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”.
Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province, China
Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture is located in the west, of Sichuan Province, lying at the junction of six regions in Sichuan Yunnan, Tibet and Qinghai. To reduce poverty through tourism, Garze Prefecture has in recent years worked vigorously to develop all-for-one tourism. Through brand building, integration of industries, creation of a benefit-sharing mechanism, improvement of the planning system for poverty alleviation through tourism, development of urban and rural tourism as a whole and provision of tourism jobs for impoverished people, the prefecture bas blazeda special path of tourism development in line with the reality of the plateau.
Over the past five years, the number of tourists visiting Garze Prefecture has increased by 150%, with an average annual growth of 27.26%. In 2019, with the opening Gesar Airport, all-for-all tourism in the prefecture registered a soaring growth. 33.17 million Tourists came to visit and the tourism revenue reached 36,6 billion RMB. Garze Prefecture now has 57 A-level scenic areas, resort. There are 21 travel agencies, 34,000 registered tourism-related businesses and 5130 tourist hotels in the pefecture.
Bashan Grand Canyon in Dazhou City, Sichuan Province, China
Bashan Grand Canyon which hosts the only settlement of Tujia ethnic people in Sichuan Province, is a national 4A tourism scenic area a provincial-level scenic spot as well as a national demo area for poverty alleviation through tourism. By tapping the scenic area resources as the point of departure, and aiming to enhance tourist experiences by combining sight-seeing with amusement, Xuanhan County made special effort in developing tourism in connection with “culture, sports, recuperation and water-related activities” and launched a number of culture and tourist products with remarkable results in poverty reduction.
It successfully established the seven culture and tourism-led poverty alleviation models, namely, shareholding by investment of resources, giving help through business operations, providing work and employment, interrelating agriculture and tourism, organizing economic cooperation, integrating culture and tourism, and expanding housing projects. As a result, the registered impoverished population of the Bashan Grand Canyon area was reduced to 2,000 in 2019 from 91,000 in 2014; 102 registered impoverished villages in the area were all lifted out of poverty, the per capita disposable income of the rural population increased to 2.100 RMB. Cultural tourism has provided a new path for getting out of poverty and achieving prosperity in impoverished mountainous areas.
