On the evening of September 17, the 2022 Hunan Provincial Tourist Homestay Expo was held on the Wulingyuan Biaozhimen Square in Zhangjiajie. Through texts, pictures, videos, and product livestreaming promotion campaign, the online expo showcased the unique charm of Hunan tourism and homestays in an all-round and a multi-dimensional manner. It brought the audience a feast of new products, new technologies, and new equipment.

The expo is an important step for Hunan to speed up the construction of a world-class tourist destination. The expo (cloud exhibition) has three exhibition areas, with more than 200 homestay inns participated. The image display area mainly showcases the brand image of homestay inns in 13 cities and one prefecture in Hunan Province, including local homestay inns, local featured tourist commodities, national geographical indication products, and intangible cultural heritage exhibitions. The enterprise exhibition area focuses on displaying homestay projects and well-known homestay enterprises in Hunan. The industrial chain exhibition area mainly displays tourist homestay facilities and enterprises supporting the whole industry chain. 

According to incomplete statistics, there are more than 4,800 homestay inns in the province, with about 187,200 beds and an annual comprehensive income of about 30 billion yuan. The homestay business directly creates more than 100,000 jobs. It helps local people increase income and boosts rural revitalization through rental of idle houses, sales of agricultural products, and creating job opportunities near people's homes. Up to now, Hunan has one national class-A homestay inn, one national class-B homestay inn, 15 provincial five-star homestay inns, and 15 four-star homestay inns. 

The expo aimed to display the development achievements of Hunan's tourist homestay, build a complete "tourist homestay +" industrial chain, expand the tourist homestay industry cluster, and promote the brand of "Homestay in Beautiful Hunan" to the whole country and even the world.

The expo was jointly sponsored by the Hunan Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism and the Zhangjiajie Municipal People's Government, and organized by the Hunan Provincial Tourist Homestay Association and other units. Wulingyuan District, where the expo was held, is one of the four major clusters of homestay inns in the province. On September 6, Xiehe Township in this district was approved as Hunan's first experimental area for the cluster development of tourist homestay.

This article is from the Hunan Provincial Government www.enghunan.gov.cn.

Translator: Xiao Juan

Chinese source: hunan.gov.cn