How to use the heat of Changbai Mountain Scenic Area to radiate villages? Yang Lina has stepped out of her own path of exploration——

Deeply ploughing rural tourism to increase villagers' income (character stories · focusing on rural entrepreneurship)

Yang Lina, Chairman of Guixin Home stay Cooperative in Guangdong Village, Dongcheng Town, Helong City, Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, Jilin Province, is a youth pioneer in rural revitalization. Up to now, it has driven the employment of more than 2000 surrounding villagers, and accumulated more than one million yuan of village collective dividends.

"Cake and cake making, early in the morning, high every year." On the morning of the weekend, we drove into Guangdong Village, Dongcheng Town, Helong City, Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, Jilin Province. A cement road is not wide, and homestays on both sides are well arranged. In the farmyard, Yang Lina, the chairman of Guangdong Village Guixin Home stay Cooperative, is making special food and cakes with several tourists. "Now the rice seedlings have started to be transplanted. When the jointing and heading are done in June and July, there will be more tourists in our village," Yang Lina told reporters.

"What's good about people coming out for tourism?" When Yang Lina first came to Guangdong Village for tourism in 2011, some villagers found it difficult to understand.

"I see, rural tourism has a bright future." Yang Lina has her own answer in mind. Integrating folk customs, home stay and other special resources to attract tourists, the village will receive more than 500000 tourists in 2023. Yang Lina not only made the cooperative very impressive, but also started to operate online agricultural products business, increasing her own income and driving the villagers to become rich together. Yang Lina has always been pondering over the path of rural entrepreneurship.

"Why can't our village attract tourists?"

After graduating from junior college, Yang Lina ran a travel agency in Yanji City with an annual income of more than 100000 yuan. "We can receive nearly 200 tourist groups every year, and Changbai Mountain is a popular scenic spot." However, growing at the foot of the mountain, she sometimes felt sorry. At that time, the main tourist route was to climb in the morning, and in the afternoon, we went to Yanji, Changchun and other places. "In many southern cities, there are many places to play around a scenic spot. Why can't our village attract tourists?"

How to let the heat of famous mountains and rivers radiate to surrounding villages? With such a topic, Yang Lina enlivened her mind to start a new business after receiving the delegation. At the beginning of 2011, she closed the travel agency in the city and came to Guangdong Village with more than 200000 yuan of deposit and borrowed money from friends. She stared at the decoration of the specialty restaurant here, and sold herself to the travel agency there. "Going to Yanji from Changbai Mountain just passes this village, and tourists can also taste the local specialty food when they have a rest at noon." She was so busy that she lost a lot of weight, but her former colleagues poured cold water on her. "Wouldn't it be better to go directly to the hotel in the city if you want to eat?"

This words awakened Yang Lina. In addition to food, local folk customs and characteristic houses are the tourism resources worth exploring. So Yang Lina decided to show tourists around the village for free. "We'll earn some money for dinner. Your travel agency will come to stop. After dinner, guests can visit more scenic spots. Try it." Yang Lina tried hard.

In June 2011, Yang Lina welcomed her first tourist group. She went to the market to pick cakes and spicy cabbage, cooked chicken soup in an iron pot, and carefully planned the tour route... 13 tourists, a 600 yuan group meal, and a two-hour rest, Yang Lina prepared for two days. "That village is really good." Slowly, someone mentioned Guangdong Village sentence by sentence on the feedback list of some travel agencies.

At the end of the first year, Yang Lina had established cooperative relations with more than 50 travel agencies, with a turnover of nearly 600000 yuan. On the busiest day, more than 1000 tourists came to the village. Yang Lina still remembers that the old secretary of the village stood on crutches on the dirt road at the head of the village, looked at the tourists coming and going, and gave her a thumbs up. At the beginning of this year, Guangdong Village has attracted more than 500 travel agencies from all over the country to cooperate.

"Wouldn't it be better if tourists could stay overnight?"

"Too many people are bad." It seems that business is booming, but Yang Lina also has her own difficulties: catering profits are thin, and the villagers still dislike noise. Looking at the increasing number of tourists year after year, in 2013, Yang Lina thought about running a home stay. "The company increases income, and the villagers earn rent." However, it took her two years to get through this road.

The farming canteen in the village is diagonally opposite. It used to be a vacant house with weeds. Yang Lina came to the house and asked the owner, Brother Jin, whether he intended to rent the house. "We are responsible for cleaning and decorating the 2500 yuan rent every year, which will be written into the contract. What do you think?" Brother Jin just shook his head without answering.

