At 8 a.m. on February 9, there was a long line of vehicles on the road near Beijing Yuyang international ski resort. When they arrived at the ticket office, it was a sea of people. People were in groups, eagerly waiting for tickets and admission. Because of outdoor teaching activities, skiing coach Zeng Hao came to the ski resort early. He was deeply moved by the lively scene in front of him.
In his view, such a scenario is unimaginable before 2019. Zeng Hao of the post-80s generation is a partner of the “100000 snow pole” ski school and a professional ski instructor. I came into contact with skiing around 2010 and officially started “going into the pit” skiing in 2017. At first, it was cultivated as a hobby. As more and more people around me began to try skiing, I have a deeper understanding of the industry. Therefore, I gradually took skiing as a business and became an entrepreneur in the ice and snow industry.
In this snow season, the most obvious change for Zeng Hao is that with the vigorous development of the market, he received sponsorship and market publicity from new and old sports brands related to skiing. At the same time, he learned that Jingdong, Xiaomi, Baidu and other Internet manufacturers have also begun to focus on the skiing market and made investment.
More than training services, Zeng Hao is also doing demand research on the ski industry chain and surrounding products, hoping to launch his own products when the next snow season comes.
population penetration rate is still low
At present, China’s ice sports can be divided into four categories: skating, hockey, curling and skiing. Skating, including ice rink + roller skating, has been popular in China for a long time and has a relatively high penetration rate. Because of its low threshold and cheap equipment, it is a popular fitness and entertainment sport. Hockey and curling are limited by venues, costs, technical barriers and other factors, and their development is relatively slow. The skiing industry is gradually becoming a new trend of outdoor consumption in winter because of its strong interest, easy for beginners, large promotion space and high consumer stickiness.
The research report shows that China’s ice and snow sports industry has developed rapidly in recent years, but the overall population penetration rate is low. Taking skiing as an example, the penetration rate (the proportion of skiing population in the total population) in 2019 is only 1%. The penetration rate of traditional ski powers such as Switzerland is as high as 35%. Japan and the United States accounted for 9% and 8% respectively. Hosting the Olympic Games is the best time to popularize National Ice and snow sports. For example, the United States took the Lake Placid Winter Olympics as an opportunity to vigorously promote skiing. In the next 20 years, the number of skiing passengers in the United States soared from 5.3 million to 50.3 million, with an average annual compound growth rate of 28%.
From the development of Zeng Hao’s ski school, we can see the vigorous trend of China’s ice and snow sports in recent years. “Since its establishment in 2019, the school has benefited from factors such as the proximity of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games, the vigorous publicity of the government and favorable policies, and its development is basically all the way up.” Zeng Hao said that at the beginning of its establishment, the school had only 2 or 3 full-time coaches and an office. Since last year, the school has added an office space, with nearly 20 coaches, and there will be insufficient people at the peak. Accordingly, Zeng Hao said that his income has increased by geometric multiples compared with that before.
Enrollment is also changing. Zeng Hao said that most of the students recruited at the beginning were “snow second generation” – school-age children whose parents were skiing enthusiasts, which was actually a relatively small group. However, since 2019, thanks to activities such as ice and snow entering school, more school-age children have begun to participate in the sport, and even reverse drive parents to participate. The proportion of adults among students is also gradually increasing. Zeng Hao said that now the proportion of adults among students can account for more than 40%, which has been significantly improved compared with the initial 20%. “Everyone’s safety awareness has also improved. With the popularization of skiing, everyone has a deeper understanding of skiing technology and safety guarantee, and their awareness of the necessity of skiing training and willingness to pay have also significantly improved.” Zeng Hao said.
In this Spring Festival, the newly released data also confirmed Zeng Hao’s above feelings. On February 6, Alibaba released the consumption trend report of the Spring Festival in the year of the tiger, which showed that the Winter Olympic Games had driven the development of ice and snow consumption and ice and snow industry. Data show that from New Year’s Eve to the fourth day of the first month, tmall skiing equipment increased by more than 180% year-on-year, and ice sports related categories increased by more than 300%. People’s enthusiasm for ice and snow sports was completely ignited during the Spring Festival.
At the same time, generation Z is becoming a new force in ice and snow tourism. After the Spring Festival, ice and snow tourism bookings increased by more than 80% year-on-year, far exceeding other age groups. Go skiing in ski resorts, enjoy ice lanterns and ice sculptures, and enjoy snow in ice and snow parks… Ice and snow tourism is deriving more and more theme play methods. Ice climbing, curling, extreme sports on snow and other new subdivision formats will attract more young people’s attention.
