Agriculture, tourism make area a draw for visitors

It boasts a beautiful natural scenery and unique folk customs. The city dates back more than 2,200 years and was an important site along the ancient Tea Horse Road.

The city has expanded its traveling from only scenic spots to rural tourism in recent years, which provide for enjoyable students' trips and relaxing tours. The integration of culture and tourism has proven to be a winning formula.

Anning is putting extra promotion into specific tourist destinations, such as the Yulongwan forest park, the Anning hot spring scenic area and the Shijiang academy. Local media reported that the city focuses on developing feature brands and competitive cultural tourism.

The city will also rely on its hot springs to develop compound industries, including sports, medical treatment and health care for the elderly.

Guanglang village in Anning has become a leader in rural revitalization. The village is located in a valley and relied heavily on farming culture. Adobe houses have been transformed into teahouses while tile-roofed houses have become bookstores and ceramics workshops.

Five years ago, the village was almost abandoned after all its villagers were relocated due to urban construction planning. Local authorities needed to help the 100 households of villagers to find a new livelihood.

Guanglang is located in a sightseeing belt in Anning and only 20 kilometers away from downtown Kunming, capital of Yunnan province. So local officials decided to build Guanglang into a village focusing on cultural creativity.

The administrative committee of Taiping Xincheng sub-district, where Guanglang is located, worked with Yunnan University of Finance and Economics to make the village a cultural creative center of the university. The villagers established a tourism and culture cooperative and collaborated with the local government, the university and local companies.

Officials offered free house rent for five years and attracted several artists to live and work in the village. Wu Bin, a retired university professor, has a workshop there in which he recycles daily waste to develop more fun and useful items. Among his creations is a dinosaur-shaped figure made of materials from scraped cars and "spiders" made of umbrella skeletons.

"Here, people can use their imagination and creativity," Wu said. "Everyone can be an artist."

The village has attracted 36 intangible cultural heritage and farming culture creativity companies. Total project construction investment has surpassed 12 million yuan ($1.83 million). Aided by cultural creativity, many other social activities have also been held in Guanglang, such as children's spring outings and artistic workshops for college students.

Anning also focuses on implementing traveling routes to promote tourism. It actively integrated into a circuit tourism project in western Yunnan in recent years and has promoted several routes of its own.

In the eastern Jintai countryside route, Anning focuses on rural culture creativity, rural tourism and a wide range of offerings for well-being. Sasseur (Kunming) Outlets has arts, techniques and brands as its operation concepts and aims to become a tourist shopping destination. Guanglang village is also included in the route.

The western Caopu-Lubiao camping route offers travelers food from farmers' families, mainly wild mushroom and cured meat. It involves recreational vehicle campsites and as well leisure sightseeing and science education.