Huangshan city in East China's Anhui province is home to a hidden gem – Qiankou town, a thousand-year-old town that these days is making waves in the health and wellness industry.
Recent years have seen the town put a lot of effort into boosting its high-quality development.
It's established an outdoor sports brand by leveraging the aesthetic appeal of the 17-kilometer-long road from Chengkan – a beautiful old village in the city – to Qiankou. The town has hosted various highly popular events along the thoroughfare, including bicycle races and 10 sessions of tai chi classes.
Moreover, the town has encouraged local homestays and agritainment bases to develop over 20 nourishing dishes to bring in the customers – such as lotus root and oatmeal porridge and medicinal chicken soup.
In addition, a substantial investment of 1 billion yuan ($136.64 million) has been allocated to build a 500-mu (33.33 hectares) health preservation base.
Most notably, the town has introduced tai chi and moxibustion research and development projects from Shanghai to the facility, with the aim of exploring new forms and models for the local health and wellness industry.
An exquisite evening view of the health preservation base in Qiankou town. [Photo/article.xuexi.cn]
Last but not least, Qiankou town has fully capitalized on its four 3A-level or higher tourist attractions and six municipal intangible cultural heritage preservation projects. That's in order to create six tourism routes – including a tea plantation tour and an intangible cultural heritage study tour – which have captured the hearts of tourists.
The town now proudly holds such titles as "national beautiful rural town" and "provincial health town".