Green Vision Culture & Tourism: From Travel to Life, Rural Sojourning Becomes a New Trend

Green Vision Introduction: Under the era of vigorously promoting the rural revitalization strategy and the integration of culture and tourism, the demands of rural tourists are also continuously rising. Tourists no longer regard sightseeing as the purpose of rural tourism but hope to enjoy the 'slow life' in the countryside. Especially after the impact of COVID-19, people increasingly embrace healthy environments and healthy lifestyles. The future development of rural tourism is definitely evolving towards a lifestyle community, not a scenic area development, which promotes the development of rural sojourning.

Throughout history, rural life has been a pursuit of refined scholars. Not only do we have the rural scenes and beautiful meanings depicted by Tao Yuanming and Meng Haoran in their writings, but also the deep-rooted farming civilization and spirit suppressed in the bones. Nowadays, affected by urban environmental pollution, work intensity, and other factors, people have increasing needs to 'avoid smog, avoid heat, and avoid busyness.' The value of rural life has gained more and more attention and has become a preferred place for sojourning.

The so-called sojourning, as Green Vision Culture & Tourism understands, can be simply interpreted as: traveling in the way of living, and living in the way of traveling—that is, making life touristic or tourism life-based. Choose a livable place, stop, and slow down both the body and the soul to feel another possibility of life. Rural sojourning is driven by the core value provided by rurality, is a phased product of rural tourism development, and has become a new consumption demand.

Rural Sojourning—The Inevitable Outcome of Human Awakening

According to the development patterns of tourism in developed countries, the rural tourism revolution triggered by the post-industrial revolution era is precisely because people realize that environmental degradation may deprive humans of their habitat, and the rare natural environment of the countryside has become favored by urbanites. In fact, the gap in living standards from city to town, to township, to village has been weakening. Urban consumption is also starting to pursue wearing coarse cotton clothes, using handmade workshop products, eating organic grains and vegetables grown by themselves, and going to the countryside to live. Everyone yearns for a natural slow life where heaven and man are united. This is the inevitable result of social progress and human awakening.

Rural Sojourning—A New Trend Under the '5+2' Lifestyle

Green Vision Culture & Tourism has long believed that rural tourism has gradually developed to the 4.0 rural life stage. Especially under the '5+2' lifestyle ('5 days of city work' + '2 days of rural leisure'), rural leisure has become a norm. Rural sojourning and rural slow life have thus become a universally pursued lifestyle for people. For those who have long lived in the noisy city, escaping the city, escaping busyness, escaping the concrete forest, and merging into the mountains and waters is always desirable. In fact, it is no longer just a trend of living in the countryside on weekends. For example, retired people and some urban workers in Japan live in the countryside for a longer period each year. In China, around big cities like Beijing and Shenzhen, migratory sojourning has also emerged.

Rural Sojourning—A New Choice for Health Preservation and Elderly Care

When mentioning sojourning, it is easy to associate it with quiet recuperation and elderly care. On one hand, because the elderly are relatively limited by physical energy, they will prioritize resort-style sojourning. On the other hand, the elderly have more free time to 'slow down' and are no longer restricted by holiday schedules. It is this 'slow-paced' travel demand that has driven the 'sojourn+' formats and products such as sojourning elderly care towns, health-preserving sojourning towns, sojourning characteristic villages, rural cultural tourism complexes, rural sojourning homestays, etc. These not only integrate the advantages of local customs, local cuisine, and characteristic scenery but also provide health preservation, cultural elderly care, and other sojourning services. At the national level, practical issues such as direct settlement of medical expenses across different regions are also being continuously promoted, truly supporting the 'silver-haired' generation.

Thoughts on the Development of Rural Sojourning Destinations

With the advancement of all-for-one tourism and the arrival of the rural life era, the countryside has become an important development carrier. The development and construction of rural sojourning destinations should pay attention to the following four aspects: constructing a rural lifestyle, neo-vernacular design, introducing diversified market entities, and developing differentiated products with characteristics.

(I) Rural Sojourning Should Be Based on Constructing Rural Life

The greatest value of the countryside is rural life itself. This principle of economics can explain that market exchange stems from resource scarcity. Rural sojourning is actually formed by matching rural markets with urban demands. The countryside is a good place to meet the emerging needs of ecological consumption, cultural consumption, and health preservation at a low cost. Its competitive and attractive element is the unique local lifestyle. The four major resource carriers of lifestyle are natural capital, local culture, renewable resources, and other endowment resources that cities do not have. Therefore, rural sojourning should focus on the authentic expression of rural lifestyle. In today's era of cultural confidence, rural 'traditional' lifestyles that are not aimed at pleasing consumers can also become an important means of rural construction, showing strong vitality and value.

A rural sojourning destination can be regarded as a 'living space with complete elements.' Within walkable reach, it encompasses production, life, ecology, and governance. It includes agriculture, traditional handicrafts, creative rural cultural industries, as well as complete village buildings and rural scenery, ensuring the comfort and attractiveness of rural life. It allows the elderly to live happily in the countryside, enables young people to return to their hometowns for life and work, and allows children to return to nature and authenticity, forming an eco-livable community for indigenous people, returning entrepreneurs, and eco-migrants.

