Updated: 2014-09-11
A cross-Straits rural tourism product exhibition hall, covering 504 square meters, opened for the first time in the Strait Travel Fair (STF), which started on Sept 6 in Xiamen, Fujian province.
The exhibition hall, themed "rusticity, culture and leisure', provides booths for 100 cross-straits enterprises. Rural food from the Chinese mainland and Taiwan, including rice wine and plums from Fujian province and dry-cured duck from Taiwan, are displayed in the hall. Taiwan exhibitors are also bringing additional special rural tourism products.
Vice Premier Wang Yang inspects the Fujian exhibition hall in the 10th Strait Travel Fair
on Sept 8. [Photo by Hu Meidong / China Daily]
The cross-Straits tourism cooperation which started mainly in personnel exchanges, is now turning to industrial cooperation. Rural tourism is one of the themes of the 10th STF, and a major task for developing domestic tourism, according to Zheng Weirong, deputy director of Fujian Provincial Tourism Bureau.
Zheng said that rural tourism in Taiwan started early and developed quickly, and it is a predecessor for the mainland to learn operational ideas, creative thoughts and marketing operations.
A cross-Straits rural tourism round-table meeting in the STF, with 150 Taiwan participators, aims to provide a communication chance for the mainland and Taiwan businessmen.
Zheng said that Fujian province hopes to gain development and management experience from Taiwan during the fair and strengthen cross-Straits cooperation in the rural tourism industry, to conduct effective and all-round cooperation and promote rural tourism in Fujian.'
Xiamen Tianzhu Company is a pioneer in Xiamen in the rural tourism industry. From 2005 on, Tianzhu Company has transformed Tianzhu mountain, a barren mountain in Xiamen's Haicang district, into a forest park with a moringa oleifera plantation, a vanilla garden and agricultural sightseeing.
The company learned from Taiwan experts that rural tourism in not only about food and leisure, but also special products and exclusive gifts for tourists to take away.
Customers of Tianzhu Company are now mainly Xiamen locals. Rural tourism will occupy a big market share in the future, because ecology is important for the city's development and rural tourism is a good way to develop ecology, according to Sun Xianming, vice president of Tinazhu Company.
Sun said rural tourism companies need professional communication and interaction more than product displays and hopes to get advice in route planning and garden design.
"Fresh Fujian' is a brand for Fujian tourism. [Photo by Peng Juan / China Daily]
"Cooperation, development, communication and win-win' is the principle of the cross-Straits rural tourism exhibition in the 10th Strait Travel Fair. [Photo by Peng Juan / China Daily]