At the end of the year, Yang Lina was frustrated. The old man in the village pointed out the reason: "We are no better than the city. They don't know what travel is and what contract is. They are afraid that you will cheat the house."

"It's also entrepreneurship. Sometimes the urban experience is really not applicable to the countryside." Yang Lina suddenly realized.

So, in addition to serving tourists, Yang Lina tried hard to integrate into the village.

In Guangdong Village, after dinner, people like to beat drums and dance in their yard, attracting tourists to stop frequently. At the end of 2014, Yang Lina set up a dance team to invite villagers to perform for tourists. Each performance lasted half an hour, and each person was paid 50 yuan.

At first, as soon as the performance was over, Yang Lina paid cash to everyone. For a long time, a villager took the initiative to propose: "Girl, go to entertain the guests quickly, and pay together after 30 performances." Everyone's musical instruments and clothes were also carried away from the back of each performance to the dining room.

Feeling the time is ripe, Yang Lina raised the rent again: "If we can keep tourists for one night, wouldn't it be better? We can also perform several more performances." Park Zhonglie, the leader of the dance team, nodded first: "I don't know what a home stay is, but you should not cheat people." At the end of 2014, the six home stays in Guangdong Village were completed.

"It takes time to build trust. Once there is trust, many problems will be solved." Recalling this experience, Yang Lina spoke firmly. In her opinion, the dance team has enriched the tourism content, made the villagers start to contact tourists, and more importantly, let her integrate into the village. "Everyone supports me, which is meaningful," Yang Lina said.

In 2018, the village collective came forward to help Yang Lina count vacant houses and sign contracts with villagers. In that year, 60 B&Bs were completed in a centralized manner, and the occupancy rate in the peak tourist season reached 80%. The dance team has grown from the initial 6 villagers to more than 30 people, and the remuneration for a single performance has increased from 50 yuan to 100 yuan, with 130 performances in the busiest year.

"The guest has just checked out, but he hasn't had time to clean it." Follow Yang Lina into a home stay. The stone path in the courtyard is crisscrossed with flowers and grass. There are both wooden floors and a farmhouse kang in the room. "Unexpectedly, this is Brother Jin's house."

"I will work with you and have a good travel meal"

"Is it not good to decorate the homestay to entertain guests? Why spend money on online shops?" The tourism industry in the village is developing fast, but Yang Lina wants to sell rice online, which is quite puzzling.

But for Yang Lina, the integration of rice and tourism has been thought about for a long time. Guangdong Village is located at the bank of the Hailan River, with an area of over 7000 hectares of rice, and almost every household has farmland. Rice research tour, small trains near rice fields... Yang Lina began to develop rice field tourism without affecting planting.

"Do you want to sell rice? We want to bring some." A tourist asked.

"Do you want to buy some rice? It's home grown." Some villagers sell it.

Things are good, but villagers don't know how to pack and sell. One kilogram of rice costs 3 yuan, and plastic bag packaging has a flat sales volume.

Yang Lina set out to cooperate with villagers to determine planting standards, negotiate purchase prices, and distinguish different grades... Today, rice in the online mall can be sold up to 32 yuan per kilogram. "Although tourists leave the village, they can still be customers and continue to buy back." In recent years, the famous online mall has added rice wine, ginseng and spicy cabbage. Up to now, the cumulative turnover of the online mall has exceeded 8 million yuan, and the sales volume of rice has exceeded 600000 jin.

Now, the annual dance performance is 6500 yuan, the rent is 5000 yuan, and the land transfer fee is 4500 yuan... Brother Park, a villager who just finished the performance, is counting the days of prosperity. "That's not much. People who work in home stay and run rice field tourism in partnership earn more!" Brother Park said.

With the development of tourism industry in Guangdong Village, Yang Lina is thinking about driving the development of surrounding villages. In 2019, she began to arrange tourism in another village in Erdaobaihe Town, Antu County, Yanbian Prefecture. "It is closer to the mountain area and mainly develops picking, ice and snow projects, which can form a differentiated development with Guangdong Village." Last year, the number of tourists in that village exceeded 320000, and the per capita annual income of villagers increased significantly. The village became popular, and many young people returned to the village during the holidays. "In the past, this was a rare novelty," Yang Lina said.

In 2021, Yang Lina was named one of the first ten outstanding talents for rural revitalization in Jilin Province. In 2023, she won the title of National March 8th Red Bannerman, and was rated as "National Youth Pioneer of Rural Revitalization" by the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.

"I work with everyone to eat and have a good traveling meal," said Yang Lina, who has always had a simple idea in her mind.