China's Masses Warming To Snow

TWO YEARS AGO, CHINA opened the world’s largest indoor ski slope with two black runs, a blue run, snow play area and beginner slopes all served by chairlifts and magic carpets. Interestingly, it choose to build this behemoth in Harbin, where real snow piles high every winter and temperatures plunge low enough to host the annual International Ice and Snow Festival.

Soon this record will be smashed, for in 2022, Wintastar Shanghai opens. At 227,000 square metres, it will be three times the size of the slope in Harbin, managed by the company behind indoor resorts in Dubai, Egypt – and soon others in Suadi Arabia and Oman. Inside will be three slopes of varying gradient, including one of Olympic standard three kilometres long.

At the end of this year, another indoor slope will open at the Hanhailiang Ski Resort in Hebei.

These mega-complexes are part of China’s efforts to get at least “300 million people in winter sports from now until the 2022 Winter Games”, according to a snow tourism report launched last year. Currently, the country has more than 700 ski resorts – roofed and otherwise – and by 2020, there should be 100 more.