Rural economy reinvigorated by vacant house utilization

One of the rural homestays transformed from vacant houses in Guiyang. [Photo/guiyang.gov.cn]

Guiyang bureau of agriculture and rural affairs has planned to build 700 rural homestays and agritainment buildings this year, leveraging the vacant rural housing. Now 423 buildings are ready for use.

Detailed information on 56 vacant rural houses has been posted on a municipal application Cuncun, which has helped attract 2.88 million yuan ($400,320) of social capital. More than 1,100 orders have been placed on the application, achieving reservation incomes of 268,000 yuan.

For example, the bureau has introduced the "622 business model" in its agriculture-culture-tourism integrated development project in Pingshang village of Xifeng county. The model stipulates that 60 percent, 20 percent, and 20 percent of the rural homestays' profit should be given to the investors, homestay operators, and villagers whose vacant houses have been transformed into these homestays.

"All my children have been studying outside the village, so I decided to renovate my vacant houses into rural homestays, and I can get a bonus out of this," said Zhang Zhifa, a villager from Pingshang village.