Uygur women take to social media in Xinjiang

Aytunam Ablikim, 29, runs a business promoting specialties from Hotan prefecture, Xinjiang. Photo provided to CHINA DAILY

In 2017, Kurbannisa started to post video clips of the scenery in Daliyabuyi on Douyin in an attempt to promote the town to more potential visitors. Within a year, she had attracted 150,000 users to the platform.

In 2019, she organized 10 households in setting up a tourism cooperative in Daliyabuyi to offer better services to visitors.

"Apart from offering tourists accommodations and food, the cooperative also organized campfire parties and other activities for them," Kurbannisa said.

In its first month, the cooperative earned more than 100,000 yuan ($15,510), according to Kurbannisa.

Earlier this year, she passed an exam to become a civil servant in the Yutian county culture and tourism bureau.

In April, Kurbannisa joined the fanghuiju campaign, in which civil servants are sent to grassroots communities to offer help to people from ethnic groups. She became a cadre-resident assisting rural vitalization in Daliyabuyi.

"I'm working to further improve infrastructure and tourism facilities in the town. I grew up here and it's time to pay back," she said.

There are 360 households in Daliyabuyi, where the main industries are animal husbandry and cultivation of the Cistanche deserticola, a rare parasitic medical plant.