What problems does the development of leisure agriculture and rural tourism face?

The development of leisure agriculture and rural tourism is facing new development opportunities and challenges. The development of leisure agriculture and the rural tourism industry will certainly make its due contribution to industrial restructuring, expanding employment opportunities for farmers, increasing farmers' income, building beautiful villages, promoting urban-rural integration, and increasing the supply of short-distance tourism products.

Misunderstandings in rural tourism development

The national policies supporting the development of the tourism industry have already become, and are continuing to become, concrete actions of governments at all levels. However, in the implementation of the government-led tourism development strategy, there also exist some misunderstandings.

Misunderstanding one: "any village can develop rural tourism." Some places develop rural tourism without considering objective reality, and do not conduct scientific demonstration and planning for investment and development projects. Investment projects have not become wealth but have instead become a burden. Developing rural tourism has prerequisites: there must be transportation conditions, food and accommodation conditions, landscape conditions, participation conditions, shopping conditions, and so on. The development of rural tourism must be carried out in combination with transportation infrastructure construction, urbanization construction, village appearance construction, folk culture construction, and industrial restructuring, and must be developed according to the demand of the tourist source market and the integrated advantages of tourism resources. The vitality of rural tourism lies in the distinctive features of rural tourism culture and in the interaction between tourists and scenic area services.

Misunderstanding two: relying on government fiscal funds for development. Funds for developing rural tourism cannot rely solely on government finance; funds must be raised through diversified channels. Individual funds, collective funds, and capital market funds should become the main investors. In an era when resource allocation is determined by the market, whether the rural tourism market can form and develop in the village to be invested in is the fundamental basis for deciding whether a developer invests. The investment of capital market funds and individual funds requires returns, while fiscal funds should be guiding and supportive investment.

In addition, the development of leisure agriculture and rural tourism also faces the following problems.

The state should formulate rural tourism land use policy as soon as possible

In the "Several Opinions of the State Council on Promoting the Reform and Development of the Tourism Industry," it is required: "The annual land supply should appropriately increase land for tourism development, and under the premise of complying with planning and land use control, rural collective economic organizations should be encouraged to jointly establish tourism enterprises with other units and individuals in accordance with the law through forms such as contributing the right to use collective operating construction land as equity and joint operation." This regulation will certainly promote the development of the rural tourism industry, and it is hoped that the relevant national departments will formulate the relevant implementation rules as soon as possible.

Under the national condition of a declining grain self-sufficiency rate in our country, rural areas in our country must find a new path to develop tourism without occupying land used for grain production. However, not occupying land for grain production and vegetable production does not mean not occupying land at all. Especially with regard to land use for non-agricultural protected land in rural areas, formulating land use policies for this type of land is conducive both to protecting land used for grain and vegetable production and to the development of the rural tourism industry.

Some rural tourism enterprises that have obtained land use rights face the question of which type of land price should be used for pricing land supply. At present, pricing is generally based on commercial land, while in some places it is based on industrial land. Through research, people engaged in rural tourism believe that the state should stipulate the land price for tourism land, and if it is difficult to stipulate this for the time being, it would be best to price it according to industrial land prices. Regarding the term of use for tourism land, it is also hoped that it would best be set at 70 years, which would be conducive to sustainable development.

⟦NL> In addition, the land attributes of supply and marketing cooperatives should be clarified. On the basis of the original primary industry land use, land policies conducive to the development of the tertiary industry should be formulated. In the era of the planned economy, the state allocated a certain amount of land to the supply and marketing cooperative system for cultivating improved seeds and building pig breeding bases. At present, supply and marketing cooperatives in some regions have built leisure farms or modern agricultural sightseeing parks on this land, but these houses have no property ownership certificates, and financial accounting is not standardized. The land use policy for this type of land should also be clarified as soon as possible.

Support the planning, design, and feasibility demonstration of key rural tourism destinations

Tourism administrative departments should support the planning, design, and project demonstration of key rural tourism destinations with a certain amount of financial resources.

At present, there are few institutions doing planning for rural tourism, their experience is insufficient, and their level is not high. Individual farmers investing also are unwilling to put much input into planning. Therefore, the construction layout of some rural tourism destinations is not reasonable enough, and their distinctive features are not prominent. Planning and design units should be encouraged to go deep into rural areas and produce first-class planning and design for the development of beautiful villages and rural tourism.

In areas where the rural tourism market developed earlier, local governments have invested a certain amount of financial resources, materials, and manpower to rectify the tourism environment of tourist scenic areas and attractions. However, in some places the problem of dirty, messy, and poor environments has not been completely eradicated. There should be a gradual and planned solution to the hardening of the last mile of rural tourism roads, the toilet problem, the cooking fuel problem, the garbage treatment problem, and so on.

The experience of some scenic areas and attractions with good environmental public hygiene is to include environmental governance in tourism development planning, raise funds through multiple channels to improve year by year and step by step, establish professional cleaning teams, and establish a long-term mechanism for sanitation and cleaning.

Attention must be paid to professional talent and skills training

In areas where rural tourism developed earlier, local governments and tourism administrative departments treated tourism professional talent training and tourism professional skills training as important matters, such as room management and service skills, food and beverage hygiene standards, skills for making staple foods and dishes, and tourism webpage production techniques. However, there are still quite a lot of areas that only attach importance to project hardware construction and do not attach importance to training work. In addition, there is also a lack of training materials for rural tourism practitioners.

At present, most farmers in rural tourism destinations engaged in accommodation and catering reception are called professional tourism reception households and hang signs reading "Nongjiale." However, to date there are no unified food and beverage hygiene standards or room configuration and cleaning hygiene standards for "Nongjiale."

It is suggested that provincial tourism departments formulate relevant standards to ensure the food and accommodation safety of tourists.

Rural tourism projects should fully consider the long-term interests of indigenous residents

Funds for rural tourism development should be raised through multiple channels. Government funds, capital market funds, large enterprise funds, collective funds, and individual funds can all enter the rural tourism market.

At present, the investment model in most places is: the investor signs an agreement with the government, the government determines the land price, the investment developer pays the land expropriation and demolition funds, the government is responsible for demolition and land leveling, and after receiving the developer's funds, the government then pays the farmers. After farmers receive a one-time cash payment, they move away and no longer have any relationship with the land they formerly cultivated.

When approving construction projects, governments of rural tourism destinations should fully consider the long-term interests of indigenous residents. When indigenous residents transfer land use rights and lose their means of production, especially farmers who are relocated as a whole, if investment developers allocate a small portion of equity to the indigenous residents as long-term income from village-level collective land, the village collective can use the land income for environmental protection and construction, and farmers can also increase asset-based income. During research, the author learned that some village committee and Party branch cadres proposed that, in order to solve farmers' worries, farmers could be allowed to become shareholders in development projects with land appraisal prices. Farmers would not participate in management and would only receive dividends according to shares.

In addition, at present, Nongjiale operators basically have not established financial systems. It is suggested that after review and approval, Nongjiale be registered with the industry and commerce bureau as micro tourism enterprises and that a credit system for individual micro enterprises be established. Tax authorities may exempt or reduce taxes and fees for micro tourism enterprises to show that the state supports the development of the rural tourism industry and rural tourism micro enterprises through tax policy. At the same time, this also gives them national awareness and social responsibility.