Academics detail take-off of China’s ice and snow economy

China has seen the fastest growth of its ice and snow economy in recent years and has become the world's largest market in the sector, according to a report released by Jilin University on Thursday.

Jilin University's Key Laboratory of Ice and Snow Tourism Resorts Equipment and Intelligent Service Technology, took a year to complete its 2022 China Ice and Snow Economic Development Index Report, which aims to measure and forecast China's ice and snow economic development using several ice and snow indicators.

The report proposed the "airplane theory" as a way to look at the ice and snow economy.

The concept uses the growing and escalating ice and snow demand, and ice and snow technology as the "airplane engine" of economic development.

The specific weights of the current stage of China's ice and snow economic development is set out in the report.

The "airplane's head" represents ice and snow sports, which account for 25 percent of that weight. The "airplane's fuselage" represents ice and snow tourism, which accounts for 40 percent of the weight. And the "two wings" that balance the development of the economy represent ice and snow equipment, and ice and snow culture, which account for 25 percent and 10 percent, respectively.

Data shows that China's ice and snow economic development has shown a linear upward trend since the beginning of the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020).

Other than in 2020, with the novel coronavirus pandemic impacting the sector, each year has succeeded the previous one, ever since 2016.

Driven by the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, the chain growth rate exceeded 34 percent in 2021, and the development of China's ice and snow economy is expected to maintain a chain growth rate of nearly 30 percent in 2022, the report said.

Along with the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, China's ice and snow tourism will show a new face in the international arena, and attract more foreign tourists in the post-pandemic era, the report said.

At the same time, with the release of Chinese people's enthusiasm for participating in and experiencing ice and snow tourism, ice and snow tourism consumption will play a massive role in boosting China's domestic demand and realizing the central domestic circulation, provincial medium circulation, and municipal microcirculation of China's ice and snow economy, the document said.

Xin Benlu, vice-dean of the School of Business and Management at Jilin University, said: "The report is one of the preliminary and basic works for the construction of the big data platform of the ice and snow economy. It is expected to be released annually to measure and forecast the development of China's ice and snow economic development."