More than 200 hospitality practitioners, representatives from cultural and tourism departments, and tea culture experts and scholars from both the mainland and Taiwan gathered in Wuyishan, Fujian Province, recently to explore new opportunities for developing tea-themed accommodations.
On April 17, the first national tea-themed accommodation development conference, themed "Stay in Wuyi, tea in China," was held in Wuyishan City, along with cross-Strait exchange activities focused on tea-themed accommodations in Fujian.
As Wuyishan is known as the birthplace of oolong and black tea, local authorities are integrating tea culture into rural development.
"First, we focus on cultural empowerment by incorporating intangible cultural heritage, such as Wuyi tea ceremonies and tea arts, into the accommodation experience. Second, we enhance industry collaboration to achieve an integrated development of accommodation, tea garden and creative industry. Third, we emphasize ecological features to promote a green and low-carbon tea tourism lifestyle," said Gan Shudan, head of the homestay branch of the Nanping City Tourism Association.
During the conference, a report on national tea accommodation industry development was released, which highlights the current status and future trends of the tea accommodation industry.
The first 17 certified Wuyi tea accommodation brands and the cross-Strait tea accommodation brands were announced at the event, aiming to promote cooperative development of the tea accommodation industry across the Strait.
"It's not a complete revolution, instead, it's an innovative leap built on the existing development of the homestay business. We want to present a fresh new concept of homestay, including its essence and scope," said Ning Jun, head of the homestay branch of the Fujian Provincial Tourism Association.
Cross-Strait representatives discuss tea-themed accommodation development
China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) will work with relevant departments and local authorities to take concrete steps to promote the implementation of the newly passed private sector promotion law, a landmark legislation concerning a vast economic force in the country, said an NDRC official.
China's top legislative body -the National People's Congress - passed the private sector promotion law on Wednesday, establishing a legal backing for the steady and healthy growth of the key sector, including more than 57 million private firms and over 100 million self-employed individuals.
This landmark law is China's first fundamental legislation dedicated to the private sector. It will bolster confidence among the vast community by improving the business environment, fostering innovation, and ensuring fair competition, according to NDRC, the country's top economic planner.
"The private sector promotion law has actively responded to the key concerns in the development of the private sector. Efforts are made to establish and improve relevant systems and enhance the enforceability of the systems, from ensuring fair competition, improving investment and financing environment, supporting technology innovation, focusing on regulated operation, optimizing services and guarantees, and improving rights and interest protection, to strengthening legal accountability, so as to ensure that all forms of ownership can equally utilize production factors by the law, participate in market competition fairly, receive equal legal protection, further unleash their complementary advantages, and pursue common development," said Liu Min, deputy director of Private Sector Development Bureau under NDRC.
Liu added NDRC will continue to work together with relevant departments and local authorities to improve supporting systems and mechanisms and take concrete steps to promote the implementation of the private sector promotion law.
"We will make continuous and increasing efforts to remove barriers to market access and to fair competition, to address the issue of overdue payments to private enterprises, to protect the lawful rights and interests of private businesses and entrepreneurs by the law, to implement various relief policies, to help private enterprises shoulder their responsibilities of the era, so as to help translate legal systems into concrete actions and tangible outcomes that promote the high-quality development of the private sector," said Liu.
Concrete steps to take for firmly implementing China's landmark private sector promotion law: official
