Hongan is building a red tourism circle. One by one, the roads through the mountains and valleys have opened up a way for the old revolutionary base area to reach out to the world.
Nowadays, Qiliping Town has changed from its past "dirty, messy, and poor" situation, with an additional 50,000 square meters of urban green space. The cement road for the tourist route from the town area to Mount Taitai can directly reach each administrative village. The smooth main roads and charming characteristic tourism projects not only attract tourists from all over to come into the mountains but also promote the development of services in the mountainous areas.
Currently, rural tourism in Hong'an County has developed a series of ancient and natural rural tourism projects filled with rich local flavors, including "farmhouse" food and lodging, handicraft production and sales, natural landscape site tours, summer resort vacations, and pastoral life experiences. These projects are favored by many tourists, significantly increasing the income of villagers.
Rural tourism has also driven the adjustment and optimization of Hong'an County's agricultural industrial structure, promoting the development of characteristic agriculture. Many towns have vigorously developed characteristic agriculture, forming a series of agricultural sightseeing tourism products featuring "flower-covered mountains and fruit-filled seas," which have become characteristics and highlights of rural tourism. In 2008, Hong'an County achieved an average income increase of nearly 500 yuan per person through the development of red tourism.
"Revolutionary old base areas have extremely rich red tourism resources; developing red tourism can effectively accelerate the pace of poverty alleviation for the people of the old revolutionary base areas," Lei Dian told reporters. The next step is to advance the marketization of scenic area operations, promote the intensive operation and development of the tourism industry, extend the product chain, service chain, and business chain of tourism, and transform the Dabie Mountains into a top-tier national red tourism base.
In the Taitai Mountain Scenic Area of Hong'an County, on the winding mountain roads, vehicles loaded with tourists are endless, and the unique and novel farmhouses in the mountains are very attractive.
"When the scenic area management office was established in 2005, households did not have multi-story buildings, but now, one-third of the households have built them," said Xiong Liangxiao, the Party Secretary of Hong'an County, deeply moved by the tremendous changes in the lives of the people in the old revolutionary base area. For many years, due to poor traffic conditions in the scenic area, with steep slopes and sharp turns, it affected the development of tourism in the old revolutionary base area. Now, the tourism industry brings nearly 2 billion yuan in annual tourism revenue to Hong'an County and has promoted the rapid development of the county's tourism service industry.
"Based on the actual situation of Taitai Mountain, we rely on the mountains and water resources to develop characteristic tourism and let the tourism industry boost the economic development of the scenic area, generating huge economic benefits," Xiong Liangxiao introduced. The Hong'an County government has invested more than 80 million yuan in scenic area planning and construction and continuously improved the infrastructure of the scenic area. Currently, the scenic area has formed a 52-kilometer-long tourism loop route consisting of "one vertical and one horizontal" sections, and has developed tourist attractions such as Tonghe River rafting, Taitai Mountain peak scenic spots, Ai River scenic valley, and Xiangshan Lake.
"There are especially many tourists on weekends, so we need to prepare for reception in advance. Running a catering business in the mountains can bring in more than 100,000 yuan a year, which is no worse than working in coastal areas," said Pan Tao, a villager from Caoxiedian Village in Qiliping Town, Hong'an County, who was busy early in the morning. Nowadays, holidays have become days that local villagers look forward to. Tourist attractions like boating on Xiangshan Lake and rafting on the Tonghe River attract tourists from surrounding areas such as Wuhan and Xin County in Henan, bringing substantial incomes to the villagers.
"In the first half of this year, the town received 460,000 tourists and achieved a comprehensive tourism income of 800 million yuan," said Li Changyu, the Party Secretary of Qiliping Town in Hong'an County, excitedly. "We are currently speeding up the software and hardware construction of the town, striving for the integration of urban and scenic areas, where red and green complement each other."
Qiliping Town still preserves 37 nationally key-protected cultural relics sites, with rich red tourism resources and unparalleled green ecological resources. Making full use of this advantage, Qiliping Town has established the development idea of building a famous red tourism town.
"While polishing the tourist attractions, we must coordinate the infrastructure construction of the scenic and town areas," said Lei Dian, Director of the Huanggang Municipal Tourism Bureau. To create a red tourism economic circle in the Dabie Mountains, Huanggang City continues to increase investment in infrastructure construction. It has already invested 3 billion yuan to newly modify and construct over 200 kilometers of red tourism roads in the Dabie Mountains, connecting more than 10 red tourism scenic spots, and has also opened cross-regional red tourism channels with Xin County in Henan Province, Jinzhai in Anhui Province, and Yuxi, among others.