The Beijing Winter Olympics will completely ignite the Chinese people’s enthusiasm for ice and snow sports.
“I finished my work the day before the Spring Festival holiday and flew over that night.” Wang bingru, who lives in Shanghai, chose to spend the Spring Festival holiday of the year of the tiger in the snow farm of Songhua Lake in Jilin City. She told the new consumer daily that her friends in the circle of friends were either skiing or on the way to the ski resort.
Shuey Rhon Rhon, Bing dwen dwen, and the surrounding products, even the opening ceremony, were the objects of panic buying.
It is worth noting that on social platforms, the popularity of skiing short videos remains high. In the whole year, the trembling was involved in the whole national ice and snow season (4 billion 10 million times), and the three hundred million short tiktok (3 billion 100 million times) of the three hundred million short videos were accumulated for 7 billion times.
All this was unthinkable 20 years ago.
In fact, the Chinese people have a long history of skiing and skating. Altay, Xinjiang is also recognized as one of the origins of human skiing because of a hunter rock painting with a snowboard and a single pole. It traces the origin of human skiing back to the old stone age with a history of more than 10000 years.
However, it was not until the successful bid for the Beijing Winter Olympic Games that modern ice and snow sports gradually moved from the minority sports in the north to the public in a real sense in China.
In 2018, after the General Administration of sport of the people’s Republic of China released the implementation outline of promoting 300 million people to participate in ice and snow sports (2018-2022), ice and snow sports began to accelerate its popularity in China.
“In fact, the development of ice and snow sports is closely related to the development of national GDP”. Yang Zhongxiao, director of China ice and snow consumption daily, said.
Now, under the Winter Olympics effect, not only “300 million people on ice and snow” has become a reality, but also a new trillion level track has been derived.
From minority sports to “300 million people on ice and snow”
“We are witnesses to the growth of China’s ice and snow economy.” Out of his love for skiing and outdoor sports, Zhong Chengzhan founded KAILAS kaileshi, a full range of outdoor climbing brands, in 2003.
However, even if a serious skiing accident caused high paraplegia in 2013, Zhong Chengzhan still did not give up his hobby of skiing, but became the first person in China to learn sit skiing.
“This is the charm of skiing.” Zhong Chengzhan, sitting in a wheelchair, told the new consumption daily.
According to his memory, when he first came into contact with outdoor sports in 1998, mountaineering, rock climbing and skiing were extremely rare in China. The participants were athletes, retired athletes and a small number of amateurs.
Due to the differences of geographical climate and other factors, the cities covered with ice and snow in winter are uneven, and the development of ice and snow industry has always been limited by region and season. In addition, 20 years ago, the overall living standard of the people was not high, there were few professional facilities, and skiing had a certain professionalism and consumption threshold, so the ice and snow sports could not be fully launched in China.
“The early snow fields were mainly to cope with the game.” Zhong Chengzhan told the new consumer daily that it was not until around 2000 that private companies in China were investing in the construction of market-oriented snow fields. The most representative snow fields at this stage should be those around Beijing and those in Zhangjiakou.
in his eyes, 2011 is a turning point in the development of China’s skiing history. “Since 2011, large-scale capital such as Vanke, rongchuang and Wanda have successively invested in this industry.”
With the capital entering the ice and snow industry, China’s ice and snow sports have really entered a period of development. In addition to the entry of capital, thanks to the successful bid for the Beijing Winter Olympic Games, ice and snow sports have also received strong support at the policy level:
The General Administration of sports issued the development plan of ice and snow sports (2016-2025), which plans to reach 600 billion yuan by 2020 and 1 trillion yuan by 2025.
In 2018, the General Administration of sports of the people’s Republic of China announced the implementation outline of driving 300 million people to participate in ice and snow sports (2018-2022). The core objective of the outline is to promote mass ice and snow sports, open mass ice and snow events, improve service standards for mass ice and snow sports, and enrich ice and snow sports venues and facilities.
Among them, teenagers are the key group to “drive 300 million people to participate in ice and snow sports”.
At present, the development of China’s ice and snow sports is on the right track.
In January 2022, according to the statistical survey report on “driving 300 million people to participate in ice and snow sports” commissioned by the State Administration of sports, the number of participants in ice and snow sports has reached 346 million since Beijing successfully bid for the Winter Olympics in 2015.
