China’s Winter Sports Market: Outlook and Opportunities

With 50 million individuals anticipated to take part by 2025, China’s winter sports activities market is about to turn out to be the most important on the planet. Since profitable the 2022 Winter Olympics bid, the Chinese language authorities has purposely intensified its efforts to construct devoted amenities and lift consciousness round winter sports activities, encouraging their rising reputation amongst youthful generations. The market can even generate alternatives for companies and buyers in winter sports-related industries, resembling gear, attire, catering, and leisure.

On the 2022 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Video games in Beijing, China took the prospect to showcase its top-notch sports activities infrastructure and rouse individuals’s curiosity within the occasions. Greater than 300 million Chinese language engaged in winter sports activities in 2022 alone, demonstrating the sector’s rising attraction, notably among the many youthful generations and the extra prosperous city inhabitants. In 2021, the market dimension of Chinese language winter sports activities accounted for just below RMB 60 billion (US$8.84 billion) – an annual enhance of greater than RMB 15 billion (US$2.21 billion). By 2025, the trade is anticipated to achieve US$ 150 billion.

As winter sports activities proceed to realize reputation in China, the demand for sportswear, attire, and gear can be rising. With this thriving momentum, China is quickly turning into one of many world’s best markets for winter sports activities and associated sectors. Newcomers can nonetheless discover the correct spot to enter the market, particularly when proposing distinctive, avant-garde, unique, and reasonably priced services. This text offers an outline of China’s winter sports activities market and discusses a number of the new developments and alternatives arising inside the sector.

China’s winter sports activities market at a look

Winter sports activities (also referred to as winter actions) are leisure aggressive or non-competitive sports activities practiced on snow or ice. These embody sledding, ice skating, and several other snowboarding disciplines. Up to now, such actions have been usually solely performed in colder climates throughout winter, however not too long ago have turn out to be extra frequent in all places because of different instruments, resembling synthetic snow and ice.

Regardless of the impression of the COVID-19 pandemic, the variety of individuals collaborating in China’s seasonal winter sports activities has grown from 170 million in 2016 to 2017 to 254 million in 2020 to 2021. The rise in reputation boosted by the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, the return of tourism, and the general planning and enchancment of nationwide ice and snow amenities have been among the many fundamental elements for the market enlargement. The income generated by China’s winter sports-related leisure actions and tourism is estimated to have reached RMB 323.3 billion (US$47.6 billion) within the 2021 to 2022 season.

Snowboarding

Snowboarding represents the majority of China’s winter sports activities market – the sector was price RMB 35.1 billion (US$5.1 billion) in 2021 – and is rising at a fast tempo. In 2002 the nation counted solely 130 ski resorts, whereas 20 years later, there are over 800 of them.

Just about the 2020 to 2021 ski season, the China Ski Business White Ebook recorded 20.76 million skier visits – a year-on-year enhance of 98 %. The vast majority of these (80 %) occurred on synthetic snow, and 83 % of the individuals within the sport have been individuals beneath the age of fifty, 36 % of whom have been between 20 to 30 years outdated.

These outcomes are revealing about ongoing market developments. Up to now two years, the event of indoor ski resorts (particularly massive and medium-sized indoor ski resorts in southern cities) has had a robust affect on the expansion in skier visits. As well as, numerous small-scale outside ski resorts stopped working, considerably reducing the provision of ski resorts general.

Ice skating

Together with snowboarding, ice skating is considered one of China’s fastest-growing ice and snow markets – because of the federal government’s targeted technique. In 2003, China solely counted 21 indoor ice rinks. This quantity has elevated to 650 because of the enhance given by the 2022 Winter Olympics. Inspired by nationwide insurance policies, native governments have largely contributed to the proliferation of winter sports activities amenities. The Beijing Municipal Authorities, for instance, organized for there to be newly constructed indoor ice rinks in every district by the top of 2022.

Geographical distribution of ice and snow sources in China

The sources for China’s winter sports activities actions on ice and snow are primarily distributed within the northeast, northwest, central plains, and a few components of the southwest. Amongst them, northeast China is taken into account a pioneer within the growth of the winter tourism trade. Particularly, Heilongjiang province is a frontrunner within the trade and is the place the core trade shaped.

With the fast growth of the worldwide trade associated to actions on ice and snow, Chinese language manufacturers have been progressively gathering in 4 main areas of the nation, particularly, the northeast block, the north China block, the northwest block, and the southwest block. Every of those areas has particular traits, as illustrated within the desk under.

