On the evening of September 6, the 2024 Hunan Autumn Rural Cultural Tourism Festival and the Village Evening Exhibition, titled “Celebrating the ‘Grape’ World and Engaging Zhongfang,” was held at the Southern China’s Grape Valley Scenic Area in Zhongfang County. Ouyang Bin, former vice chairman of Hunan Provincial Political Consultative Conference, announced the opening of the event. Shang Bin, member of the Party Group and deputy director of the Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism, and city leaders Yin Peiguo, Xiang Jianping, Hu Heping, and Li Yitang attended the event.
This event is hosted by the Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism and the Huaihua Municipal Government. The festival has carefully arranged a series of activities, including the opening ceremony cultural performance, promotion and signing ceremony of key investment projects in Zhongfang County, celebration of “Grape World”—Rural Specialties, “Grape Poetry”—Grape Wine Music Party, “Past and Present”—Symposium on Cultural Relics Protection, Inheritance and Exploration, and Cultural Tourism Industry in Zhongfang County, and “Enjoying Life”—Village Chef Competition, etc., to bring a carefully prepared “cultural tourism feast” to guests from far and near.
In recent years, Huaihua Municipal Party Committee and government have attached great importance to the development of the cultural and tourism industry, insisting on shaping tourism and tourism with the aid of culture for its promotion. Rural tourism has been included in the “top project”, and efforts have been made to create the agricultural culture business card of Hunan Province, striving to build a first-class national tourism and tourist destination. In 2023, the total tourism revenue and number of tourists received in the city increased by 57% and 54% respectively. Huaihua has planned a series of cultural and tourism activities, including the Hunan Spring Rural Tourism Festival, Hunan Agriculture Competition, Hunan Harmony Rural Basketball Competition (Village BA), and other cultural, tourism, sports festivals, events, and folk activities, showcasing the unique charm of Huaihua’s rural areas at multiple levels and in all aspects. It tends to be booming to build a high-quality tourism “Golden Triangle”, further promote the integration of rural culture and tourism, gradually create national level cultural and tourism new IPs such as “World Rice City”, “Romantic Xuefeng Mountain”, “Thousand miled Yuanjiang River with Double Ancient Cities”, “China’s Book Mountain”, and “Enchanting Dong Town”, and “A Blessed Land Huaihua”, “Huaihua, a Land of Landscape, Nostagia and Specialties”, and “One Seed Benefiting the World”. It has launched a series of high-quality tourist routes, including “Romantic Xuefeng Mountain—Health and Wellness Tour”, “A Blessed Ancient City—Cultural Tour”, “Dong and Miao Culture—Folk Customs Tour”, etc., continuously attracting tourists from both inside and outside the province to enter the rural areas of Huaihua and embark on a journey to “a Land of Landscape, Nostagia and Specialties”.
Huaihua will take the preparation of the 5th Hunan Tourism Development Conference as an opportunity to continue to enhance the reputation of rural cultural tourism festivals and village evening exhibition activities, and promote the “innovation” and “brilliance” of rural tourism.
(Translated by Tian Xia)