2019-06-03

Conference on historic villages| Xinqikou: One of the top ten ancient villages and towns favorite by 2019 netizens

The 4th National Conference on historic villages was held in the ancient town of Qikou, Shanxi Province, the first town of the Yellow River in Jiuqu on 24th May 2019. The new declaration on the protection and development of ancient Chinese villages and towns was released and “the 2019 netizens’ favorite top ten ancient villages and towns" were announced at the conference.

Mr. Qing Zhang, Technical Director from Haskoll china was invited to attend this event, with experts and scholars from Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Slovenia and 22 provinces and cities nationwide, fields of domestic and foreign cultural relics protection, heritage research and activation, urban and rural planning, cultural tourism, architectural design, rural construction, residential practice, investment and financing, Internet communication, etc. Nearly 800 people and more than 50 mainstream media in the country attended the conference. 

The conference focused on the theme of "the life of the Yellow River" and the three major forums on "Revitalization of Rural Areas, Integration of Culture and Tourism, Protection and Activation”. The conference invited nearly 50 experts and scholars from the fields of cultural relics’ protection, heritage research and activation, urban and rural planning, and cultural tourism to share keynote speeches which deeply explored hot topics such as cultural heritage, sustainable conservation and utilization of natural resources. 

The event was jointly organized by the Conference on historic villages and Sina Travel & Weibo County. It took 37 days and 90 ancient villages and towns to participate in the competition. After 1.7 million netizens vote and 8 experts review, The list of "2019 netizens favorite ten ancient villages and towns" was officially released: “Wuzhen acient town, old town of Lijiang, The ancient town of Xitang, Hong Village, Qikou ancient town, Huangyao ancient town, Fenghuang ancient town, Xijiang Qianhu Miao village, Zhouzhuang, Wuyuan Huangling "  

Haskoll has always focused on the combination of design and 5 connections among environment, physics, economy, culture and society since came to China from the UK.
Mr. Qing Zhang participated in the research, visited in the ancient village of Qikou and shared his informed views of Haskoll project “Zunyi Hailongtun village”. 

It is very hard to say which comes first in terms of tourism and regional development. The ancient village can be a microcosm of regional culture and history. With the development of society, the villages that were built hundreds of years ago have become incompatible with the social and natural environment. 

It is difficult to imagine that in the case of relatively lagging development in the surrounding areas, a limited number of ancient villages can shoulder the mission of promoting the development of the entire region. Therefore, the development of regional economy and tourism must be jointly planned and coordinated.

Hailongtun Legendary Tusi Village

Commonalities – People pursue a familiar life in a strange environment especially in vacation and leisure tourism. The improvement of service hardware and software is a top priority in tourism.
Characteristics - it relies more on cultural and creative industries, and deep processing of agricultural products to enhance the added value. It focuses on the coordinated development of the entire industry chain.