Anhui Shexian: Revitalizing Idle Resources with Platform Economy to Boost Agritourism

I. Project Overview

Shexian County is located in the southern part of Anhui Province, China. The dominant industries are tea and chrysanthemums, with Da Fang tea, Huangshan Maofeng, Huangshan White Tea, and Huangshan Tribute Chrysanthemums being national geographic indication protected products. In addition, Shexian County is a famous historical and cultural city in China. Shexian has constructed an industrial development system centered on industrial development, focusing on the revitalization of idle assets and upgrading of cultural and tourism industries.

II. Program Model

1) Digital means revitalize idle resource assets to boost local industries.

Shexian County has built a value transformation platform service system to promote the revitalization of idle resource assets. The first step is to comprehensively inventory idle resource elements; the second step is to create a blockchain-based ecological resource transaction system, implementing dynamic supervision of collective funds, assets, and resources throughout the process, realizing transparent and non-face-to-face transactions; the third step is to establish an element investment attraction platform to promote Shexian County's resource assets through the internet.

At the same time, the county has established a digital service platform for the Huangshan Tribute Chrysanthemum industry chain and a management system for the Chrysanthemum industry demonstration base to manage the Huangshan Tribute Chrysanthemum base well. Through the digital service platform, the basic situation of the demonstration base can be viewed online, and data traces can be retained and referenced in the management process.

2) Building a characteristic brand to enhance the added value of agricultural products.

Shexian County has created a regional public brand of green agricultural products - Shexian Harvest Vibrancy and formulated regional public brand management measures, attracting a variety of traditional advantageous characteristic agricultural products from Shexian County to enter the brand management system. They have also created two high-quality online products (chrysanthemums and tea), jointly customized five new products with self-operated e-commerce platforms, organized three integrated marketing activities, and built an industrial service operation position, establishing one industrial operation public service center to provide e-commerce industry public services for Shexian County's enterprises and merchants.

3) Based on big data, innovative IP design and diverse activities to boost agritourism

Shexian County has cooperated with local companies to design six cultural and tourism IPs, forming an IP matrix featuring intangible cultural heritage, folk customs, and architecture. In November 2022, the official IP image of Huangshan Tribute Chrysanthemum, "She Little Chrysanthemum", was launched, and the first national digital collection of chrysanthemums, "Huangshan Tribute Chrysanthemum", was also listed on the online digital collection platform, helping to enhance potential consumers' recognition of Huangshan Tribute Chrysanthemum.

III. Benefits

In terms of agricultural value chain development, the digital transformation and upgrade of the production, operation, and management mode of the Huangshan Tribute Chrysanthemum industry have been effectively promoted by establishing a digital service platform for the industry chain and a management system for the industry demonstration base. The new Huangshan Tribute Chrysanthemum products have been listed and sold on well-known online channels (the market retail price is 39.9 yuan/box, or approximately US$ 6.3/box), effectively enhancing the added value of Huangshan Tribute Chrysanthemum and expanding the income space of farmers.

In terms of cultural tourism development, IP design and derivative production have effectively promoted its integration with the digital economy. Shexian city map was launched on the e-commerce platform, which presents the cultural resources and local features of Shexian County in a diversified manner through constructing scenes such as Huizhou Ancient City, Huizhou Prefecture Office, etc. On the day of the event's launch, the cumulative participation reached 960,000, the exposure exceeded 35 million, and more than 400,000 users used the custom tools of the Shexian County map, significantly raising awareness of Shexian's cultural and tourism resources.

IV. Lessons Learned

Firstly, the construction of digital villages from the institutional mechanism level should be ensured by the local government. It has set the top-level construction framework, detailed the construction content and phased goals of digital villages at each time node, and ensure the steady progress of digital village construction at policy level.

Secondly, revitalize existing resources and introduce new technologies to accelerate the construction of digital villages. Based on local characteristic resource advantages, integrate county-level agricultural, cultural, and tourism resources, collect and analyze related data with the main line of resource digitization, use digital IP to guide online operation of rural cultural and tourism resources, and develop new industries and new formats based on the internet for agriculture, culture, and tourism.

For more information, please contact WFP China COE (wfpcn.coe@wfp.org)