Winter activities to boost Northeast

Young athletes train at the opening of a program promoting ice sports among youth at a speed skating center in Changchun, Jilin province, on Sunday. (JIANG SHENGSONG/FOR CHINA DAILY)

The ice and snow industry should serve as a new engine for economic growth in Northeast China as the region boasts some of the nation's best natural advantages that can be used for its vitalization, said Yang Andi, a member of the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

Northeastern provinces have been seeking a new development path for over two decades, said Yang, also director of the Jilin provincial culture and tourism bureau. After researching the ice and snow industry with economic and historical experts, she said that northeastern provinces, especially Jilin province, should promote the industry at home and abroad and make it an economic pillar.

"We should open up more and cooperate with other provinces and foreign countries including South Korea and Japan to boost tourism and consumption of sports equipment and affiliated products," she said.

The region can build an international platform for ice and snow culture, economy, sports and trade.

In December, the fifth Jilin International Ice and Snow Industry Expo was held in the capital Changchun featuring nearly 80 museums and more than 400 enterprises.

As the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games are scheduled to be held in 2022 in Beijing and Zhangjiakou, Hebei province, China set a goal of having 300 million people nationwide involved in winter sports by that time.

Taking the Olympics as an opportunity, 28 provincial-level areas across China have geared up to develop their winter sports and tourism, Yang said.

Beijing and even the provinces of Sichuan and Guangdong that have few ice and snow resources plan to construct more ice rinks and snow resorts and introduce major events.

A December survey by online travel agency Ctrip and the General Administration of Sport said that Harbin, Heilongjiang province and Chengdu, Sichuan province were the top searches for winter sports destinations and people from South and East China accounted for the majority of winter sports fans.

"We need to turn cold resources into a hot industry and attract potential tourists from the south to travel northward."

"Jilin has natural powder snow fields. The industry in our province aims to emulate the world's well-known ski resorts including the Rocky Mountains in America and the Alps in Europe," she said.

During this Spring Festival holiday tourism season in February, the province received 8.2 million tourists, up by 69 percent year-on-year, according to data by the ChinaUMS, a payment agency based in Shanghai.

"One of the biggest difficulties to further develop the industry lies in people's ambiguity and lack of cultural understanding of ice and snow in Jilin. It is important to enhance the region's identity by digging and discovering cultural confidence about ice and snow, and turn it into assets," she said.

Yang said that to burnish the region's cultural brand, historical research should be carried out to find which resources need protection and refine ice and snow cultural symbols to help with tourism promotion.