(II) Rural Sojourning Should Emphasize Neo-Vernacular Design

Rendering of San Sheng Feng Qing Street in Xiushan, Chongqing

Green Vision Culture & Tourism believes that neo-vernacularism refers to critically inheriting and recreating regional traditions based on the natural characteristics and cultural spirit of a specific region, guided by ecological awareness, using modern aesthetic concepts, critically absorbing foreign cultures and innovative technological means. It is considered a new design concept and trend. Based on its own creative design practices, Green Vision Culture & Tourism has refined ten methods of neo-vernacular tourism landscape, tourism development strategies under the background of rural cultural revival, expression and sharing of neo-vernacular architecture, and other related theories. It has also formed practical explorations such as the design of Daquan Township characteristic town in Shawan County, Xinjiang; the design of Wild Fox Bay Lost House in Jinchuan, Gansu; and the design of resettlement houses in San Sheng Feng Qing Town in Xiushan, Chongqing. It summarizes two levels that are often considered in neo-vernacular design: the artistic level and the technical level.

Technical level: design materials, techniques, concepts, and the structure of integrated development.

The most important is the use of materials and methods. For example, the renovation of the tobacco curing house homestay in Tongzi, Guizhou by the China Rural Construction Institute integrates modern architectural technology into the original buildings with strong local characteristics. The embedding of internal steel frames, the use of new daylighting techniques, etc., solve the problems of old buildings while preserving their appearance.

Artistic level: includes architectural art, landscape art, decorative art, painting art, music art, and industrial design art.

For example, the visitor center of Hong'an Biancheng in Chongqing. The architectural inspiration comes from Shen Congwen's 'Border Town': 'The yellow mud walls, the black tiles, the position is always so appropriate.' The yellow mud walls, black tiles, and appropriate position are what we need to embody. This building is a large volume structure with layered eaves, inspired by the eaves of mountain buildings in Chongqing. The layered eaves not only reflect the local characteristic imagery but also solve the problem of a height difference of more than ten meters on the site. Using an artistic perspective and applying technical methods, it solves the site problems while expressing the symbolic meaning needed for our landmark building.

Rendering of Hong'an Biancheng Visitor Service Center in Xiushan, Chongqing

(III) Rural Sojourning Should Introduce Diversified Market Entities

For the innovation and development of rural sojourning, relying solely on the self-hematopoiesis ability of village collectives or cooperatives is insufficient. It requires the assistance of new rural development forces such as enterprises going to the countryside, returning elites, and returning entrepreneurs, as well as composite talents. Therefore, it is necessary to insist on introducing market entities as a key measure for developing the rural sojourning industry, actively attracting investment and participation from powerful enterprises, and forming the optimal allocation. Green Vision Culture & Tourism believes that there are three main development models:

The 'Crowdfunding by All Villagers' model. By aggregating various high-quality social resources, it provides services for the development and construction of the rural sojourning industry, not only solving the bottleneck of cooperative financing and long project development cycles but also bringing the most direct benefits to villagers. The most typical example is the Brick Art Town of Wujiazhuang in Xiahuayuan District, Zhangjiakou City, which used the crowd-funding model to renovate 100 idle courtyards, with the proceeds distributed in a 6:3:1 ratio among the organizing party, participating villagers, and the village committee.

The 'Village-Enterprise Cooperation' model. The village collective or cooperative invests in construction and hires professional companies for planning and operation. For example, Shisanhao Village in Shangyi County, Zhangjiakou City, established a rural housing cooperative, revitalized 38 idle farmhouses and courtyards, consolidated scattered homesteads, demolished old buildings and built new ones, and uniformly built 53 cave-style guesthouses with rural characteristics.

The 'F+EPCO Integration' model. With a strong enterprise as the main body, it coordinates the investment, planning, construction, operation, and other aspects. A typical representative is Yaozigou Village in Chicheng County, Zhangjiakou City. The village introduced a healthy and happy lifestyle service provider. Through renovation and improvement and homestead utilization, it developed and built a fairy tale town, realizing the organic combination of 'hollow village' governance and the development of characteristic tourism industries. Driven by the enterprise, the village's land, homesteads, valleys, mountains, and other resources were developed as a whole, fully utilizing green ecology to create economic benefits, enhancing its own 'hematopoietic' ability, and realizing the transformation of resources into assets.

(IV) Rural Sojourning Should Be Developed Based on Characteristics and Specific Features

Rural sojourning lifestyle destinations need to emphasize planning guidance and brand building innovation. They should actively rely on the cultural and tourism resource characteristics of the countryside, utilize resources such as idle rural houses of villagers, idle assets of village collectives, and idle land, and through top-level design and overall planning, innovatively explore 'sojourn+' formats and products such as sojourning elderly care towns, health-preserving sojourning towns, sojourning characteristic villages, rural cultural tourism complexes, rural sojourning homestays, rural hotels, rural inns, etc. Appropriately enrich service formats through integration with industries, integrate with agricultural scenes, actively build scenic spots that integrate leisure, tourism, agriculture, and creative agriculture, and develop formats such as ecological education, farming experience, shared farms, cultural exploration, and leisure sports. Integrate with agricultural product processing, handicraft processing, etc., to build parent-child parks, creative industrial parks, characteristic experience parks, and enhance experience. Integrate with study education, traditional Chinese medicine health preservation, and other industries, develop new formats such as extracurricular expansion, pastoral health preservation, and rural health-preserving sojourning. Fully leverage the leisure function of the countryside to promote the quality development of rural sojourning.

Additionally, rural sojourning destinations based on scenic spot destinations/around resorts/suburbs each have their own logic and characteristics.

Image source: Shetu.com