More opportunities
Capital is flowing into China's winter sports industry and a relatively complete industrial chain has already been set up, Ji Ning, CEO of Beijing-based Vning Sports Group Co, told the Global Times on Sunday.
An increasing number of domestic companies and sports institutions have marched into the sector and made investments in ice and snow tourism, sports equipment and ski parks, Ji said.
For example, Beijing-based ORG Packaging Co announced in May 2017 it was planning to set up an ice hockey venue with international standards in Beijing, with the aim of organizing training for ice hockey enthusiasts, holding matches and developing sports derivative products.
The upcoming Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games will not only boost China's ice and snow industry, but also bring more opportunities to foreign firms that seek growth in the domestic winter sports market, said Zhang Jiayuan, a partner specializing in sports investment at Beijing-based Ransenhuizhi Investment Fund Management Co.
Foreign companies in the domestic market will have more opportunities to become involved in the construction of sports infrastructure and the development of tourism that features ice and snow before the Beijing Winter Olympic Games, Zhang told the Global Times on Monday.
Foreign-branded winter sports equipment, such as skis and sports suits, is favored by Chinese consumers, Zhang said, adding that more foreign enterprises related to snow sports will benefit from the Chinese market in the near future.
As China's technology and equipment for producing ice and snow has become better with relatively lower costs recently, the country's ice and snow industry hotspot has begun to move from northeastern provinces to northern China, namely Beijing, North China's Hebei Province and Tianjin, Ji noted.
Also, many ice and snow entertainment activities are set to appear in Guangzhou and Shenzhen, South China's Guangdong Province, said Ji.
People in southern China also have strong demand for the ice and snow market, but that demand hasn't been satisfied in the past due to restrictions on natural resources, experts said, noting that the southern China market has great growth potential.
Challenges persist
The scale of China's ice and snow sector is expected to hit 1 trillion yuan by 2025, according to an ice and snow sports development plan unveiled by the General Administration of Sport (GAS) in November 2016.
The target is not a small number and many challenges still persist as China is not on the top level in terms of winter sports quality, experts noted.
The primary challenge for China's winter sports sector is the lack of qualified coaches and sports management, Ji said, noting that domestic skiing parks are expected to train more professional coaches and improve management as the industry aims to reach the 1 million yuan scale target.
He Wenyi, executive director of Peking University's China Institute for Sports Value, said that popularizing ice and snow sports is important as the rising Chinese middle class is able to afford to partake, but what matters is that those people should know how to actually play such sports.
Ji agreed, saying that consumption cannot continue if consumers just want to have a one-time experience and do not know how to properly engage in the sports and enjoy themselves.
Also, more ice and snow entertainment activities such as snowball fighting and ice dragon boats should be created to attract more people to winter sports, He told the Global Times on Monday.
China's internet titan Tencent Holdings and the Beijing Organising Committee for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games jointly launched an ice and snow plan on January 15, aiming to raise awareness of ice and snow sports via efforts to combine such elements as competitions, venues, athletes and industry, sports.people.com.cn reported.
Tencent has already collaborated with several global leading institutions such as the North America-based National Hockey League to bring in high-quality games to create a popular ice and snow culture in China, the report said.
Teenagers in particular are a large target group that will participate in ice-snow sports in the future, said He.
According to GAS, China plans to work out a teaching guideline for ice and snow sports in schools by the end of 2018 and to have more than 2,000 schools that prominently feature winter sports by the year 2020.
