When Xixinan village in China went viral in 2023, its fairy-tale greenery drew crowds of visitors. But the sudden tourism boom raised pressing questions: how could the village generate revenue without charging an entrance fee, and how could it share the benefits with neighboring villages instead of competing with them? The answer, according to a new video series by People's Daily, lies in a cooperative approach that links six villages into a single tourism network.
The series, Decoding Rural China's Governance, explores grassroots governance and rural development across China. Its latest episode, One Green Haven, Six Linked Villages, focuses on how Xixinan and five nearby villages are turning online attention into a shared opportunity. As reported by Media OutReach Newswire, the villages have developed a range of experiences—bamboo raft rides, a sightseeing train, homestays, and nighttime fish-lantern tours—and connected them into a complete travel route that encourages visitors to stay longer and spend more, allowing more local businesses to benefit.
Rather than competing for visitors, the villages have embraced a cluster development approach, creating complementary businesses and sharing tourism resources. At the heart of this cooperation is a revenue-sharing model: 70 percent of revenue goes to the village where a business operates, 20 percent is distributed according to the original equity ratio (with Xixinan taking 5 percent and the other five villages taking 3 percent each), and 10 percent is retained by the town's operating company as working capital. This mechanism ensures that all villages benefit from shared tourism resources while encouraging each to develop its own distinctive offerings.
The impact is significant. More than 70 percent of residents in the town now work in tourism. In 2025, each village generated over 1 million yuan (about $140,000) in revenue, helping to ensure that the benefits of tourism are spread across the entire town. The video follows the journey from Xixinan's viral rise to the broader transformation of the six villages, demonstrating how natural scenery, connected tourism routes, and a shared-interest mechanism can convert visitor traffic into wider rural development.
This story matters because it offers a replicable model for rural communities facing similar challenges. As tourism increasingly drives economic growth in rural areas, the risk of unequal development and inter-village competition is real. The six-village cluster shows that cooperation and equitable revenue sharing can turn a fleeting viral moment into sustainable prosperity. For policymakers, entrepreneurs, and rural residents worldwide, this Chinese experiment provides a glimpse of how shared opportunities can be harnessed for the common good—turning a single village's fame into a rising tide that lifts all boats.