Today, “300 million people participate in ice and snow sports” has become a reality.
“Immature” China’s ice and snow Economy: beautiful and hand-in-hand roses
“I have always divided China’s ice and snow industry into two stages before and after the Olympic Games.” Ding Changfeng, senior vice president of Vanke Group, once said in a public speech that it is different from the natural growth in Japan, the United States and Europe.
As the birthplace of modern skiing, the reasons why people in many European countries have the foundation of ice and snow sports are as follows:
The industrialized society has improved people’s living standards and realized consumption upgrading;
The gap between the rich and the poor is not large in the whole society. At the same time, the per capita income is relatively high, the penetration rate is high, and the threshold of ice and snow sports is not high;
The business environment is good, the infrastructure, supporting hotels and restaurants are relatively perfect, and the capital dares to invest in heavy asset projects such as ice and snow industry for a long time, and can have long-term and stable income.
in general, the ice and snow industry has three characteristics: large investment, long cycle and long tail effect. Taking the snow farm as an example, it is difficult to achieve long-term profit if we only rely on ticket revenue.
In fact, in addition to the investment in infrastructure, the current consumer market of ice and snow clothing, snowboard, snow mirror and other related equipment has also been dominated by overseas brands for a long time, and the price is extremely high all year round. China’s relatively professional outdoor brands, such as kaileshi and camel, Toread Holdings Group Co.Ltd(300005) which mainly focus on cost performance, also rarely sell professional ski clothing products.
Wang bingru told the new consumer daily that he made a detailed strategy before going skiing in Songhua Lake ski resort, but found that professional ski clothes such as desant, Archaeopteryx, Bogner, Phoenix and other brands are all luxury goods, often thousands or tens of thousands, and the price of ski and other equipment is more expensive. “I finally chose decathlon for ski clothes, and I chose to rent the equipment in the ski resort.”
A more realistic problem is the long-term lack of Chinese ice and snow sports participants, managers of ice and snow industry and technical talents.
“the skiing industry is a beautiful and popular rose. Although there are daily operating profits, ice and snow projects are basically huge investments of tens of billions, so it is difficult to earn money.” Many years ago, Ding Changfeng, a former CEO of Vanke ice and snow business department, described the ski industry in this way.
Obviously, as a business, ice and snow has a very short history in China, and the mass base and ice and snow facilities are weak. According to the normal law of development, it is difficult for China’s ice and snow economy to form an industry in the short term.
However, due to the successful bid of Beijing Winter Olympics, the fate of China’s ice and snow economy has also changed.
Winter Olympic Games add fire to ice and snow economy
This is my first snow season. Wang bingru, who loves skateboarding at ordinary times, did not find a coach to learn and start with double board skiing like many beginners, but directly chose the single board with relatively high difficulty. “It took me a day to get used to it, and the next day I was on the high road.”
Like Wang bingru, many young people who first participated in ice and snow sports came into contact with skiing for the first time under the increasing influence of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games.
“Tmall skiing category has doubled for three years.” Every snow season, senior ski enthusiast Wang Xiaoyuan often travels to and from ski resorts all over the country. At the same time, his other identity is the sophomore of tmall skiing category.
Wang Xiaoyuan revealed that in the past two years, skiing is breaking into a new trend of the public from the minority and professional sports preferred by northerners.
The data learned by the new consumption daily from Feizhu corroborated his view. According to the data of flying pig, people in the south are more enthusiastic about ice and snow tourism. Among the top 20 cities of ice and snow tourism, cities in the South account for 60%.
According to Wang Xiaoyuan, taking the section he is responsible for as an example, the number of new brands related to tmall skiing in 2021 has doubled year-on-year. Even some international luxury brands also aim at China’s ski market. “In 2021, nearly 100 fashion brands including Prada will sell ski sports equipment in tmall luxury goods, including clothing, helmets, skis, etc.”
According to incomplete statistics of cbndata, in the second half of 2021 alone, nearly ten overseas professional outdoor sports and ski brands, including Japanese ski brand Goldwin, German luxury ski brand Bogner and Austrian high-end ski brand head sportswear, opened their first stores in China.
These data show that China’s consumption of ice and snow related categories is booming.
Bing dwen dwen, the opening of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games, not only ignited the enthusiasm of athletes, but also led to the hot topics of “ice pier pier”, “Valley love Ling” and “the knot of the birds” on the social platform.
