A beautiful view in Hezuo town, Qidong [Photo/ntfabu.com]

Hezuo town in central Qidong, a county-level city in Nantong, has seen significant development in rural tourism in recent years, taking full advantage of local ecological, historic and cultural resources.

The town is far from rivers and seas, and focuses mainly on traditional agriculture, making it difficult to achieve rural revitalization. The local government therefore decided to integrate agriculture with rural tourism, largely relying on local historic sites.

In addition, transport in the town has been improved, with the construction of a road network. It only takes a few minutes to drive to the expressway from the town government building.

Experts at Nanjing Normal University were invited to help devise a development plan for building Hezuo into a characteristic town of flowers. In 2018, it also cooperated with China Tourism Group to create a rural tourist brand.

A high-level homestay project worth 1 billion yuan ($141 million) is being constructed along the Hongyang River, including a five-star resort hotel and 117 homestays on the east side of the river. On the west side, a number of cherry blossom trees will be cultivated on 67 hectares. 

The town is promoting peonies used to produce oil and has set up a demonstration base, cooperating with CAS Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Science. Last year, the town attracted a large number of visitors to its first peony festival.

Hezuo has also been cultivating high-quality grapes at a local orchard, which is a significant driver of the town’s rural tourism development, and has built the longest grape corridor in China, stretching for 3 kilometers.