New to the list are two villages in the country’s southwest – Dazhai, in the mountainous north of Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, and Jingzhu, in the Wulong district of Chongqing municipality.

Yu Qiongtong, director of Dazhai’s tourism department, attended the event on behalf of the 1,388 residents of the village, and told the Post he was “very honoured” to have been invited to Saudi Arabia to accept the award at Al Ula’s Maraya convention centre.

Maraya means “reflection” in Arabic, and the structure is recognised by Guinness World Records as the largest entirely mirrored building in the world, with 9,740 panels reflecting the Ashar Valley and its pale red rock walls.

Of Dazhai, Yu says: “Most of the people in the village are employed in the tourism industry in some way, with about 90 per cent of our visitors from China.”

The history of Dazhai can be traced back more than 2,300 years. Its natural assets include the mountain ranges, streams and forests that account for more than 75 per cent of the village’s territory, but key to the development of tourism has been Dazhai’s agricultural heritage.

Yu says the villagers are also committed to “green tourism” that promotes ecological approaches and protects the Red Yao ethnic culture, which encompasses traditional designs for wooden buildings and unique embroidery dances – colourful performances linked to the tradition of decorating clothes with complex designs.

Regional celebrations promoted in Dazhai include the annual Sun Clothes Festival, another event that celebrates clothes-making customs. With musical groups playing the trumpet-like suona, Yao women follow the tradition of washing their famously long hair in the river and artisans put their creations on display.

“My favourite parts of the village are the mountains that are all around us and the clear waters of the streams,” Yu says. “They have brought great fortune to the community, just as Xi Jinping said they would when he said, ‘Clear waters and great mountains are as good as mountains of gold and silver’.”

Yu says he was enthused when UNWTO Secretary General Zurab Pololikashvili stopped by the Dazhai booth in the lobby of the Maraya convention centre.

In his keynote speech to the event, Pololikashvili had cited the Chinese villages as an example of the UNWTO initiative. “Just two weeks ago, the UNWTO was invited to China to celebrate its reopening to tourism after 1,000 days,” he said. “I had the chance to visit the Best Tourism Village of Yucun.

“We saw how tourism was an important employer for the people of Yucun; how it is driving innovation and creating entrepreneurs,” he said. “And we experienced tourism’s role in keeping traditional music and traditional flavours alive.”

Pololikashvili emphasised that rural tourism can deliver solutions to some of the problems that plague the countryside, where people are more likely to live in poverty and less likely to have access to the digital world.

The UNWTO’s mission is to make tourism a driver of rural development and well-being. It seeks to protect villages and their landscapes, knowledge and values through the creation of tourism jobs, the building and supporting of local businesses and the protection of natural and cultural heritage.

The aim, Pololikashvili added, is to create a network of like-minded villages around the world, train 5,000 people for the tourism industry every year and launch a small-grants programme to help villages grow their tourism sector.

The second Chinese village added to the UNWTO list this year, Jingzhu, was also recognised for having integrated agriculture with tourism, but also for the Guiyuan Tourist Hamlet, a complex in which local handicrafts such as wax printing, bamboo weaving and pickle making, as well as the creation of earthenware and musical instruments, are promoted.

A total of 136 villages around the world were put forward by UNWTO member states for recognition this year, with local authorities required to provide extensive information on the applicants’ suitability for recognition.

The judges, who included officials of the World Bank, the UN Environment Programme, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation and the Adventure Travel Trade Association, had to select those that were “an outstanding example of a rural tourism destination with accredited cultural and natural assets, that preserve and promote rural and community-based values, products and lifestyles, and have a clear commitment to innovation and sustainability in all its aspects – economic, social and environmental”.

The only other East Asian villages to make the cut were Pyeongsa-ri, in South Korea, and Thai Hai, in Vietnam.