The most typical example is the rush of many consumers at home and abroad to buy licensed goods for the Winter Olympic Games and top athletes’ clothing and equipment.
The new consumption daily learned from tmall that the exclusive limited edition of the official Olympic flagship store and the commemorative badge of the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games on the first day of spring were launched at 12:00 on February 1, with a limited number of 5000, and more than 3000 were sold on the day of launch alone. On February 3, the number of visitors to tmall Olympic’s official flagship store exceeded one million. In February 4th, Bing dwen dwen was handed over for 15 minutes on the line and 5000 were swept away.
Not only online, but also offline, the mascots and surroundings in the licensed commodity retail stores of the Winter Olympics are selling crazy.
“Bing dwen dwen Shuey Rhon Rhon on the day before, it sold and sold out.” Wang Bingru told Bing dwen dwen that Shuey Rhon Rhon and snowmelt were sold out at the winter sports fair in Songhua Lake.
Not only is it popular around the Winter Olympics, the athletes’ admission link of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics is comparable to the T-stage of fashion week. Even that night, many netizens opened the mode of buying athletes while watching the live broadcast.
The new consumption daily learned from insiders of tmall that from New Year’s Eve to the fourth day of the first month, tmall ski equipment increased by more than 180% year-on-year, and ice sports increased by more than 300% year-on-year.
On the night of the opening ceremony, the “down jacket of the Chinese team for the Winter Olympic Opening Ceremony” boarded the Taobao hot search. The sales of down jacket and sweater in Anta tmall’s official flagship store increased significantly month on month compared with last week. Among them, the Winter Olympic flag jacket and Gu ailing’s same sweater were particularly popular with consumers.
At the same time, many people lamented on social platforms such as xiaohongshu, microblog and wechat that “watching the entrance ceremony of athletes of the Winter Olympic Games is madly planted with grass and down jacket.” The entrance costumes of delegations from countries such as Canada, the Netherlands, France, Italy and the United States attracted the attention of many viewers.
Not only that, the Winter Olympics also brought fire to related concept stocks.
On February 4, affected by the positive impact of the Winter Olympic Games, as of the closing, the sporting goods index of Hong Kong stocks rose 5.99%. In the sector, as of the closing, Li Ning rose 7.63% to HK $80.10 per share, Anta Sports rose 6.35% to HK $123.90 per share, Tebu international rose 4.02% to HK $14.48 per share, taobo rose 1.43% to HK $7.10 per share, and crazy sports rose 25.81%.
Under the blessing of the Winter Olympics, how far is the ice and snow economy from the trillion track?
“The Beijing Winter Olympics will fundamentally change China’s skiing industry.”. In Ding Changfeng’s view, after Beijing’s successful bid for the Winter Olympics, China will usher in a “golden development period” for the ski resort industry.
A typical phenomenon is the rapid growth of enterprises related to the ice and snow industry.
According to the data of tianyancha, ski related enterprises (all enterprises) began to grow rapidly since 2014, and more than 65% of related enterprises were established in recent five years. Among them, the registration growth rate of ski related enterprises was the highest in 2015, more than 32%, and the registration volume of ski related enterprises reached the peak in 2019, exceeding 1100. Subject to industrial and commercial registration, nearly 1300 ski related enterprises have been added in China in 2021, with a year-on-year increase of 40%.
In addition, according to the incomplete statistics of tianyancha, so far in 2021, there have been 7 financing events in the field of ski related enterprises, with an amount of more than 100 million yuan.
At present, the ice and snow industry system with fitness and leisure, competition performance, venue operation, equipment manufacturing and ice and snow tourism as the main contents has begun to take shape. The development ideas and business models of rongchuang, Vanke, Wanda and other enterprises have also changed after continuous investment and business summary.
Taking rongchuang as an example, in recent years, the business scope and industrial layout of rongchuang cultural tourism ice and snow are often considered from the overall situation, constantly light asset operation and management output and integrate advantageous resources. “Ice and snow + X” has become the main development model.
Relevant personnel of rongchuang disclosed to the new consumption daily that in terms of venues, 9 snow Resorts (including 3 outdoor snow Resorts) have been opened and operated. At the same time, rongchuang plans to strategically arrange 35 indoor snow fields, covering the source of ice and snow tourists in China. As of 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 project has reached 2.49 million person times.
