Photo via Xinhua

China’s “toilet revolution” has added hope to the nation’s rural vitalization strategy to boost rural tourism and prosperity, national political advisors and lawmakers agreed at the Two Sessions.

The “toilet revolution” was launched nationwide in 2015 to improve public restroom facilities for local residents as a way to improve their living conditions and enhance the tourism experience in rural China.

According to Sun Weiguo, a National People’s Congress (NPC) deputy, Wusi Village, the village where he works as the Party chief in east China’s Zhejiang province, barely had any flush toilets in the pat. Over the years, however, as the village brands itself as a 3A tourism spot, villagers and officials have increasingly sensed the necessity to promote clean, modern toilet facilities, which benefit local residents as well as tourists.

Similarly, Long Xianwen, a NPC deputy who is also a Party chief in Niujiaoshan Village, central China’s Hunan province, said some 85 percent of households in the village have undergone toilet construction or renovation.

“It can be clean and comfortable to live in rural areas. We encourage villagers to set up flush toilets when building new houses. Tourists from outside Niujiaoshan can only stay longer if they can live under modern living standards,” Long said.

The “toilet revolution” across the nation’s tourism bodies have received preliminary achievements, with more and better toilets as well as improved management quality and technology application, noted NPC deputy Wu Guoping, also head of Lingshan Buddhist Scenic Spot’s travel group in Wuxi, east China’s Jiangsu province.

Three years into its launch, the government has invested over $3 billion into the campaign, installing or renovating 68,000 toilets and tourist sites, which exceeded the target of 57,000 toilets. By 2020, another 47,000 toilets are scheduled to be added and some 17,000 are to be renovated.

In 2017, Chinese President Xi Jinping also called for continued efforts to upgrade the country’s toilets as part of an ongoing “toilet revolution” campaign, Xinhua reported.