Surrounding tours have become the first choice for travel and leisure, and the cluster of homestays around Tianzhu Mountain has emerged as the times require.
The Entry and Breaking of Young B&B Entrepreneurs
The post-90s girl Xu Ting shuttled between the boxes, busy serving food to guests from all over the world.
At two o'clock in the afternoon, she hurriedly ate a few bites of food, and then continued to focus on the reservation and operation of the homestay.
The "Humble House·Encounter" B&B where she is located is located in Chazhuang Village, Qianshan City, Anhui Province. It is a newly built tourism project invested by an Anhui tourism development company.
The company rents idle old houses and rebuilds them on the basis of retaining the original earth walls and the characteristics of the houses in southwest Anhui, so as to satisfy people's desire to return to rural life.
Xu Ting, who was still engaged in the logistics industry in Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions two years ago, has now returned to her hometown and stepped into a different industry.
There are many more young people like her.
Qianshan belongs to the old revolutionary base area and has rich ecological advantages. In addition to the green selenium-rich and zinc-rich soil, the core scenic area of Tianzhu Mountain has a forest coverage rate of 98%.
In recent years, Qianshan has insisted on building a new business chain, relying on Tianzhu Mountain and other scenic spots to create global tourism.
Affected by the new crown pneumonia epidemic, surrounding tourism has become the first choice for people to travel and leisure, and the proportion of country houses has increased rapidly.
Qianshan City has caught up with the boom in the economic development of homestays, and the cluster of homestays around Tianzhu Mountain has emerged as the times require, and many young people have returned to their hometowns to start businesses.
Young people with ideas go back to their hometowns to set up homestays
Xu Ting works as a store manager at the homestay, responsible for operations and division of labor.
She had been working in the auto logistics industry in Jiangsu before. In 2020, thinking that she should come back to accompany her family, and she was interested in travel and homestays, she applied for the job and embarked on the road of starting a homestay business. "I didn't expect to be so busy every day. Working between green water and green mountains is very rewarding.”
Tu Shuiqing, the 25-year-old secretary of the Youth League Branch of Chazhuang Village, is also a cross-border worker in the homestay industry.
After graduating from university in 2018, Tu Shuiqing worked in an investment company in Suzhou. In 2019, he returned to his hometown and joined the cultural tourism company to be responsible for the marketing of homestays in Tianzhu Mountain Scenic Area.
For him, returning to his hometown to start the homestay industry is completely starting from an unfamiliar field.
At first, Tu Shuiqing served as reception and management services in the local Haixin Valley and Swan Castle B&B. In his spare time, he often took pictures of the beautiful scenery around him with his mobile phone and shared them on Douyin.
The vast sea of clouds in the clouds, the fruits and vegetables in the fields, the daily communication between tourists and villagers... These small details are all recorded by him in the lens.
Xiao Tu’s father, Tu Weili, has been contracting a tea plantation in the middle of the mountain since 2005. He manages and operates the tea garden every day from morning to night. The infrastructure on the mountain is repaired and rebuilt by his father himself.
From his father, Xiaotu saw the diligence of entrepreneurs, which also planted the seeds of building and changing the face of his hometown in his heart. "I don't regret coming back, because the sense of belonging to my hometown gave me motivation and direction."
In recent years, the Qianshan Municipal Government has issued a series of policies to increase support for the development of homestays, subsidize boutique homestays according to their operating areas, and set up "homestay loans" to solve the financing difficulties of homestay entrepreneurs.
The local homestay development association was also established to promote the development of the homestay industry cluster.
The hard part of running a homestay is how to attract people
Zhang Jiaguo, born in the 1980s, is from Hefei, Anhui Province. He has been engaged in homestay business for 6 years and is currently the president of Qianshan Homestay Association.
In 2016, Zhang Jiaguo came to Tianzhu Mountain to find friends, and saw the old house of Tu Weili's family halfway up the mountain. Zhang Jiaguo had a bold idea in his heart, whether he could rent the house halfway up the mountain and come to live there occasionally.
A leader of the local tourism bureau suggested, "Just invest in a homestay here."
It happened that a friend of Zhang Jiaguo knew Tu Weili, and they hit it off and started the process of purchasing homestead and approving homestays.
At that time, homestay in Qianshan was still a trendy word.
During the construction process, there was no water and electricity on the mountain. At noon, Zhang Jiaguo and the workers had to go down the mountain to eat.
"This place is too out of the way, and there will be no passenger flow. If you open a homestay, it will cost you one or two thousand yuan a night. It's just bragging!" the villagers said to Zhang Jiaguo.
