Yangshuo Riverside hotel in North Guilin, China

We promote and preserve local culture and educate our guests on its unique characteristics. We do this by only employing people from the surrounding villages (except for our onsite British staff development coach). We provide continuous hospitality and English training for our 14 local staff, encouraging them to speak with our guests. We also serve as a corporate retreat and training centre, and are the only such facility on the Yulong River having been given special status by local government. We strive to make minimal impact on water and land resources and educate guests to help us in our conservation efforts.

Through our recently established charity shop and guest donations, we have raised over $5,000 toward funding the China-US Medical Foundation, which provides access to education and treatment for disabled children in China. As owner, this year I have personally donated $1,200 to fund the reconstruction of a school in nearby Feng Lou Village.

We encourage guests to see the nearby villages by bike, not car and to visit nearby sites not listed on the main tourism routes. We also promote tours from the local bamboo river rafting groups, not the government owned tours. This means our guests are spending money in the villages with local people directly instead of at large government or outsider owned venues. It reduces traffic and gives a more authentic rural China experience.

The number of guests renting bikes is steadily increasing, as is the interest in self-guided village tours and local rafting. More guests prefer to explore the area in small groups and we are now training young people from these villages at our in-house training centre on how to be responsible guides and promote sustainable tourism. We invite cormorant fishermen, local song and dance troupes as well as local artists, chefs and tai chi instructors to perform and teach our guests.

Our guests are families from all over the world who remark on the amazing team of people who run the mountain accommodation. Many say it is the best travel experience they’ve ever had in China, and more guests are asking for these services through positive word of mouth.

To date we have planted over 300 plants and trees on what was previously fallow rice terraces. These include native bougainvillea, orange osmanthus trees, bananas, bamboo, birds of paradise, fig trees, pipa trees, pineapple palms and evergreens. We are also expanding our own vegetable and herb garden.

We have been supplementing our water boiler’s coal briquettes with agriwaste (sawdust/shredded newspaper/clay/glycerol) that we have learned how to make from research on ecosur. We also built our own screwpress for making them. Our goal is to completely replace coal within a year. We are also researching supplementary passive solar for hot water to reduce fuel consumption further.

We drilled our own well and set up our own cistern. We do not use sprinklers but water everything by hand. All our gray water is contained in an open septic field which is covered by water lilies and inhabited by snails and frogs.

As mentioned, we intend to train more village young people to be part-time guides, and educate them on sustainable tourism practices in the process. We are also lobbying local government who are in the process of widening a road behind us, to allow only electric tour vehicles and bicycles and no tour buses.