Zhangpai & Ana villages cooperate to boost collective economic development

Although Zhangpai Village and Ana Village in Hexi Town, Jishou City, Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture are geographically adjacent, their cultural characteristics are completely different.

Zhangpai Village attracts countless tourists with its vibrant grape industry and rural tourism, while Ana Village draws tourists with its dragon boat culture and unique farmhouse restaurants and homestays. To promote the development of the collective economy, the two villages have explored a new model to achieve complementary advantages.

Hexi Town started to build the “Zhangpai-Ana” tourism industry road in December 2021 and completed the construction in July 2022, with a total investment of over 2 million yuan.

The road connects Ana Village and Zhangpai Village with a total length of 5 kilometers and a width of 5.5 meters. After the completion of the road, the local tourism revenue has increased by 28%, and the collective economic income of the two villages increase more than 50,000 yuan each year. In 2022, the collective economic income of both villages exceeded 500,000 yuan, boosting rural revitalization.

In recent years, Zhangpai Village has become a star village in the surrounding areas with its development model of “grape plus rural tourism”. The grape planting area is nearly a thousand mu (about 66.67 hectares), and the annual output reaches 850,000 kilograms.

This summer, a “field classroom” was set up in the picturesque vineyard of Zhangpai Village. Here, a rural leisure tourism complex that integrates picking, experiencing, and playing has formed, based on Moon Island Manor, Grape Industry Park and Sun Island Outdoor Leisure Center. In order to help promote the brand of Zhangpai Grape, the village also organized the “Qixi Grape Music Festival” and the village basketball game, featuring live singing, dance performances and game interaction.

Whereas, Ana Village has explored the development model of “culture plus tourism”. The village organized a dragon boat competition, with robust young people rowing dragon boats. The restaurants and corn fields on both banks of the river were crowded with onlookers. At noon, tourists can taste Xiangxi cured meat and the fresh fish just caught from the river. They also can stay for a night at the characteristic homestay inn, and have a cup of corn wine as well as golden tea.

According to an official of Hexi Town, Zhangpai Village and Ana Village has leveraged their respective advantages through cooperation. Through the “industry plus culture plus tourism” model, they not only share the dividends of rural revitalization and achieve complementary advantages, but also drive the development of surrounding areas and provide new ideas and methods for increasing collective economic income and helping rural revitalization.