Wu Dajing, Ren Ziwei, Gu ailing… At the Beijing Winter Olympics, Chinese ice and snow athletes are working hard for higher and stronger goals.
Outside the stadium, more and more people are keen on skiing, and some people often take beautiful photos of skiing in their circle of friends. China seems to have set off a ski fever.
Forerunners know, forerunners force. Have they arranged a number of ski resorts in advance?.
how hot is ice and snow sports?
The Beijing Winter Olympics ignited the enthusiasm of the whole people for ice and snow sports. According to the data from Ctrip, the number of notes on skiing in Ctrip community this winter increased by 75% compared with the same period last year. Topics such as “first experience of skiing”, “good place for skiing” and “first skiing in life” have the highest popularity.
At the same time, the high-quality skiing content of Ctrip community, xiaohongshu and other Raiders’ travel notes search platforms also promoted the breaking circle of skiing and attracted a group of “snow circle girls” to punch in.
Among the users who booked ski tickets on Ctrip platform, the number of female users who signed up for skiing in the Spring Festival increased by 38% year-on-year. During the Spring Festival this year, indoor ski resorts are also popular. During the Spring Festival, orders for booking indoor ski resorts through Ctrip increase every day. For every ten ski users, two will go to indoor ski resorts.
“During the Spring Festival, we realized an operating revenue of 28.33 million yuan, an increase of 126% over the Spring Festival last year.” According to the relevant person in charge of Vanke Songhua Lake Resort, the resort received 9100 tourists on the fourth day of the new year, the highest one-day reception in the snow season. In Jilin City, Jilin Province, the hometown of athlete Su Yiming, relying on Vanke Songhua Lake ski resort and Beida lake ski resort, as well as unique rime resources, it has become an important destination for ice and snow tourism.
According to the data from Jilin Provincial Department of culture and tourism, during the Spring Festival, the number of tourists received by the national ski resort Vanke Songhua Lake Resort and Changbai Mountain Tourism Co.Ltd(603099) Wanda International resort ski resort increased by 72% and 351% respectively year-on-year.
A person close to Vanke’s ice and snow business said: “During the snow season, the hotel in the resort is almost full on weekdays and weekends, and it is difficult to find a room on holidays. In addition, during the special activities in the snow season, such as electric syllables in this snow season and tmall ice and Snow Festival, not only the hotel and owner’s rooms in the resort are full, but also drive the occupancy rate of urban hotels in Jilin city to exceed 90%, which can be seen from the popularity.”
China’s ice and snow industry is on the fast track
On July 31, 2015, the 128th plenary session of the International Olympic Committee voted in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to hand over the right to host the 2022 Winter Olympic Games to Beijing. After that, the state promulgated a series of favorable policies and measures for the holding of the Winter Olympic Games. The Olympic cycle has become a powerful booster for the development of the ice and snow industry.
According to the Research Report on the development plan of ice and snow sports (2016-2025) previously released by the General Administration of sports, by 2025, the total scale of China’s ice and snow industry may reach 100 billion yuan. At that time, the number of people directly participating in ice and snow sports may exceed 50 million, and “drive 300 million people to participate in ice and snow sports”.
The research report shows that benefiting from the influence of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games, China’s ice and snow tourism development has entered the fast lane. It is estimated that by 2025, the number of ice and snow tourists in China will exceed 500 million, and the income of ice and snow tourism will exceed 1.1 trillion yuan. In the snow season fiscal year 2020 / 2021, the number of skiers in China was 20.76 million, while the number of skiers was only 10.86 million. Based on China’s total population of 1.412 billion in 2021, the skiing penetration rate was about 0.77%, which was far lower than that of developed countries such as Switzerland (35%) and Austria (34%). Therefore, many capital aim at the first layout of this track, including real estate developers.
rongchuang forces “ice and snow +”
In 2017, through the acquisition of Wanda cultural tourism city, rongchuang began to set foot in the ice and snow business. In recent years, the ice and snow business scope and industrial layout of rongchuang cultural tourism have been continuously improved. Nine snow fields (including three outdoor snow fields) have been opened and operated. It is planned to strategically arrange a number of indoor and outdoor snow fields to cover ice and snow tourist sources all over the country. By January 2022, the total area of the indoor ski resort operated by rongchuang cultural tourism has reached 422000 square meters, and the annual passenger flow of the operating ski resort project has exceeded 3 million person times.
From Harbin in the north to Guangzhou, Wuxi, Kunming, Chengdu, Chongqing and other cities in the south, rongchuang cultural tourism has created a high-frequency skiing scene operating in four seasons through the national layout of indoor snow fields, and is committed to making rongchuang ice and snow the first entrance for the public to snow, and making National skiing lovers really have snow to ski anytime and anywhere.
