B&B guesthouses in Shitang Renjia of Jiangning District, Nanjing, a five-star tourist resort of Jiangsu Province (LI BO)

Sitting by the window in her bed & breakfast (B&B) guesthouse, Meng Shuhui enjoys a glass of champagne, while admiring the landscape outside. The weather is just perfect at this time of the year and the scenery that stretches before her is picturesque: white clouds, blue sky and rolling green hills. Time seems to stand still, except for a symphony of cicadas coming from the nearby bamboo forest.

Located in a bamboo village at the foot of Mogan Mountain in Deqing County, two hours from Hangzhou, the capital city of east China’s Zhejiang Province, this guesthouse is the ideal refuge for Meng, who went there to take a rest after several intense days of stressful work in the city. 

And she is not the only one looking for a dose of “rural quietness.” In China, the B&B market, which took off in 2011, is still gaining momentum. According to a report published in November 2017 by China Tourism Association (CTA), the country had some 200,000 B&B guesthouses at the end of 2017, a year-on-year increase of 300 percent. Meanwhile, the industry’s transaction volume exceeded 12 billion yuan ($1.9 billion), and is expected to reach 30 billion yuan ($4.8 billion) by 2020. 

“As livelihoods are improving, urban dwellers are becoming tired of urban life and yearn for a return to rural life,” explained Luo Deyin, Professor at Tsinghua University, on the booming B&B industry in China in recent years. Such guesthouses, or homestay inns, represent a new form of the hospitality and accommodation industry, where travelers can satisfy their need for discovering and exploring nature, local culture and rural lifestyles during their stay. 

B&Bs are also an important development opportunity for local villagers, especially considering that the Chinese countryside has a lot of vacant houses as many farmers go to work and live in more prosperous cities. 

Rural awakening 

Xia Yuqing, Vice President of Kaistart, a crowdfunding platform specializing in the hospitality industry, was among the first to operate a B&B guesthouse on Mogan Mountain. “It was in 2000. At the time, many young people had moved to the cities. There were only a few elderly people and old dilapidated buildings in the village,” he recalled.  

But even empty of its young people, Deqing County still has abundant natural resources. Mogan Mountain is one of the four main summer resorts in China, and a four-star touristic attraction. This is one of the reasons why Xia wanted to invest there. Since then, B&B guesthouses in the county have grown like mushrooms after rain, with more than 400 inns and guesthouses opening their doors along the road leading to the mountain. 

This is nothing short of a resounding success, according to data provided by the county government. In 2016, more than 348,000 tourists, including 108,000 foreigners, stayed in local B&B guesthouses, generating 450 million yuan ($71.5 million) in revenue, up 28.6 percent year on year. The booming hospitality industry also promoted the efficient use of vacant houses in local villages. Today, the average annual rent for a room has risen to 70,000 yuan ($11,000) in Deqing, compared to 8,000 yuan ($1,200) in 2007. 

In addition, the development of rural tourism has contributed to job creation. Many elderly people, most of whom were idle, have now found work in B&B establishments. A waiter, for example, can make a monthly salary of about 3,000 yuan ($480). Many rural dwellers who had migrated to bigger cities have now returned to their home villages to open their own inns or restaurants. According to statistics, 3,500 direct jobs and 10,000 indirect jobs have been created as of today. 

By raising the income of local people, this new form of hospitality business has also encouraged local authorities to pay more attention to infrastructure linked to rural tourism, which has also benefited villagers. 

“B&B business will encourage more young people to return to their rural hometown, and will eventually revitalize the entire village. And this is how the B&B industry can lead to the awakening of an entire rural area,” said Xia. 

Standardization 

In recent years, the development model of the Mogan Mountain region has spread throughout the country, attracting a massive amount of capital as well as a large number of entrepreneurs. However, many problems have emerged. At a B&B conference held at the end of last year, CTA Director Duan Qiang said that the industry was facing significant challenges. 

In fact, not all rural areas are suitable for the development of the B&B economy, he noted. A large number of such guesthouses cannot make a profit, because of their isolation in location and lack of appropriate tourism resources. 

In addition, increasing numbers of consumers voice their dissatisfaction with the quality of services that have been given by some B&B guesthouses. As some analysts point out, while guesthouses can have distinct themes and personalized concepts, services should be standardized. More worrisome is that many inns do not have a hygiene, health and safety license, and operate outside the government’s monitoring system. Experts are therefore calling for the adoption of a national standard to better regulate the sector. 

To this end, the China National Tourism Administration published the first national regulation to standardize development of B&B guesthouses in August 2017, which came into effect on October 1 that year. Local administrations in places such as Beijing and Shenzhen, have also issued specific and detailed rules. 

This new national regulation clearly defines the B&B sector, puts in place evaluation principles and specifies rules related to services, hygiene, health and safety. While highlighting the need for standardization, the new regulation also leaves room for personalized features. In fact, B&B guesthouses will now be divided into “gold” and “silver” labels. To obtain the “gold” label, a B&B guesthouse will have to meet a number of criteria related to the environment, facilities and services.

(Comments to lixiaoyu@chinafrica.cn)