Relying on the snow field resources distributed throughout the country, the ice and snow service capacity of rongchuang cultural tourism will be exported to important tracks and formats such as ice and snow tourism, ice and snow education and ice and snow sports. While cultivating relevant talents, around the mass consumption scene, four derivative business systems of ski schools, ski events, camp education and member clubs have been gradually formed.
At the same time, during the Beijing Winter Olympic Games cycle, another good thing about China’s ice and snow economy is the rise of consumer groups in the Z era.
The staff related to flying pig disclosed to the new consumption daily that the booking volume of ice and snow tourism for the Spring Festival after 00 increased by more than 80% year-on-year, far exceeding that of other age groups. At the same time, more young people will pay attention to new subdivided formats such as ice climbing, curling and extreme sports on snow.
Not only in recent years, young people’s way of vacation and play has been more closely combined with the ice and snow economy, but also the way of participating in ice and snow sports and consumption is different from the older generation of “players” who simply pursue outdoor sports.
“it is quite different from the absolute mainstream of double skiing in Europe. In China, single skiing is more popular than double skiing”. Yang Zhongxiao, the development director of decathlon China’s ice and snow sports, revealed that decathlon China’s sales of Snowboard Snow gear account for 50% of the world. In its view, young people who come into contact with skiing like to experience and learn veneer. It is handsome and fashionable. It is a cool way to socialize. For them, skiing is not just a sport, but a symbol of their lifestyle.
These changes in consumption habits and trends are also fed back to the industrial chain of ice and snow economy.
Vector used to be the OEM of an international ski sports brand, but now it is an original ski clothing brand growing up on e-commerce platforms such as tmall.
Liu Yushan, founder of vector, told new consumption daily that as a new brand, it can grow rapidly because it has insight into the potential of female and parent-child consumption from e-commerce platforms such as tmall and has successively developed high-value protective equipment and ski underwear, which are greatly welcomed by consumers. According to Liu Yushan, on the first day of double 11 this year, vector’s sales soared by 300%.
“On tmall and other e-commerce platforms, one store can reach the country’s potential consumers, and the business efficiency has been greatly improved. In the process of breaking the circle of minority sports such as skiing, tmall and other e-commerce platforms play a key role.” Zhong Chengzhan told reporters that after the brand settled in tmall, kaileshi has maintained rapid growth.
“skiing is not expensive in the early stage of learning, but after improving the level of skiing, starting to enjoy skiing and becoming addicted, it has become a high consumption sport”. Zhong Chengzhan believes that China’s increasingly hot consumption of ice and snow is gradually creating opportunities for new domestic brands to overtake in curves, and domestic ski sports brands with high cost performance have the opportunity to break their wrists with international brands.
According to the data obtained by the new consumption daily, since February 1, the overseas sales of domestic ski products on Taobao have increased by three digits year-on-year.
Among them, domestic ski helmets increased by 174% year-on-year, and ski suits increased by more than 200% year-on-year. The ski series of Anta, Li Ning and other brands, and the original ski clothing brands vector, n & n Nanen and other new Chinese Ski brands born in the OEM are very popular.
“After the Beijing Winter Olympics, ice and snow sports will move from ‘inside the circle’ to ‘outside the circle’ and become popular.”. Yang Zhongxiao told the new consumer daily that Chinese users are increasingly choosing skiing and camping, which represents the improvement of the national economic level and the pursuit of quality life.
In Yang Zhongxiao’s view, China’s skiing environment is very characteristic and representative all over the world. It has the coldest ski spots and the most artificial ski spots. Industry data show that nearly 50% of the world’s artificial snow fields are in China, and this figure will rise to 70% in the future.
At present, the industry generally believes that the Beijing Winter Olympic cycle is a rare window period for China’s ice and snow economy in terms of infrastructure, talent training and consumption stimulation. According to the Research Report on the development of China’s ice and snow industry (2021), the total scale of China’s ice and snow industry increased from 270 billion yuan to 600 billion yuan from 2015 to 2020.
“we are now experiencing the Winter Olympics dividend, but we must continue to pass on such models and phenomena to the next generation or even the next generation after 2022”. Yang Zhongxiao believes that only when China forms its unique skiing culture through the precipitation of time can the ice and snow economy truly move towards a trillion level track.
