Aerial photo taken in Huangling Village, East China's Jiangxi (people.cn)

As China strides on with its ambition to eliminate poverty across the nation by 2020, tourism, a rising industry in the nation, has become the most viable option to boost sustainable economic development, industry observers and experts agreed.

In spite of inconvenient transportation, China’s poverty-stricken areas feature well-conserved environments and unique cultural resources, which provides them with a good opportunity to develop tourism, Wang Zhenghai, a senior official of a company affiliated to China Poverty Alleviation and Development Center, said while addressing a tourism-themed conference held in Beijing on June 19.

Huangling Village is one of the best examples to show how tourism effects can provide a boost to the local economy, observers noted.

The village, sitting in Wuyuan County, eastern China’s Jiangxi province, used to be haunted by extreme poverty, population decline, and remoteness 10 years ago. But such hard times are history now that the village has become a popular tourism spot.

“After moving into new houses, local residents started running guesthouses to make money, with families earning an estimated annual income 200,000-300,000 yuan on average,” said Wu Xiangyang, the head of Huangling scenic spot.

Tourism is a comprehensive service industry with a strong-bonding industrial chain, which develops a sustainable local economy by creating jobs instead of waiting for economic aid from the government, Wang pointed out at the conference.

In southwest China’s Sichuan alone, 146,000 jobs were created in 56 counties and 952 villages during the local poverty-alleviation campaign in the first half of 2018, generating tourism income of 164 billion yuan, Xinhua reported.

China has pledged to lift 12 million people out of poverty by 2020 through tourism, which accounts for 17% of the total population under the national poverty line, according to China’s 13th Five-Year-Plan, which is being supported by preferential policies and financial support from the central government.

In spite of giving an actual boost to local economies, however, some problems remain, such as homogeneous tourist models and local landscape destruction, according to Wang.

He also urged that tourism development must first follow market rules and guarantee access to more people and investment, while the planning process must take into consideration original landscapes and ecology protection.

“Most importantly, differentiated development should be emphasized, as monotonous experience and landscapes will lead to visitor loss eventually,” Wang added.