Booming since China won the 2022 Winter Olympic games, China's winter tourism is driving growth the country's ice and snow industry, expected to hit 3 trillion yuan (NZ$640 billion) by 2022.
During the 2017-2018 winter period, Chinese travellers made about 197 million visits for winter activities, a 16 per cent year-on-year increase; winter tourism generated about 330 billion yuan (about NZ$72 billion), up 22 per cent year-on-year, according to a report released by the data centre of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.
The report estimates that the number of tourists will reach 340 million in the 2021-2022 winter season and winter tourism revenue will reach 680 billion yuan (NZ$150 billion) in the same period.
As a result, winter tourism will spur the growth output of the country's ice and snow industry, including ice and snow towns, creative arts, winter sports, resort, and conventions to hit that 3 trillion yuan mark by 2022.
Rich in ice and snow resources in both quantity and quality during its long winter, the country's northeast and northern provincial regions such as Jilin, Heilongjiang, and Hebei, as well as the autonomous regions of Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang, are becoming major growth centres.
Since Beijing won its bid to host the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in 2015, local governments of Beijing and the provinces of Hebei, Jilin, and Heilongjiang have unveiled policies to promote winter tourism.
New airports, railways, and other facilities have been built to make them more accessible to visitors.
Content sourced from the People's Daily Online here