Crane dance of Qigihar, Heilongjiang province. (Photo provided to China Daily)
China's successful bid for the 2022 Winter Olympics is heating up the country's ice-snow tourism sector.
Known for abundant ice-snow tourism resources, China's northeastern province Heilongjiang held a promotion meeting in Beijing on Nov 5 to draw winter vacationers.
"Ice-snow tourism has its own characteristics," says Zhang Lizhong, head of the National Tourism Administration's tourism promotion and international cooperation division.
He believes that ice-snow tourism will soon herald a golden period of development.
Covering the easternmost and northernmost areas of China, Heilongjiang has a 120-day snowfall period, which renders the 450,000-square-kilometer land a white fairyland, says Xi Dongguang, head of the Heilongjiang tourism administration.
At the meeting, the tourism bureau also decided on strategic cooperation with travel service giants, including Ctrip, Tuniu.com and Aoyou.com, an online booking website under China Youth Travel Service Co.
The Harbin international ice and snow festival, the Yabuli ski resort offering 46 tracks, the Zhalong wetland home to red-crowned cranes, and the Jingpo Lake featuring ice falls stretching hundreds of meters are among the main attractions in the region in winter.
"I believe the ice and snow in Heilongjiang will be beyond tourists' expectations," says Xi.
More than 88 million Chinese tourists visited the province over the first nine months of 2015, up 22.3 percent on year.
Officials believe that ice-snow tourism will play a positive role in the development of the local service sector.
