Martin Glatz, commercial counselor at the Austrian embassy in Beijing, speaks at a conference in Zhangjiakou, Hebei province on Feb 22, 2019. (Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn)
More Austrian companies are getting involved in China's rapidly growing winter sports market, said Martin Glatz, commercial counselor at the Austrian embassy in Beijing.
"Austria has been trying to be very present in China in the lead up to the Winter Olympics in 2022," said Glatz at the Austrian Winter Sports Days 2019 Conference in Zhangjiakou, Hebei province on Friday.
"Ten years ago when we organized for the first time the Advantage Austria Ski Race, not many people took alpine skiing very seriously. But now skiing has entered the mainstream in China," said Glatz, who is also the head of Advantage Austria Beijing.
China rolled out a national program to boost the development of winter sports after Beijing won the bid for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games.
"That's an opportunity not only for our Chinese friends to get some fresh air outside the big cities, but also is an opportunity for Austrian companies to get involved with Chinese partners to develop the market and to offer the best of equipment both in terms of consumer goods and in devices," Glatz added.
According to the ambitious plan released by the General Administration of Sport of China in 2016 to construct winter sports infrastructure and popularize winter sports, at least 650 skating rinks and 800 ski resorts are expected to be build nationwide by 2022.
By 2025, about 300 million people in the country are expected to participate in winter sports, increasing the market value of the winter sports sector to 1 trillion yuan.
Driven by multiple momentums, China has witnessed rapid growth in the winter sports industry in recent years, such as venue facilities, training, tourism and equipment sectors, said Peng Weiyong, deputy director general of Finance Department at the General Administration of Sports.
Winter sports has become a booster for China's sports industry and even economic development, Peng added.
By the end of June 2018, the total number of ski resorts in China rose to 738, an increase of 70 or 10.5 percent over the same period in 2017. The number of indoor ice rinks totaled 334, an increase of 75 or 29 percent year-on-year increase. In 2018, 19.7 million people participated in skiing, up 12.6 percent year-on-year.