The relevant person in charge of rongchuang told reporters that the ice and snow sector of rongchuang cultural tourism involves sports, education, events, tourism, performing arts and entertainment, and is launching innovative products and services that match the growing consumer demand. Rongchuang cultural tourism, which is located in the “supplier of Chinese family happiness”, is located in the core city of the country. In addition to ice and snow, it also has multiple theme business formats such as paradise, hotel accommodation, sea world and water world. All business formats can integrate with ice and snow to form a “one-stop comprehensive tourism consumption destination”.
Facing the new consumption trend, high-quality supply is particularly important. Relying on the national indoor and outdoor ice and snow projects, rongchuang cultural tourism creates colorful “ice and snow +” consumption scenes. For example, in order to meet the public’s demand for ice and snow entertainment, Chengdu rongchuang culture and tourism city has created a resident ice stunt dance drama – “Alice in Wonderland”, which integrates many elements such as figure skating, acrobatics, magic and air art. Since its launch in 2020, it has performed 158 times.
“During the Spring Festival this year, the overall passenger flow of rongchuang snow resorts in China increased by about 30% year-on-year, including 6500 passengers per day at the peak of southern snow resorts such as Guangzhou and Chengdu rongchuang snow world.” The relevant person in charge of rongchuang said.
In addition, since 2021, rongchuang cultural tourism ice and snow sector has been carrying out asset light operation and management output, integrating advantageous resources, breaking through the barriers between indoor and outdoor, southern and northern snow fields, and successively reached relevant cooperation with outdoor snow field projects such as Jilin Beidahu ski resort, Hebei Jinshanling Ski Resort, Jilin Changbai Mountain Tourism Co.Ltd(603099) Heping snow Resort and Nanshan snow resort.
Vanke proposed 1% action plan
Recently, the list of the first batch of national ski tourist resorts was announced, and Jilin Vanke Songhua Lake Resort was among them. Vanke Songhua Lake Resort is 15 kilometers away from the main urban area of Jilin City. It is one of the nearest large-scale ski resorts to the city and a rare large-scale destination ski resort in China.
In 2017, Vanke ice and snow business department announced its establishment, including Vanke Songhua Lake Resort, Vanke Shijinglong ski resort and other ski resorts. At the end of 2020, Vanke abolished the ice and snow business department and incorporated its business and team into the hotel and resort business department, which will be continued by Ding Changfeng, the former head of the ice and snow business department.
However, Vanke did not give up its layout in the field of ice and snow. In September 2021, Vanke signed a contract with the winter sports management center of the State Administration of sports and Kunlun Hongxing ice hockey club to become the official partner of China’s national ice hockey team. In the current Beijing Winter Olympics, the company with Vanke’s shares was responsible for the construction of Yanqing Winter Olympics Village and Mountain News Center.
After the Yanqing Winter Olympics competition area is put into operation, with the gradual opening of Baotou indoor ski resort and Chongli hanhailiang ski resort, Vanke will have three large ski resorts in destinations, four ski resorts in suburban areas and one indoor ski resort by 2023.
According to the data, since Vanke started its skiing business, the company has insisted on providing the best experience comfort for skiers during their journey in the ski resort, so as to improve the retention rate and conversion rate of skiers and promote the long-term sustainable development of the skiing industry. “Every year, we will review and improve according to the moving line of customers’ journey, especially the experience of mot (peak and end time). This snow season, we put forward a 1% action plan, hoping to improve the contact service between each customer and the ski resort by 1%, so as to improve customer satisfaction and love skiing.” Said a person close to Vanke’s ice and snow business.
Shimao will continue to promote ice and snow sports
Changchun Lianhuashan Shimao ski resort, funded by Shimao Group, is a medium-sized experience ski resort integrating mass tourism skiing and competitive competition. The ski resort has 13 ski trails, including 4 primary trails, 2 Intermediate trails and 7 advanced trails, covering an area of 20 hectares and a total length of 13340 meters.
The ski resort also invested 49.69 million yuan to introduce the world’s most advanced detachable rope carrier cableway, which runs at a speed of 5 meters per second and can transport 1500 tourists per hour. Shimao also built it into a youth outdoor ice and snow activity base in Changchun and a national ice and snow tourism talent training base by purchasing new ski equipment and upgrading the ski resort as a whole.
It is reported that Changchun Lianhuashan Shimao ski resort was one of the main venues of the 2007 Asian Winter Games. Its “Freestyle Aerial skills” and “veneer U-groove” ski venues designed according to international standards can also host world-class ski aerial skills competitions.
In addition to the above skiing venues, Shimao Group also donated 20 million yuan to participate in the construction of the “overseas Chinese Winter Olympic ice and snow Museum” in 2020. Shimao said that in the future, the company will continue to promote ice and snow sports through its diversified industries and help the vigorous development of the ice and snow industry.
