Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic ski venue Chongli has received 2.185 million tourists for an increase of 30 percent during the first snow season after Beijing and Zhangjiakou won their co-bid last July, local authorities said Wednesday.
Chongli, a small district of Zhangjiakou city, about 200 kilometers northwest of Beijing, will stage most of the skiing events during the 2022 Winter Olympic Games.
The ski resort has earned over 1.54 billion yuan (237.77 million U.S. dollars) in tourism from the 2015-2016 snow season for a 31.6 percent growth over the previous season.
The past snow season lasted for five months from last November, during which Chongli has hosted 36 competitions and activities, such as Far East Cup and Children Skiing International Festival. A total of 23 skiing camps have also been set up, attracting the participation of 3,800 youths.
The pending Winter Olympics has ignited Chinese skiing fever. Chongli local education authorities even bought service from ski resorts to let every student in Chongli to ski with professional instructors at least once in order to boost skiing from campus.
By the end of November, Zhangjiakou will complete relevant plannings and designs for the 2022 Winter Games. And all venue construction will be finished by the end of 2020 to enable the city to hold test events.
Zhangjiakou is striving to cultivate professional athletes, increase investment in venue and facility construction, boost the development of ice and snow industry, and forge a Beijing-Zhangjiakou culture and sports tourism belt.