The Winter Olympics has also driven the popularity of ice and snow tourism. On the flying pig, the order volume of ice and snow tourism related commodities in the Spring Festival of the year of the tiger has increased by more than 30% year-on-year compared with last year’s Spring Festival. Orders for ski resorts such as Jilin Changbai Mountain Tourism Co.Ltd(603099) , Yabuli in Heilongjiang and Anji in Huzhou have increased rapidly, and indoor ski resorts in Guangzhou, Chongqing and Chengdu have also become popular destinations.
At the same time, ice and snow tourism consumption shows significant localization and small radius characteristics, and the “door” skiing of 3 hours is favored. By region, Beijing, Guangzhou, Jilin, Chongqing, Harbin, Chengdu, Huzhou, ABA, Baishan and Changchun have become the top ten popular destinations for ice and snow tourism.
ice and snow market with 300 million people
On January 5, the China ice and snow tourism development report (2022) released by the China Tourism Research Institute showed that despite the impact of the epidemic, stimulated by the supply and demand of the Beijing Winter Olympics, the return of ice and snow outbound tourism, the upgrading of tourism consumption and the national layout of ice and snow facilities, The number of ice and snow leisure tourists in China has increased from 170 million in the 2016-2017 ice and snow season to 254 million in the 2020-2021 ice and snow season. It is expected that the number of ice and snow leisure tourists in China will reach 305 million in the 2021-2022 ice and snow season, and the income of ice and snow leisure tourism in China is expected to reach 323.3 billion yuan.
Zeng Hao said that he was very optimistic about China’s huge ice and snow consumer market, and based on the fact that the ski market was ushering in a period of rapid growth, he believed that there was a lot of entrepreneurial space. “At present, we are expanding our team, including doing research on the demand of ski industry chain and peripheral products. If the progress is smooth, we can see our products on the market in the next snow season.”
The ice and snow industry can be divided into three categories: ice and snow service industry, ice and snow supplies and related products manufacturing industry, and ice and snow site facilities construction industry.
According to Zeng Hao’s personal observation, driven by the Beijing Winter Olympic Games, China’s ice and snow site facilities construction industry, that is, hardware equipment, has been significantly improved. “Especially Chongli (i.e. Chongli District, Zhangjiakou City, Hebei Province), from the perspective of the snow field, it has actually reached the international advanced level, and the skiing experience is very good.”
The manufacturing industry of ice and snow products and related products has also improved accordingly. Zeng Hao said that only foreign ski equipment could be bought in China around 2017. Now there are some sales of ski equipment on Taobao, and there are seven or eight emerging domestic brands. Traditional well-known domestic sports brands, such as Anta, Li Ning and peak, have also increased the production and sales of ice and snow clothing and sports surroundings, “The rise of domestic equipment is just around the corner, but from the current situation, there is still some room for development in product quality and pricing level.
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Alibaba’s express data show that near the Spring Festival and Winter Olympics, the overseas sales of Chinese ski products increased by more than 60% year-on-year, including the overseas sales of domestic ski helmets increased by 15 times year-on-year. In the past year, consumers in 100 countries and regions around the world bought Chinese snow gear on express. There are Chinese brands in Iceland in the north and Chile in the south. With the impact of the Winter Olympics, the number of brands of domestic ski products sold through express has increased by nearly 50% in one year.
So what about the involvement of capital in this area? The reporter interviewed a number of investors. Some investors said they were still waiting and seeing. Investors who had been involved said that at present, the participation is still shallow and it is inconvenient to say more.
However, judging from the financing situation of ice and snow brands since 2021, this track is still favored by capital.
According to the incomplete statistics of the reporter, since the beginning of 2021, ice and snow brands including Aoxue culture, goski, snow51, skiing, where to play skiing, xueleshan and Xueniao technology have received tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of financing. Among them, Aoxue culture, snow51 and Xueniao technology have received two rounds of financing in a year. The investors include Shenzhen Venture Capital, Jinshajiang venture capital Sequoia China seed fund and other well-known institutions. The main businesses of these enterprises are mainly products related to skiing equipment, training and social networking, that is, they are mainly concentrated in ice and snow service industry, ice and snow products and related product manufacturing industry.
The promotion poster produced by Zeng Hao is “committed to the promotion of mass skiing, so that more people can enjoy skiing and fall in love with skiing”. At present, skiing in China is still developing. Zeng Hao said that because he has other jobs, he has not been fully engaged in the skiing industry. However, according to the current development trend, he feels that there is still room for imagination to take skiing as a full-time job.
(at the request of the interviewee, Zeng Hao is a pseudonym)
