Harbin, the capital of the Northeast Chinese province of Heilongjiang, is an example of the country’s flourishing ice and snow economy.
During the eight-day 2025 Spring festival holidays from January 28th to February 4th, the city experienced booming snow tourism. The theme park Harbin Ice-Snow World, known for its impressive ice sculptures, was visited by more than 610,000 people. On February 1, more than 100,000 visitors were counted, which is a new record for a single day.
The increasing popularity of the park is partly due to the upcoming role of the city as the host of the 9th Asia games in winter, which take place from February 7th to 14th and, after the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, represent the second major winter sports event in China.
The Chinese President Xi Jinping will take part in the opening ceremony of the 9th Asian winter games and give a welcome banket for the foreign heads present.
Ice and snow economy on the “fast lane”
Xi has given the development of ice and snow sports and industries in China a lot of attention and asked to consider the ice and snow economy as a new growth point in order to promote the development of the entire industrial chain, winter sports and culture, snow and snow Ice equipment and tourism.
In recent years, when winter sports and tourism have become increasingly popular throughout China, the ice and snow economy has had considerable growth.
According to the Chinese sports administration, the number of people who took part in various ice and snow sports such as ice skating, skiing, curling and ice hockey nationwide in the winter season 2023-2024. Nationwide, over 385 million leisure visits were recorded in winter, which corresponds to an increase of 38 percent compared to the previous year.
In the last snow season, Harbin alone recorded over 87 million visitors, which corresponds to an increase of 300 percent compared to the previous year and generated tourism income of 124.8 billion Yuan (around $ 17.4 billion) – an incredible growth of 500 percent .
In the meantime, the consumption of ice and snow becomes an important growth point to increase internal demand and transforms the “cold” resources into an “hot” engine for economic development.
According to online shopping and tourism platforms, the orders for ice and snow equipment rose boldly, while the search queries and bookings for ice and snow tours are increasing rapidly during the “Double 11” shopping festival last year.
On China’s leading e-commerce platform TMALL, the sales of categories such as down jackets, thermal clothing and ski equipment during the “Double 11” shopping festival increased by over 200 percent compared to the previous year.
Diverse perspectives
In order to make its rich ice and snow resources usable for economic development, China is increasingly trying to expand its winter economy, which includes sport, culture, equipment and tourism.
According to the guidelines of the general office of the State Council, the country is aiming to promote its ice and snow economy as a new growth point, with the aim of an economic size of 1.2 trillion yuan (approx. $ 169 billion) by 2027) and until 2030 to achieve a size of 1.5 trillion yuan.
In order to achieve these goals, various cities and regions integrate winter sports and tourism into their development plans.
The Province of Heilongjiang promotes the establishment of a winter sports demonstration zone of the China-Shanghai Cooperation Organization and accelerates the development of ice and snow equipment as well as digital industrial parks.
In Beijing, the city has launched an action plan with 24 specific measures in areas such as the expansion of ice and snow sports and consumption as well as the construction of the construction of ice and snow sports facilities.
The strong growth of the ice and snow economy has also attracted attention worldwide. A number of measures, including the optimization of visa-freeness and the opening of new international flight routes, have prompted a number of foreign tourists to start their “China trip” and enjoy the winter season in the country.
China’s flourishing ice and snow management has also awarded the global tourism market new impetus, said the spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Guo Jiakun, on Thursday and invited friends from all over the world to participate in ice and snow events to promote friendship and cooperation.
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