The National Alpine Skiing Centre of China has predicted that the country’s ice-snow sector would exceed one trillion RMB value in 2025.
The Ski instructor at the centre, Xin Dawei, made this known on Wednesday at a global virtual news conference organised by the centre.
He described 2025 as the busiest snow season.
Xin lauded China for capturing both domestic and international investments to become the world’s fastest-growing winter sports market.
He said that, although the world was undergoing a plateau phase, China recorded huge increment for international businesses.
“Two months ago, China released guidelines to boost the ice and snow economy with the aim to grow it into a 1.2 trillion-yuan industry by 2027,” he said.
According to him, the number of instructors at the centre has grown this year to meet the fast-rising demand.
He added that hiring was still going on.
Xin further said, “Youngsters venture into the snow fields inspired by Winter Olympic super idols, such as Eileen Gu and Yiming Su; many are also driven by their skilful friends or partners.
“Riding the Olympics wave, China’s ice and snow sector is expected to exceed the mark of 1 trillion RMB this year, up from 970 billion RMB in 2024.
“In 2015, when China won the bid for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games, the figure was 270 billion RMB.”
He identified JD.com as an e-commerce platform for Chinese device buyers, sales of ski-related gears in 2024, which recorded remarkable growth with sales of ski goggles.
Others, he said, are snowshoes and snowboards, which have increased by not less than 80 per cent year-on-year.
Xin further quoted Mr Xie Jinhong, an official of winter sports sales at JD.com, as saying that Southern China sales had surged by over 100 per cent in Fujian, Anhui, Guangxi, Hunan and Guangdong provinces.
He also said that the current snow season was estimated to attract not less than 500 million visitors to ice and snow resorts, up from 385 million last season.
Xin quoted Mr Benny Wu, Vice-President of Beijing Ski Association and author of 2023-2024 China Ski Industry White Book, as saying that youngsters make up a significant portion of the winter sports participants.
“Winter camps are attracting tens of thousands of students in Chongli, one of the host locations of the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games, when compared to less than the past.
“Skiing schools are also burgeoning in China; China has become the world’s largest indoor ski market, home to over half of world’s total and six out of the ten biggest ones globally.
“Breaking the limits of terrain and season, indoor venues offer convenient, round-the-year choices for city dwellers, especially in places where there are few mountains to develop,” Benny said.
Xin further quoted Lisa Zhang, General Manager, Marketing Department, Bonski, the largest indoor ski resort in Southern China, as saying that indoor skiing has been integrated into citizens’ lives.
“Sales of family tickets hiked by 66.5 per cent in the past five years with the number of pre-schoolers escalated by 20 times,” Lisa said. (NAN)
