Family snow tours become popular and have big room for growth

Children's peals of laughter have been echoing on the Changchun Tianding Mountain Ski Field since the weekend morning. Among the "snow angles", four-year-old Zhang Yiyi was gamboling after skiing down the slope on her first resort visit.

Zhang's mother Bi Jiaxin said that the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics sparked her daughter's motivation for participating in snow skiing. Like the Zhangs, more and more families are going out to experience snow sports with the convenience of transportation.

According to Ma He, Sales Director at Tianding, family snow tours became a popular choice as the resort sees a new high in snow beginners aged from three to four. The cartoon-style snow gear has been scattered at the first ski resort in Northeast China's Jilin Province since its reopening on November 11.

Liu Yuzhuo, Director of underage winter sports camps at the Jilin Ice and Snow Experimental Zone Beidahu Ski Resort, recalled that they have been organizing camps for 3 to 15 years olds with sport-education backgrounds since 2010.

XiaoBoLuo is a famous ski influencer on Chinese social media Douyin. Influenced by the ski-coach father, XiaoBoLuo has developed several breathtaking tricks through her snowboarding training at Beidahu. "Snow kids" like XiaoBoLuo, who was led into snow sports by her parents since young, are not individual cases anymore.

"We enjoy snow sports, and our children are supposed to have a bigger passion. This winter, I not only bought myself a new set of ski equipment but also enrolled my child in a winter camp. We can have fun together while taking care of the kid." said Tian Yang, a snow sports enthusiast from Changchun.

Tian Yang found that a number of ski clubs he subscribed to have been promoting winter camps and family activities on WeChat beginning in November. "I got my child registered on my sixth attempt that the previous five camps were all full."

Adult beginners are also joining the sports. At Vanke's Songhua Lake Ski Resort, Chen Hui was having a ski racing with his 10-year-old son, and such scenarios are common at the resort. Olympic champion Su Yiming and other young winter sports athletes' successes inspired a lot of parents to spend time with their children on snow.

In Vanke Songhua Lake Resort's marketing head Huang Zhongrui's eyes, Beijing 2022 has brought unprecedented growth opportunities to China's ice and snow economy. "We are very excited to see more teenager snow lovers having their first skiing experience here," he said.

Zhang Yinan, Cultural and Creative Department Manager at Changchun Miaoxiang Mountain Hot Spring and Ski Resort, also stated that the resort had added 3,000 sets of new snow equipment with 20 percent being kids' sizes.

Family snow tours not only create a new segment for snow resorts but also boost snow consumption. "Many parents prefer to buy a full set of professional snow equipment for their children rather than rent it," says Ji Cheng, Store Manager at Amer Sports.

In the upcoming weekend, Bi has scheduled two days of skiing for her daughter Zhang. She hopes that skiing could become a recreational activity that both parents and children enjoy in the future.