In fact, as early as 2012, my country had carried out large-scale agricultural and rural tourism activities. In this tide, 85,000 villages participated, including 1.7 million leisure agricultural and rural tourism operators, of which 1.50 were farmhouses. There are 10,000 households with 28 million employees, accounting for 6.9% of the country’s rural labor force. In this year, rural tourism received a total of 800 million tourists and achieved an operating income of more than 240 billion yuan.
This achievement is obviously exciting, and the considerable income indicates that the integration and transformation of agriculture to tourism has a good market prospect. In 2017, the No. 1 Central Document proposed that on the basis of maintaining the continuity and stability of policies, special attention should be paid to the construction of handles, platforms and carriers, that is, “three districts, three parks and one integration”. The construction of “three districts, three gardens and one integration” will optimize the rural industrial structure, promote the deep integration of the three industries, and gather various rural funds, technology, talents, projects and other elements to accelerate the development of modern agriculture. Among them, “integration” refers to the pastoral complex, which proposes “a pastoral complex integrating circular agriculture, creative agriculture, and farming experience, with farmers’ cooperatives as the main carrier to support conditional rural construction, allowing farmers to fully participate and benefit.”
my country is a large agricultural country, and agricultural tourism has its own unique advantages. At the basic level, traditional agricultural production has been perfected, and the “tourism +” model can be attached to it faster and better. According to relevant data predictions, in the next 10 years, my country will usher in a critical period of transformation from tourism consumption to leisure consumption, and leisure agriculture will achieve a growth rate of 20% to 30%. This year, the scale of my country’s leisure agriculture market will be close to 590 billion yuan, or it will become another outlet driven by global tourism.
But for now, agricultural tourism is still in the initial stage of development, and the content development and profit model are relatively simple, and picking, fishing, and farmhouse entertainment are still the main forms. In fact, this is still far from the agricultural tourism advocated today. It is even difficult for such traditional projects to effectively connect with other links in the industrial chain to form a closed industrial loop. At the same time, the low added value has little boost to the industry.
So, what should be included in future agritourism?
First of all, experiential consumption is still the top priority. Taking the planting industry as an example, farming processes such as sowing and harvesting are effective channels for consumers to experience farming culture, and it is precisely because they can actually participate in the production process that tourists will pay for the “experience” they desire. On the contrary, traditional picking is more like a marketing method for selling agricultural products in disguise, and the primary experience mode has gradually lost its appeal to potential consumers of leisure agriculture.
Secondly, parent-child education can also be extended and developed on the basis of agricultural production. Similar to the educational modules in the camp, parent-child education can take agricultural landscape entertainment facilities, participation in agricultural production, and lectures on crops and livestock science as the main elements. Through precepts and deeds, let children learn about agricultural knowledge that is difficult to cover in textbooks, and cultivate family relationships and even children’s good living habits in practical experience.
In addition, theme farms and sales of agricultural and sideline products are also an indispensable part of agricultural tourism. In terms of form upgrades, the No. 1 Central Document provides a good solution for creative agriculture. This kind of “creativity” can be applied to cultural and creative agricultural projects such as tasting, purchasing cultural and creative agricultural products, and experiencing cultural and creative festivals. Realize all-round industrial upgrading.
