Agritourism Development In Changping District Of Beijing

Agritourism is a growth engine for tourism economy. It not only increases value for agriculture and tourism economy, but also plays vital role in increasing the farmer's income, restructuring agricultural sectors, developing rural area, absorbing surplus laborers and other issues related to agriculture, farmers and rural development etc., especially in the suburb of large-middle scale cities. The agritourism is urgently to be studied.In this study, agritourism is suggested to a newly emerging industry based on agriculture and tourism with agricultural characteristics. It is exploiting agricultural landscape and environmental space resources, enabling visitors to experience modern agriculture, taste rural natural feeling and enjoy rural culture & custom. From traditional farming it not only sales agricultural products but also marketing related products of agricultural production procedure and related technologies.The current situation of agritourism in Changping district and Shisanling Township was studied by combining comprehensive documentation analysis method and field work investigation through investigation, interview, questionnaire and systematic analysis. The basic theory on agritourism included evolution theory of industry structure, advantage comparison theory among regional development, and integration development between urban and rural areas. There are four aspects newly obtained as follows:1. agritourism concept and characteristics were systematically summarized. The possible functions such as social, economical, ecological, cultural, educational roles were analysized. The new classification was grouped based on its structure, function, development context, development models and natural landscape layout etc.2. The major models of agritourism in the Changping district was classified into three kinds, e.g. modern agriculture park based on new & hi tech demonstration, participating farming based on fruit harvest and experience farming with farmer life, and folk tour.3. The experience, economical return and constraints of agritourism in the Changping district were investigated. Their experience on agritourism was that long traditional agriculture is basic element, local government attention and positive supporting policy are the key factors, natural environment and rich resources are their advantage. The investigation of farmer household, problems on production, management method, marketing channel and farmer's views on agritourism in Shisanling indicated that farmer's income from agritourism household are much higher than those of non-agritourism household. The major constraints faced to farmers in Shisanling are lack of development fund, less local characteristics mainly dependent on fruit harvesting, pollution residues from a great number of tourists to remote countryside. The interviewed farmers have no any products related to local culture and folk. The management scale is relatively small scale for each household with supply of simple farmer's food.4. The following suggestion and development approaches were proposed to solve the problems mentioned above. Land management and layout should be encouraged. Stock fund should be launched. The proper products and management should be designed in lines with regional and seasonal characteristics. Agritourism should be integrated into development of tourism industry with more emphasis on customer's participation and Changping cultural characterics. The priority for further development of agritourism in the Changping district should be focused on infrastructure improvement, establishment of special fund for farmer training technology development, tax alleviation and financial assistance, etc. With that agritourism in Beijing suburb will has bright future and developed into new stage.