Geopark & Community Construction
Zhangye National Geopark is located in the middle of Hexi Corridor, north of Qilian Mountains, within Linze county and Sunan Yugur Autonomous County, with a total area of 322 km². The proposed Zhangye Geopark of China covers a total area of 1289.71 km², including Colorful Hills, Binggou Danxia, China Yugur Customs Corridor and Nine Spring.
Ten years ago, there was only drought and desolation here, making it unsuitable for farming. As a result, the local people lived a difficult life and it became the "Hongshawan" that neither cattle nor sheep wanted to enter.
In the past 10 years, Zhangye, Linze and Sunan County have been promoting community development with tourism development. Consequently, Zhangye Provincial Geopark and Zhangye National Geopark are successively named and Zhangye Geopark of China and national 5A tourist attractions create great progress. There are Colorful Hills which is one of the six most beautiful singular landscapes in China and the world's top ten magic geographic spectacles, the model village for rural tourism in China, the most beautiful leisure village in China, the top 100 examples of China’s beautiful villages, such as Nantai Village, Gansu Rural Tourism Demonstration Village-Yumuzhuang Village, the municipal ecological village-Dacaotan Village, etc.. Today's Zhangye Geopark has become a new landmark for Western tourism in China. The production and living conditions of the geopark community have also undergone earth-shaking new changes.
Solve Problems to Develop Tourism for Awakening Development Vitality
Only by finding the right path to development can we achieve success in development. The local government and the geopark followed the general trend of tourism development to actively guide the masses to try to exploit their tourism resources in 2006. After that,
Zhangye Danxia Cultural Tourism Co., Ltd. and Zhangye Binggou Danxia Cultural Tourism Development Company were established respectively in 2013 and 2016, which made Zhangye Geopark enter a new stage of comprehensive development and construction.
30 key tourism projects, such as Colorful Town, Danxia Fast-track, Danxia Landscape Avenue, Comprehensive Tourist Service Center, Squares and Ring Roads, Internal Infrastructure Improvement, Hexi Folk Expo Park, Danxia General Aviation Airport, Zhangye Geopark Museum, Danxia Folk Culture Tourism Village, Chinese Peony Culture Tourism Park, Danxia Flowers, Silk Road Cultural Heritage Expo City, Binggou Village etc., were under construction with an investment of more than 4 billion yuan. Besides, Linze County and Sunan County raised more than 40 million yuan in funds to complete water and power supply facilities for the scenic spots.
The Number of People in Community Participating in Tourism in the Geopark
Nantai Village, Yumuzhuang Village, Shangyou Village, Saiding Village, Bayin Village, Kangfeng Village, Longfeng Village, Huashuwan Village
The tourism development of zhangye geopark brought a golden opportunity for the community to increase their income and become rich. A group of farmers put down their hoes and used their spare houses as the farmhouse to manage, or raised funds from relatives and friends to purchase tourist vehicles to engage in tourism services in scenic spots. Zhangye
National Geopark Administration actively guided tourism enterprises to develop dynamic Delta wings, helicopters, hot air balloons, camel sightseeing, VR experience, catering and shopping, and other tourism projects suitable for community participation, and guided community people to engage in tourism services. A total of 330 tourist shops, inns and catering stores were built in the park, with 5,689 reception beds, attracting more than 4,000 people from the surrounding areas for being employed.
For example, the per capita disposable income of villagers in Nantai Village reached 14,082 yuan in 2018, benefited from the participation of 1,033 people from 286 households and other 379 households in tourism development and the shareholder dividends of business entities respectively, which was more than 2,000 yuan higher than the average level of Linze county. Kangle Town and Baiyin Mongolian Township of Sunan County had invested 150 million yuan to develop tourism and guide the masses to build Mongolia Camp, Binggou Villa, Green Source, and Liyuan River etc. for sightseeing and tourists services.
Beautify Villages to Transform Farmhouses into Tourist Station
The geopark community, adhering to the development principle of "relying on the countryside, take the market as the guidance, ecology as the theme and culture as the connotation", developed and built characteristic villages and leisure farms that set the local people's lives, tourist accommodation, catering and shopping in one by combining country revitalization and beautiful rural construction, resettlement of removed households and poverty alleviation relocation of poor households with archives and cards, by integrating project funds, and by launching the community crowd transform old farmhouses to beautify the environment and improve the appearance of villages. A large number of tourist facilities with local characteristics, such as Nijiaying Liyuan New Village, Colorful Town, Danxiakou Tourism and Resort Town, Kangbai Tourism Fair Town of Sunan Country, Mongolian Camp of Baiyin Township etc., preserved most of original local culture and natural landscape, were put into operation. Today the old dilapidated villages have become the rural tourist station.
Public service facilities of supporting construction, such as community service centers, elderly activity centers, medical service centers and cultural squares, has not only greatly improved the living environment of the community but also further optimized the tourism service environment of geoparks.
In 2018, a total of 378,000 visitors were received at the Geopark boutique homestay and inns, an increase of 68 % over 2017, and Yumuzhuang Village of Kangle Town achieved a comprehensive tourism income of more than 2.3 million yuan with an investment of more than 400,000 yuan in greening and brightening the main streets and setting up landscape lights, which was rated as one of the top ten tourism professional demonstration villages in Zhangye City.
