Turning snow into silver

BEIJING:

At an ice hockey rink in the western suburbs of Beijing, a group of children under the age of 10, holding hockey sticks, enthusiastically chased a puck weighing less than 200 grams, while parents cheered through the glass outside.

Li Wei, the father of one of the young players, told reporters that he would bring his son here once a week for four-hour lessons at a cost of RMB 1,000. “He likes it, and I think it is great for kids to have a hobby, especially niche sports.”

As Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics approach, more and more people know and pay attention to ice hockey, gradually forming a group of about 20,000 hockey fans.

Participation drives consumption. According to the estimates of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation, China’s ice and snow tourism will drive the output value of related industries to reach nearly RMB 3 trillion.

Will China’s huge Winter Olympics dividend benefit Pakistan? Is Pakistan ready to turn ‘snow’ into ‘silver’?

Wealth buried in snow

Yunding Ski Resort in Chongli of Zhangjiakou, which is more than 200 kilometres away from Beijing, is one of the venues for the Winter Olympics.

It attracts skiers from all over the world with its top-notch infrastructure and has become a popular resort for winter sports fans. Wang Shitong, Deputy General Manager of Yunding, is a veteran skier. He recalled that no one in China had heard of skiing before 1995. In 1996, the first group of skiers discovered Chongli as a ski resort.

“At the time, the ski slopes were made by these skiers who hired local farmers to carry snow in sacks to the mountains.”

Hosting the Winter Olympics brings Chongli a rare opportunity for green development.

Tian Xuebin, an economics research expert from Hebei University of Economics and Business, said that in the first snow season in 2015, Chongli received more than 2 million tourists, a year-on-year increase of 30%.

The number of tourists in Zhangjiakou has quadrupled in four years. In recent years, Zhangjiakou has developed a total of 95 projects related to ice and snow industry, with an investment of nearly RMB 35 billion.

It is the local people who are the beneficiaries. Thanks to the ice and snow economy, the local fiscal revenue has increased by nearly RMB 200 million annually in recent years.

Nearly 30,000 of the local 126,000 people work directly or indirectly for the ice and snow industry. Digging through the thick snow in Chongli, people finally discovered the treasure.

The local government plans to build a ski area centered on Chongli by 2025, with 30 ski resorts, 600 ski trails, and more than 20 towns featuring ice and snow. By then, it will be able to meet the needs of 20 million people for ice and snow sports every year.

Looking at the whole China, China recently released the list of the first batch of national-level ski tourism resorts, including 12 tourism resorts from northeast China to Xinjiang, from Inner Mongolia to Sichuan.

These national-level ski tourism resorts will rely on the counties where they are located to create high-level ski sports facilities and high-quality tourism services to meet the consumer demand for ski holidays.

They will promote the quality and upgrading of the snow and ice industry, promote local economic and social development, and consolidate and fulfill the goal of “attracting 300 million people to participate in the snow and ice sports”.

According to China’s Ice and Snow Tourism Development Report 2022 released by the China Tourism Academy, the number of ice and snow tourists will exceed 300 million in the 2020-21 snow season, and the revenue of ice and snow tourism will reach RMB 323.3 billion.

Ice and snow industry has become a password shaking off poverty in many areas of China.

As a Chinese saying goes, a plane tree brings phoenix. Population base is a prerequisite for developing a sport, while infrastructure is the premise of developing tourism.

In recent years, Pakistan has built a highway to the ski resort of Swat Valley, and the local hotel industry has ushered in a peak season. The opening of Skardu International Airport in northern Pakistan at the end of last year is expected to attract more domestic and foreign tourists.

Is skiing feasible in Balochistan?

Pakistan’s ski resorts are mainly concentrated in the northern region, while the southern provinces are hot and arid with almost no snow, so how to promote ice and snow sports in these areas?

Interestingly, in China, ice and snow resources are mainly concentrated in the northern region, while most of the tourists come from the south.

According to data from a tourism platform, in the 2020-21 snow season, there are nine southern cities among the top 10 tourist source cities for ice and snow tourism.

During the pre-sale period of the 2021 Singles’ Day shopping spree, people in Guangdong, which has one of the highest average temperatures in China with annual temperature around 20 degrees Celsius, saw an 87% year-on-year increase in sales of ski sports products.

Why did the snow-less cities in south China stand out in the ice economy?

People in south China have a natural love for ice and snow, that’s why China has the world’s largest number of indoor ski resorts. Southerners’ obsession with indoor skating, curling and even VR ski machines has also provided new ideas for Pakistan.

In the ice and snow industrial park in Chongli, the reporter saw a new thing. It looks like a carpet made of mushrooms, and it will not deform when stepped on.

Pan Ruqun, Manager of Zhangjiakou Jingxi Sports Equipment Co Ltd, told CEN that this is a dry snow blanket, which can be used to simulate snow tracks for skiing by laying it on the slope.

“According to the instructions of 300 million people to go on ice and snow, we have promoted this invention in primary and secondary schools in China. Children can practice skiing in normal physical education classes, and regardless of the season, the most important thing is that the cost is extremely low.”

THE ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED ON THE CHINA ECONOMIC NET

Published in The Express Tribune, February 5^th, 2022.

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