When Beijing won the right to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, it was seen as a real coup for China, even if it only had to beat longshot Almaty, Kazakhstan, after all the European contenders had pulled out. After all, China doesn’t have much of a winter sports tradition – it won its first Olympic gold at the 2002 Salt Lake City games, in speed skating, and it’s never won a medal in the skiing events.
But President Xi Jinping is out to remedy this. In grandiose style, the government has launched a nationwide initiative to transform 300 million non-skiers into winter sports enthusiasts. This may be music to marketers’ ears, but how realistic is it?
Numbers of skiers are still relatively modest, but growing rapidly. According to a report released in February by China’s biggest real estate developer, Vanke, at last month’s Asia Pacific Snow Conference in Beijing, visitors to ski resorts in China have increased from fewer than 10,000 a year in the mid-1990s to 12.5m last year. And it says there are now 568 resorts in China, up 25% over the previous year, and operated by private developers.
But there are only a handful with facilities on a par with the west. This is sure to change, however, as developers back bold new ventures, anticipating an Olympics-inspired boom.
The £2.5bn Changbaishan resort, built by China’s Dalian Wanda Group and Canadian mountain resort planner Ecosign, has shown the way forward. Opened in 2012, it has quickly established itself as the country’s top destination, with 43 trails totalling 30km in the Changbai (“ever white”) mountains in Jilin province and upscale hotels by Park Hyatt, Sheraton and Westin offering such luxury amenities as outdoor heated plunge pools and spa treatments.
Changbaishan is certainly at the high-end of the market, with wealthy families “pulling up in Range Rovers and renting out suites”, says Jeff Oliveira, the American founder of ski consultancy SkiChina, which has tested slopes across the country. For the weekend ski crowd in Beijing, there are cheaper options a three-hour drive north-west in Chongli, Hebei province, where the Olympic snowboarding and freestyle skiing events will be held. The downside? Near-total reliance on man-made snow. “Picture Killington (Vermont) with no natural snow,” Oliveira says. “But the Chinese don’t care – the industry is young, they want groomed snow. It’s perfect.”
Two Ecosign-designed resorts here have also greatly improved the skiing landscape: Genting Resort Secret Garden, which opened in 2011 with 22 lifts and an impressive 87 trails; and the Thaiwoo Ski & Alpine Resort, near the Great Wall, which aims to combine top-notch skiing with an après-ski culture lacking at other Chinese resorts. There’s an alpine chalet at 2,000m, serving what’s purported to be “authentic Austrian cuisine”, for instance, and plans for a resort village with hotels, bars and a skating rink.
More adventurous developments are on the horizon, too. Just announced last month: the world’s highest ski resort to be built in Tibet, near Lhasa.
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