Integrate Agriculture and Tourism to Activates Potential Resources by Three Transformation
Based on the advantages of location and resources, the geopark community activated potential resources and stimulated development vitality to devoted itself to creating "a model village for rural tourism in China" through the "three transformations" of transforming resources into assets, funds into shares and farmers into shareholders. Followed by fully use idle resources, effectively integrated dispersed funds, more widen income channels, more perfect self-government system, the masses, from onlookers to participants and operators, found a new way of "Park + Rural Tourism" for development.
Nantai Villagers adopted the "Company + Village Collective + Peasant Households" model to build an ecological parking lot and specialty goods management area that recovered 69 mu of land at the West entrance of the scenic spot, cooperated by the village collective and Zhangye Danxia Cultural Tourism Co. Ltd. and managed by Zhangye Shengjing Cultural Tourism Development Co., Ltd. with 10 million yuan of 230 households. In 2018, they achieved a dividend of 339,100 million yuan. According to the model of "bottom guarantee + secondary dividend + income dividend", 2,300 Mu of land was transformed into Danxia Farmers’ Land Professional Cooperative in Linze.
County for developing 500 Mu of leisure picking garden, 400 Mu of Danxia Flower Sea and 1400 mu of other economic crops, so that the land resources of community farmers became constantly value-added "living assets". There was also 820 Mu of land, belonging to the village collective in the scenic spot, being invested into Zhangye Danxia Cultural Tourism Co. Ltd. for the construction of service facilities. In return, the village collective had a dividend of 376,000 yuan annually used on the payment of New Rural Cooperative Medical Insurance for the whole villagers and subsides for the elderly over 60 years old. In addition, 117 peasant households were mobilized to invest 715,000 yuan to establish Linze Danxia Agricultural Tourism Cooperative and to participate in the operation of sightseeing vehicles in Danxia Scenic Are. In 2018, the cooperative received a dividend of 358,100 yuan. Another 189 peasant households collected 7.28 million yuan to become shareholders of Zhangye Hexi Impression Culture and Tourism Stock Company. In conclusion, a total of 18.295 million yuan of collective and individual funds in Nantai Village were turned into share capital.
In the village of Yumuzhuang, Kangle Town, Sunan County, 22 households were encouraged to participate in the construction of characteristic residential resorts and brought a net tourism income of 635,000 yuan.
Support Targeted Poverty Alleviation to Make the Local People Rich by Tourism Industry
"Supporting an industry to make local people rich". Based on the principle, the geoparks community made full use of the advantages of integrated tourism resources to actively play the important role of rural tourism in target poverty alleviation, and to find the way of supporting tourism industry in scenic spots to reduce poverty. The tourism industry had become the booster for overcoming material and spiritual poverty in geopark community.
Since the establishment of the Geopark, a number of tourist attractions, such as Colored Hills, Binggou Danxia and China Yugur Costoms Corridor, and 14 rural tourism poverty alleviation projects, such as Qilian Mountain International Ski Resort, Kangbai Fair Town, Liyuan New Village and Danxiakou Tourism and Resort Town, had been built, which made the overall incidence of poverty fall from 15.5% to 1.61%. After fully soliciting opinions from the poor, Nantai Village invested all 50,000 yuan of industrial poverty alleviation loans for each poor household into the construction of Folk Cultural Tourism Villages in the form of shares. In 2017, 78 poor households with archives and cards directly benefited from tourism dividends of 117,000 yuan. It provided a new way for the poor to get rich.
Strengthen Education and Training to Set An Example for Promoting the Rural Civilization
Excellent rural culture has boosted the vitality of the countryside, strengthened the cohesion of farmers, and nurtured new social trends. Firmly focusing on advancing the comprehensive quality of the masses, the geopark community took three measures of education guidance, practice development and institution guarantee to further promote the cultural literacy, personal character, social morality and the application of science and technology, and to strive for cultivating new types of farmers and industrial workers. Thanks to it, both the standard of living and personal literacy were improved. Beyond that, to further explore, inherit and innovate excellent traditional local cultures, to carefully organize various forms of mass cultural activities, such as the Danxiakou Folk Culture Tourism Festival and Kangle Tourism Culture and Arts Festival, and to sing the moral, praise the good and celebrate the civilized through cultural activities made culture take root and develop. Furthermore, advanced models selection activities, like "Five-Star civilized households", "respecting, comparing, competing, praising", "civilized families" etc. would be continued, aiming to set good people and deeds around us an example for affecting and educating the masses.
"Three Competition and Three Promotion" - Action to Improve Tourism Service Quality, jointly hosted by Danxia Scenic Area Management Committee, Zhangye Geopark Administration, selected 36 service brands including well-known shops, famous dishes, top snacks and service stars etc.. Meanwhile, Geopark Community Accommodation Chamber of Commerce was established to strengthen industry self-discipline and to guide the community crowd to actively comply with the transformation of agricultural production and management methods brought by marketization, scale and industrialization. A service environment full of good faith, civilization, health and harmony had been formed as the result of promoting local culture through industrial development.