In June 2018, before the opening of the homestay, Zhang Jiaguo and his team officially set the price for the accommodation - ranging from more than 1,000 yuan to 3,000 yuan per night.
However, in the first week of opening, there were many people visiting, and there were very few people who chose to spend and stay. Tourists basically came to see the excitement.
A week later, Zhang Jiaguo received orders one after another, and he started a "trilogy" plan.
In the first half of the year after opening, Zhang Jiaguo was concentrating on investigating customer needs.
What he wants to know most is: through what channels do tourists know about their homestays and how they experience their stay.
His investigation method is relatively "special" - making a pot of tea on the outdoor platform, "talking" with the traveling passengers, and sometimes chatting for most of the day.
Knowing something in his mind, he took the second step to target the mid-to-high-end consumer groups and increase the marketing and promotion of homestays.
He forced himself and his team to write articles, take pictures, make videos every day, and interact with tourists online.
The business is good, and there are not enough B&B rooms. He started the third step of planning - expanding the market and investing in building an exotic Swan Castle B&B at the foot of the mountain.
Unlike Zhang Jiaguo, a foreigner, Ding Dawei, a young entrepreneur, was born in Tianzhushan Town. Before returning to his hometown, he had been engaged in tourism business in Yangzhou, Jiangsu.
At the end of 2018, he aimed at the opportunity of tourism development in his hometown and returned to his hometown to open a homestay.
He encountered difficulties one after another. The first challenge was site selection. He traveled all over the towns and villages around Tianzhu Mountain, but could not find a suitable place.
Finally, with the support of the Tianzhushan Township government and the village "two committees", Ding Dawei bought a piece of abandoned homestead and renovated it, and repaired the road to facilitate transportation.
After the opening, Ding Dawei began to worry about the source of customers again. After observing that consumers paid more attention to the safety, quality and experience of homestays, he reshaped the business philosophy and customer channels.
His homestay has designed a large balcony overlooking the distance, allowing busy urban young people to relax here, even in a daze.
The roof of the room is equipped with an electric sunshade, where visitors can bask in the sun, watch the stars, open the window and see the scenery, and see the mountain through the door.
At present, he will focus on short-distance tours and surrounding tours in Wuhan, Nanjing, Hefei and other places, or business meetings and group building businesses in the province.
More than a dozen villagers around worked in his homestay kitchen, logistics and other positions.
Building a good house is not the starting point of a homestay business
As a new thing, the development of homestays brings opportunities for entrepreneurs, as well as challenges and confusion.
Entrepreneurs have their own ideas on how to better build the Tianzhu Mountain B&B cluster.
At present, there are 10 high-end homestays in Tianzhushan Town.
In Zhang Jiaguo's view, it is necessary to develop together in a group and make it bigger.
For example, when he mentioned Mogan Mountain in Zhejiang before, everyone first thought of the scenic spot. Now when he chats with the customer, the other party first thinks of the homestay industry in Moganshan. "The scenic spot has become a supporting facility for the homestay. It can be seen that scale produces benefits.”
According to the reporter's understanding, at present, China's homestay industry still lacks specific industry standards and norms.
Qianshan City is also exploring. One of the methods is to issue special industry licenses to qualified homestays, which is equivalent to applying for a legal "identity card" for homestays.
"With government support, the brand effect has to keep up." Zhang Jiaguo said that the government department is creating a unified homestay publicity brand, so that nearly 100 homestay entrepreneurs will no longer "fight each other".
Over the years, Zhang Jiaguo has also witnessed the failure of some young homestay entrepreneurs.
"The idea of starting a business should be clear. Only spending money to build a good house is not the starting point of the homestay. It is the moment when the homestay is officially opened." He suggested that entrepreneurs should tell the story of the homestay, otherwise, even if the room is beautifully decorated, tourists will Tired of watching it, it will also become "walking the horse and watching flowers".
Zhang Jiaguo matched the Swan Castle B&B with a beautiful love story, and 5 old Shanghai couples came for this story.
Tu Shuiqing also believes that young entrepreneurs should dig deep into the mountain culture, water dwelling culture, rural culture and tea culture of their hometown, and combine them with the actual rural development in the new era, and reflect it in the process of homestay design, construction and supporting products.
Ding Dawei mentioned that it is also very important to build a supporting industry chain for homestays. "It is our goal to start a business to retain tourists and achieve continuous consumption, rather than 'one-shot deal', and this is what colleagues in the entire industry need to solve." .
(Video shooting: Wang Haihan and Wang Lei; production: Wang Haihan)
China Youth Daily, China Youth Daily reporter Wang Haihan Wang Lei intern Zhou Ziqi correspondent Wang Zi Source: China Youth Daily