Photo taken on Jan. 20, 2017 shows the hotel Brickyard, renovated from a former tile factory at Beigou Village in Huairou, a mountainous district in the north of Beijing, capital of China. Jim Spear, an American man, is the owner of the hotel. He conducts a successful business, which now features a hotel, three restaurants, and more than 10 vacation homes in Beigou, a small village at the foot of the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall, 80 kilometers from downtown Beijing. In the Brickyard, guest rooms have unobstructed views of the Great Wall. The Brickyard gave the village a new lease of life, and more importantly, for the local economy, a way for its residents to make money. Following the success of the "Brickyard model," the villagers began to explore hospitality, and now a third of the 100 households in Beigou offer accommodation. Twelve years ago, the rental lease on a residential plot of around 200 square meters in the village cost 5,000 yuan (about 729 U.S. dollars) a year. By 2017, that had risen to 60,000 yuan. Leases are usually between 30 and 50 years. In 2005 the annual per capita income in Beigou was 4,000 yuan, and now it is 27,000 yuan. (Xinhua/Wu Kaixiang)
