Village resorts appeal to diversified travel demand

Major travel agencies have been building high-end village resorts to meet the increasingly diversified demand from urbanites who are keen on taking vacations in the countryside.

Tongcheng Travel, a Suzhou-based online travel agency, operates a village resort — Warm Village — in Wuzhong district, Suzhou, Jiangsu province, together with the local government. During the National Day holiday break in the first week of October, Warm Village saw booming business and served nearly 800,000 tourists.

With an investment of 1 billion yuan ($136.7 million), the village resort has been utilizing cultural and ecological resources near Taihu Lake in Suzhou, and it aims to build itself into a one-stop destination for vacationers in rural areas. The resort has helped create nearly 400 jobs for local villagers, and has attracted more rural residents to return to their hometowns to work.

"Domestic travel consumption demand is upgrading rapidly. The village resort model has constantly been launching new products and services and creating new employment opportunities for local villagers," said Cheng Chaogong, a senior researcher with Tongcheng Travel.

During the National Day holiday, 3.98 million tourists took trips to rural areas in and around suburban Beijing, and related sales revenues reached 605 million yuan, up 12.1 percent year-on-year, according to the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism.

Rural tourism resources account for 70 percent of tourism resources nationwide, yet the number of tourists who have taken rural trips only accounts for 30 percent of total domestic tourists. Tourism consumption related to rural trips is less than 20 percent of total domestic tourism consumption, said a recent report from industry research company ChinaIRN.com.