Since the launch of the initial 12 sightseeing and leisure demonstration villages in 2010, the GuangZhou Municipal Government has named again 56 star-level rural tourism destinations such as Tianxin in Congua City and Julong Town in Zengcheng City which won such titles for the first time last year. These star-level rural tourism destinations provide citizens with a batch of “standardized and brand” names to choose from.

Sightseeing and leisure agriculture is one of the agricultural industries that Guangzhou has given more focus to in recent years. Since the second half year of last year, the Guangzhou Agricultural Bureau has started organizing people to work out the development standard and rating standard for the “rural star-level tourism destinations”. The appraisal and selection work began in March, with five levels of standards from one star to five stars being set. The district and county-level cities are responsible for determining from one star to three stars and the municipal agricultural bureau is in charge of determining four star and five star destinations.

According to the standards set, there are 56 tourism destinations getting stars among the initial group of rural tourism units taking part in the rating. Seven units were awarded four stars, eleven units got three stars, twenty-six units got two stars and twelve units got one star. Not one got five star rating at this time, which has clearly indicated that rural tourism needed upgrading.