Qibie: a village enriched by rural tourism
Qibie is a village embraced by the Hengduan Mountains in northwest Yunnan’s Diqing Tibetan autonomous prefecture. Key scenic spots nearby include the National Park of Black Snub-Nosed Monkey, a thousand-year-old ginkgo tree as well as the Qizhongshen Spring.
Several years ago, villagers there began to turn their own houses into hostels and venues for agritourism to welcome tourists. And today, the Tianyuange restaurant has always been crammed with customers during lunch and dinner times.
“By preparing food for ten tables a day, we can ear nearly 170,000 yuan every year. Moreover, we have given stable jobs to 11 people in the village,” said He Qingmei, the restaurant owner, smiling.
Lying to the east of Tachen, Weixi Lisu autonomous country, the Qibie village is resided by people from 6 ethnic groups, and each one of them has their distinctive cultures and customs.
On the basis of such ethnic cultural diversity, the village has provided visitors with a range of taste programs, such as local home visits, Tibetan cloth-making as well as traditional dance show, so they can have a glimpse of the everyday life of ethnic residents in Diqing.
“These programs have helped raise our villagers’ income significantly, which is something I could barely imagine in the past,” head of the village He Qinggang told us.
As rural tourism rises, young residents in the village have opened up a number of tour companies, focusing on providing accommodation, catering as well as customer-designed tour services to visitors. And this can help them gain as much as 500,000 yuan every year.
“Here in Qibie village, tourists are not only allowed to get a glimpse of the Ancient Tea-Horse Road, one of Yunnan’s most prestigious cultural heritages of all time, but enjoy ethnic performances and a range of other local activities,” said He.
Today, the tour companies in the village have employed about 200 residents, and each of them can obtain an income of 3,000 yuan per month.
Walking in Qibie, one can find foreign tourists from all around the world, as they have also been mesmerized by the wondrous views and unique ethnic cultures of this village.
“I have received over 100 tourists from overseas, including Singapore, Japan, Finland as well as the US,” said He Jianzhong, a villager, with smile. “As far as I can see, tourist infrastructures around Diqing have been largely upgraded in recent years,” he told us.
“On top of today’s online platforms and a model that combines companies and individual villagers together, I feel confident to help bring our rural tourism to a new height.”
Writing by Shen Yan; tran-editing by Wang Jingzhong; photographs by Shen Yan, Chi Feng and Wang Sibo