Authorities insurance policies to develop China’s winter sports activities market

China’s dedication to selling winter sports activities is demonstrated by its insurance policies and laws. Preferential tax and monetary insurance policies designed to boost the winter sports activities sector in China are among the many measures that can assist market enlargement. Beijing has taken a number of actions to put aside area for winter sports activities by land use and zoning guidelines along with bodily constructing the infrastructure wanted for these actions.

Insurance policies such because the Fourteenth 5-12 months Plan for Sports activities Improvement and the Motion Plan for the Improvement of Ice and Snow Tourism (2021 – 2023) concentrate on supporting the event and innovation of China’s winter sports activities trade and associated tourism sector. In the meantime, the federal government created a devoted Winter Sports activities Improvement Plan (2016-2025) to achieve its goal of RMB 1 trillion (US$147.4 billion) trade by 2025, with the long-term objective of accelerating the Chinese language inhabitants’s curiosity in winter sports activities of all types.

The federal government has additionally promoted a number of academic actions to encourage youthful generations to take an curiosity in winter sports activities. We collected the principle laws affecting China’s winter sports activities market within the desk under.

Winter sports-related industries

From a market perspective, China’s winter sports activities market may be usually categorised into three sectors: design and gear, operation and companies, and ultimate consumption. Members within the trade embody:

• Complete service and product suppliers, providing design, development, and operation companies and merchandise resembling gear for ice and snow actions.
• Service and product customers may be broadly divided into fastened customers who take part in seasonal actions greater than 3 times every week (70 %), winter sports activities lovers who usually take part in such actions (20 %) lower than 3 times, {and professional} athletes (10 %).

Traits and alternatives in China’s winter sports activities market and associated industries

Since China’s winter sports activities market has huge potential, international buyers could reap the benefits of the federal government’s purposeful efforts to encourage the sector and entry its associated industries, from winter sports activities gear to devoted resorts.

Ice and snow tourism is booming

Winter tourism has turn out to be a brand new mode of leisure and health for Chinese language customers. Enterprise alternatives within the area differ from winter sports activities occasions and experiences to luxurious resorts. As a result of impression of COVID-19, within the 2019 to 2020 season, China’s ice and snow tourism income reached RMB 146 billion (US$21.5 billion), down about RMB 240 billion (US$35.3 billion) from the earlier yr. Nevertheless, the sector was in a position to rebound to achieve RMB 323.3 billion (US$47.6 billion) throughout the 2021 to 2022 season.

A rising style for winter attire and gear

The 2022 Winter Olympics impact has positively impacted the Chinese language marketplace for winter clothes. Based on estimates from Statista, the market generated US$725 million in income final yr. Whereas worldwide manufacturers have principally prevented it (because of the previous desire for Chinese language customers to journey overseas for winter sports activities), Chinese language firms resembling Snowfavor, Copozz, and Free Ski Zone have not too long ago elevated their actions to satisfy the rising native demand, notably on-line, along with Decathlon which has been in China for a very long time.

Much like the winter attire market, China’s winter sports activities gear sector is anticipated to develop, reaching a projected US$0.87 billion in 2023, with a CAGR of 4.94 % from 2023 to 2027. Benefiting from the general development of the ice and snow trade, the ski gear market continues to develop. Within the 2022 to 2023 season, the size of China’s ski gear market will exceed RMB 15 billion (US$2.2 billion).

Key takeaways and prospects

China’s winter sports activities market has expanded dramatically in only some many years, helped by authorities incentives, academic initiatives, the thrill surrounding the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, and the rising spending energy of the Chinese language center class. Nonetheless, the sector remains to be comparatively new and is characterised by a small variety of resorts (relative to the inhabitants dimension), a predominance of newbie customers, and relatively excessive costs. As well as, there’s a lack of skilled lecturers within the winter sports activities sector who can coach novices and assist them turn out to be skilled winter sportspeople and even superior athletes.

Whereas the COVID-19 pandemic has negatively impacted China’s winter sports activities market, the fixed authorities help and the lively introduction of corresponding assist measures have put the sector on the correct path to restoration and development. For worldwide firms and buyers able to contribute to the expansion of this creating trade, China’s ice and snow market gives nice prospects, whether or not it’s within the catering and leisure sector, or strictly associated to sports activities and coaching.