Around 600 people from the homestay industry, including experts, scholars, homestay operators and suppliers, gathered for the 10th National Homestay Conference in Rizhao, a coastal city of Shandong province, on Wednesday to discuss promoting the industry's high-quality development.

"Homestays serve as a robust engine supporting the implementation of rural vitalization," Li Zaiwu, Party secretary of Rizhao, said at the conference's opening ceremony.

He said Rizhao is constructing a comprehensive system encompassing policy support, infrastructure facilities and talent cultivation to nurture new quality productive forces within the homestay industry.

Rizhao now has roughly 2,600 high-quality homestays with more than 36,000 beds available. From January to September, the city's homestays accommodated 1.96 million visits.