China has almost 1.3 million family-run rural guesthouses

With the rapid development of China's leisure agriculture and rural tourism, the number of family-run rural guesthouses has increased rapidly, reaching up to 1.3 million, said Gan Shiming, director general of the Bureau of Rural and Township Enterprises under the Ministry of Agriculture, recently.

Gan said that leisure agriculture and rural tourism are both becoming an increasingly important part of the rural secondary and tertiary sectors, and an effective way to develop a new socialist countryside in rural areas which lack industry or where industry cannot be developed, particularly mountainous and semi-mountainous countryside.

According to statistics from the Bureau of Rural and Township Enterprises, at the end of August this year, 14 provinces including Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Hunan and Anhui had a total of 43,035 leisure agricultural parks, including 2,823 enterprises with annual output value exceeding five million yuan.

By People's Daily Online