China expects 500 mln visits during 2024-25 snow season

(ECNS) -- Research data on the development of China's ice and snow industry shows that the country expects a record-high 500 million visits during the 2024-25 snow season.

China's ice and snow industry is expected to reach a staggering 100.53 billion yuan (about $13.77 billion) in 2025, the report noted.

Winter has triggered a boom in ice and snow tourism, with several ski resorts in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region having opened. Data shows that during the last snow season, Altay in Xinjiang received a total of 4,888,300 tourists, with a daily average of 20,000, achieving a total tourism revenue of 5.103 billion yuan.

Harbin in northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province is another popular tourism destination in winter. The world's largest ice-and-snow theme park, the 26th edition of the Harbin Ice-Snow World, officially opened on Dec. 21 in Harbin. With an overall planned area of 1 million square meters, up from last year's 800,000 square meters, this year’s park is the largest in its 26-year history.

It has attracted a large number of domestic and foreign tourists to date.

On Wednesday, a chartered flight from Bangkok, Thailand with 377 tourists landed at Taiping International Airport in Harbin.

Operator Thai AirAsia will launch another 20 round-trip charter flights here. In addition, travel agencies in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and other regions have also begun to sell tour packages for the ice and snow season in Heilongjiang Province. It is expected that Harbin will receive over 30,000 tourists from the Indo-China Peninsula.

By 2030, the total output value of Heilongjiang's ice and snow industry is expected to exceed 450 billion yuan, authorities said.