“Welcome to Lu Yu Bookstore. “The spring light is just right, on the most lively street in Guzhu Village, Shuikou Township, Changxing, Huzhou, I pushed open the glass door of Lu Yu Bookstore and walked into a quiet, literary space. Lu Yu Bookstore is a tea culture-themed library, the first in Gu Zhu Painting Valley and even in the county. Tea culture is an important part of Changxing’s local culture, and it also gives more meaning to Lu Yu Bookstore. Li Mingyue, director of the Lu Yu Bookstore Library, said that a special tea culture area has been set up in the bookstore, with books on tea culture and purple sand culture, as well as a display of tea products.
The predecessor of Lu Yu Bookstore was Shuikou Grass Market, which itself is a cultural and creative local specialty store. Previously, the eight villages of Shuikou Township jointly established Zhejiang Changxing Dream Culture Communication Co., Ltd. to do a good job in the overall planning and utilization of Shuikou landscape resources, and every villager has become the main body of development. In the second half of 2021, the company cooperated with Changxing County Library and Xinhua Bookstore, and the original Shuikou Grass Market was transformed into Lu Yu Bookstore. “I hope that when tourists come here, they can not only see the ‘earthy’ side of Shuikou’s native products, but also see the ‘elegant’ side of our cultural heritage. ”
After the trial opening, tourists were pleasantly surprised by the rich experience brought by the trendy business format, and the locals also had more understanding of how to improve Shuikou tourism. At present, the customer group of Lu Yu Bookstore is young people, who prefer culture, and the evaluation from the customer group is relatively high. Not only that, many local homestay owners are happy to have such a bookstore at their doorstep, “Since the winter vacation, many children have come to us to read books and do homework, and now a group of children come every weekend.” Li Mingyue said.
Many homestay owners share the same idea of showing tourists a more cultural level and developing the water outlet, so that locals can enjoy a richer cultural experience. Yaoyun B&B is a silver-level B&B in Zhejiang Province, every time she stays here, Ms. Jin, a tourist, will find that the B&B has changed, especially the study room in the B&B, which has become the favorite check-in place for her and her little sisters, “We are all retired, and we don’t like that kind of sightseeing tourism, so we need this kind of place where people can calm down and drink tea, read books, and chat.” ”
Keen to perceive the change in the way of tourism from the needs of tourists, Yaoyun B&B has attracted batches of guests. Having been in the industry for many years, Song Meifang, the hostess of the B&B, also has her own ideas for the development of tourism, “We should now make better use of local resources, such as the purple bamboo shoot tribute tea in Shuikou, Jinsha Spring, as well as cliff carvings and ancient roads, and use these cultural elements in tourism development to improve the grade of Shuikou tourism.” ”
The Guzhu Painting Valley, where Lu Yu Bookstore is located, is one of the valleys in Huzhou City’s Five Grains Harvest Plan, which is positioned as an “international pioneer creative highland and dynamic new headquarters base”, and is committed to transforming high-quality landscape features and profound historical and cultural heritage into a new engine to boost the economic and social development of Shuikou. At present, Shuikou has successively introduced cultural and creative projects such as camping bases, concert halls, and purple sand production. “To build a cultural corridor in the core area of Shuikou, in such an atmosphere, let the settled enterprises develop well, and at the same time, let local residents and tourists enjoy the scenery while also getting cultural edification, and participate in the production and experience of cultural and creative products, so that they can feel spiritual enrichment.” Wang Yan, director of the Guzhu Painting Valley Office in Shuikou Township, said.
In addition to Shuikou, cultural and creative projects have also brought a new tourism boom in Changxing Village. In Baifu Village, Huaxi Street, there is a burst of coffee fragrance wafting from the mountain township. Walking along the path, a café that has been converted into an old factory is a sight to behold. As soon as you enter the door, there are tents on the open field, with gravel roads, hollow bricks building a whole white wall, and tall palm trees building a unique landscape piece. Ascending to the balcony on the second floor, you can see the bamboo forest and plum forest up close, and the blue sky and white clouds in the distance. “The most of my people here are here to check in and take pictures. Zhou Jun, the person in charge, said that the use of the old factory to open a café is to fancy the good environment here, which is conducive to creating a rural cultural and creative Internet celebrity landscape.
Although it is a weekday, there is an endless stream of people who come to drink coffee and eat, and there are people taking pictures and checking in on almost every specially set small scene, and then posting it to their social accounts. This is the drainage method that Zhou Jun thought of before the opening, and the facts have proved to be indeed feasible. Local check-in, Internet celebrity store visits, new car launches, children’s clothing displays, making good use of cultural and creative elements, Zhou Jun played a café out of “flowers”, and now, his Douyin video will have hundreds of thousands of views, and more and more people have found the enjoyment of literature and leisure in this mountain café.
This also coincides with the direction of tourism development in Huaxi Street. More and more towns and villages with a good ecological environment realize that the traditional rural tourism model needs to be transformed and upgraded, and make good use of cultural elements to become their common choice.
Fang Xiaoping, deputy to the Changxing County People’s Congress and head of Yunqishe B&B in Xiaopu Town, brought his own suggestions at the two sessions of the county in 2022, proposing to create Changxing’s own themed boutique cultural tourism products. In recent years, Xiaopu Town, Shuikou Township, Coal Mountain Town and other towns (streets) have seized the opportunity of rural revitalization and actively promoted rural tourism.
“Rural tourism projects do not have their own theme characteristics, tourism products are numerous, resulting in the lack of unique cultural themes in the tourism area, if we can plan the cultural implantation of local rural tourism, combined with management mode and capital investment, I believe that we can develop better tourism products.” Fang Xiaoping said, whether it is the Lu Yu bookstore in Shuikou or the idle coffee in Huaxi Street, it is based on culture to develop cultural experience products, if the creation of culture and the integration of the local ecological environment and industrial environment in Changxing can be realized, and the pattern of cultural and artistic symbiosis and rural symbiosis will be built, and township tourism will usher in a greater development pattern.
(The original title is “Cultural and Creative Flowers Bloom in Green Mountains and Green Waters, Changxing Rural Cultural and Creative Tourism Pattern Emerges”, the original authors Shi Fang and Shen Fujia.) Edited by Nguyen Hong Sze)