Tourists prepare food at a rural homestay in Binzhou, Shandong province. [PHOTO BY CHU BAORUI/FOR CHINA DAILY] 

Rural tourism has become a major government priority for vitalizing rural areas. East China's Shandong province has been promoting rural tourism to boost the integrated development of urban and rural areas.

According to statistics provided by the Shandong Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism, there are more than 3,500 large-scale rural tourism spots and 84,000 rural tourism businesses in the province, which have about 520,000 employees.

In recent years, Shandong has promoted the integration of urban and rural elements in order to develop rural tourism, and built a relatively complete new rural tourism industrial system. The scale of rural tourism has accounted for half of the province's tourism market.

With the popularization of private cars, good roads are an important factor for developing rural tourism and attracting consumers from urban areas to the countryside.

In recent years, the Shandong Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism, together with transportation and other departments, have been working to improve the roads in rural areas.

They have developed a number of high-quality rural tourism routes around cities, and fostered a number of national scenic routes and high-quality rural self-driving tour routes.

During the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-25), Shandong plans to continue to put agricultural and rural development first, pursue integrated development of urban and rural areas, develop its infrastructure and public services in rural areas and build a beautiful and harmonious countryside that is desirable to live and work in.