernization, rural vitalization is ultimately about the vitalization of people. In recent years, rural tourism has played an increasingly important role in promoting rural industrial integration, expanding channels for villagers' income growth, and unlocking the value of rural resources. However, it should also be recognized that rural tourism development should not be limited to "building attractions, upgrading spaces and attracting visitors".

In some areas, villagers still have a limited role to play in decision-making, lack sufficient capacity to participate in tourism development and are weakly connected to the distribution of tourism benefits. Consequently, tourism development has not yet been fully aligned with the broader goal of improving the overall well-being and capabilities of rural residents. Achieving high-quality development of rural tourism requires closely combining investment in physical assets with investment in people.

First, rural tourism should shift from "building villages" to "developing villagers" by strengthening residents' capacity to participate in development. For a long time, some rural tourism initiatives have placed greater emphasis on external investment, infrastructure construction and landscape transformation, treating rural tourism simply as the process of "creating a tourism destination".

Although roads have been improved, villages have become more attractive and tourist numbers have increased, local residents' capacity to participate in tourism industries, manage businesses and create value has not necessarily improved at the same pace. They are often involved only as land providers, low-skilled workers or service providers, becoming supporting actors rather than core participants in tourism development.

Sustainable rural tourism should enable local residents to become participants, operators and beneficiaries of tourism development. This requires not only continued investment in transportation, environmental improvement and public facilities, but also greater efforts to enhance villagers' entrepreneurial skills, service capabilities, market awareness and digital literacy.

By helping residents develop modern tourism management skills in areas such as product design, brand marketing, customer service and e-commerce operations, rural residents can transform from passive recipients of tourism development into active creators of value.

Second, rural tourism should expand from "increasing economic income" to "improving quality of life", ensuring that local residents share the benefits of development. In the past, some regions focused primarily on attracting tourism projects and increasing consumption by visitors, while paying insufficient attention to the relationship between tourism development and villagers' everyday lives. As a result, some residents living in the tourism destinations have not been able to fully benefit from the growth of tourism.

High-quality rural tourism should integrate industrial development with community development by linking tourism initiatives with improvements in public services, living environments and cultural life.

Tourism development can help upgrade rural infrastructure, improve living conditions and strengthen community cohesion through cultural activities. It can also create new opportunities to attract young people back to rural areas for entrepreneurship, transforming villages from simple tourism consumption spaces into places suitable for both living and working.

At the same time, more effective benefit-sharing mechanisms should be established. Through the participation of village collective economic organizations, cooperative business models, and mechanisms such as equity participation based on local resources, tourism revenues can be distributed more equitably among residents. This can prevent tourism development from becoming a process that benefits only a small number of investors or operators.

Third, rural tourism should shift from "prioritizing investment in physical assets" to "empowering people", achieving coordinated progress between material development and human development. Physical construction alone provides only the "hardware" foundation for rural tourism. The capabilities, creativity and active participation of people ultimately determine the quality and sustainability of development.

Therefore, rural tourism development requires an organic integration between investment in physical assets and investment in people. Infrastructure projects, digital platforms and tourism industries should be designed and implemented in ways that can better serve residents' development needs, allowing material investment to become a foundation for enhancing human capabilities and improving livelihoods.

Meanwhile, by strengthening residents' abilities and encouraging their active participation, rural communities can further unlock the value of physical resources, enabling rural spaces, cultural heritage and tourism facilities to generate lasting vitality.

Over the 15th Five-Year Plan period, high-quality development of rural tourism requires a transition from simply investing in physical assets toward combining investment in physical assets with investment in people.

Investment in physical assets provides the foundation for development, while investment in people stimulates endogenous vitality. Integrating industrial growth with human development is the essential path for rural tourism to become a sustainable force that advances rural revitalization and improves people's well-being.

Xu Hong is the dean of the College of Tourism and Service Management at Nankai University. Huang Chengkun is an associate professor of the School of Cultural Tourism and Public Administration at Fujian Normal University. The authors contributed this article to China Watch, a think tank powered by China Daily.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

Contact the editor at editor@chinawatch.cn.