Maoming in S China's Guangdong accelerates development of lychee industry, cultural tourism

Villager Zhang Bingfen's B&B hotel in Baiqiao village, Genzi township, Maoming city, south China's Guangdong Province has started to attract returned customers after more than two months of operations.

Tourists can stroll through an ancient lychee orchard, enjoy blooming lychee flowers, and taste dried lychees there.

"My lychees will be available on the market soon. This year, buyers can check in at my B&B hotel," said Zhang, who has grown the fruit for most of his life. Last year, he turned his house into a B&B hotel.

The planting area of lychee trees in Maoming city is about 1.4 million mu (93,333 hectares), or about one-fourth of the country's total output.

A farmer shows freshly picked lychees in an orchard in Baiqiao village, Genzi township, Maoming city, south China's Guangdong Province, June 12, 2023. (Photo/Xinhua)

Maoming has leveraged technologies to empower the lychee sector, accelerated the development of the sector and culture-themed tourism, and formed a lychee industry chain that integrates the primary, secondary and tertiary industries.

China's national lychee germplasm resource repository in Maoming is home to over 700 pieces of lychee germplasm resources, and more than 3,500 lychee seedlings from 12 countries and regions. Over the past two years, 2,300 hybrid lychee seedlings have been cultivated at the repository.

With support from South China Agricultural University, Guangdong Academy of Agricultural Sciences and other institutions, Maoming continues to optimize the structure of lychee varieties, with high-quality varieties accounting for 80 percent of the city's total.

Maoming has built a lychee industry big data center and a number of smart lychee orchards, capable of sending lychee planting technology information to over 300,000 growers' mobile phones.

The city has also established 301 "field stations" that offer pre-cooling preservation, which has ensured that 99.8 percent of lychees are of good quality even after 20 days of storage.

Maoming has vigorously promoted the deep processing of lychees. The city has more than 30 leading lychee processing enterprises, three of which have an output value of more than 100 million yuan ($13.8 million).

Maoming's lychee cultural tourism industry has also developed rapidly thanks to the in-depth integration of agriculture, culture and tourism. The ancient lychee orchard in Baiqiao village, Genzi township, and the China Lychee Museum have received over 300,000 and more than 600,000 tourist visits every year, respectively.

The city is also accelerating the construction of experience zones related to the lychee sector, lychee-themed hotels and photography bases. More and more lychee growers like Zhang have started running lychee-themed B&B hotels and agritainment facilities.

In 2023, the output value of Maoming's lychee industry chain exceeded 12 billion yuan.

"We will accelerate the construction of the Baiqiao demonstration zone for the integrated development of the lychee industry to promote the thriving development of the sector, open up more channels to increase farmers' incomes, and advance rural revitalization," said Zhuang Yuequn, Party chief of Maoming city.