“Better Tourism, Better Life, Better World” project shows cases of poverty alleviation in China through tourism. The project, includes photo exhibition and documentary series, describe provinces, autonomous regions, cities and villages across China that were once in severe poverty and thanks to the tourism industry got out of poverty and had a better life”.
“Hand in Hand, Heart to Heart” Congjiang County, Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture, Guizhou, China
Congjiang is an example of tourism development through local agriculture. As part of the project, fruit and vegetables, lotus and all kinds of goodies were planted in the area. To turn these fields into a leisure garden for sightseeing and picking fruits and vegetables. This flower and seeding flower base benefited 190 people from 51 poverty-stricken households. In addition to the development of agriculture, extensive development of the infrastructure system, sanitary conditions and drinking water was also required. During the process, new guest houses were established and during the year of 2018 there were 4,000 new tourists who came to Congjiang for healthcare and recreation. The successful “Congjiang Model” combined between agricultural and cultural tourism and improved the locals’ life quality.
Haiping Yi Village, Shuicheng County, Guizhou Province, China
Shuicheng County in Guizhou Province has been proactively exploring an innovative model of poverty alleviation through resettlement. Following the scheme of “resettling a village, building a scenic zone, developing an industrial park, invigorating a town and lifting a batch of people out of poverty”, the county gathered the impoverished people living in remote and inhospitable areas and resettled them to places with favorable conditions such as tourist areas, industrial parks, towns with special features or urban residential areas. It successfully set up the “Haiping model” of poverty alleviation through resettlement, characterized by working simultaneously on six fronts, namely. formulating strategy at the top level, investing in housing projects from diverse sources, providing stable jobs with the help of enterprises, starting new businesses with villagers as shareholders, and transforming existing assets into tourism-related industries.
The 1,000-household Haiping Yi Village is located inside the Haiping Yi Cultural Town which has built a Yi Cultural Park, a folk culture shopping street, a World Whipping Top Museum, a Haiping Red Memorabilia Museum, a sightseeing train and other facilities characteristic of local culture. Lying at the foot of the mountains, the village is divided into six groups in line with the six branches of the Yi ethnic people, the “Wu, Zha, Nuo, Heng. Bu, and Mo” branches, which showcase the Yi traditional culture as well as the success of the Haiping poverty alleviation model.
