Winter sports market gears up for huge jump

China is a fast growing winter sports market in the world, with the market size expected to reach 800 billion yuan ($117 billion) by 2022, and will realize a target of 1 trillion yuan by 2025, said Li Yingchuan, deputy head of the General Administration of Sport of China, at the World Winter Sports (Beijing) Expo 2020.

The government has set a very ambitious target which will bring 300 million people to the winter sports, said Henrik S. Stefes, head of coach department at SNOW51, an Austrian professional ski training institution.

With the rise of skiing in China, there is a severe shortage of highly qualified ski instructors. The SNOW51 has participated in a project launched by Chinese and Austrian governments to train 1,000 Chinese ski instructors.

This year, the ski training institute along with another five companies organized by the economic delegation department of Austria participated in last week's China International Fair for Trade in Services.

"We are looking for more partners who can support us on the '1,000 Chinese skiing coaches' project to bring that many Chinese instructors in order to have more people going to snow in the future," said Stefes at the CIFTIS.

The winter sport industry is growing, and has to grow because of the 2022 Winter Olympic Games, Stefes said.

"China is the biggest market, and I'm excited for the snow sports industry", Stefes added.

The number of companies engaged in winter sports industry in China increased to 4,650 in 2020 from 1,950 in 2015. By the end of June, the country has built and put into operation more than 35 indoor ski resorts and 400 ice arenas, and the figures will reach 45 and 500, respectively, by the end of this year.

China is a market where risks and opportunities co-exist in the winter sports industry, and as the country's economy grows, the niche sports such as skiing and scuba diving are on the rise, said Wu Jiaming, general manager of European brands project department at Nanjing BC Sports Products.

The Nanjing company, which is Austrian sport brand HEAD's general agency in Greater China, also showed its winter sports equipment at the CIFTIS. Wu said the ski market in China is a primary market, and the company is committed to developing the country's ski equipment market to strive to grab 30 percent of the market share in next three years. Moreover, the company plans to set an outdoor paradise and an indoor stadium to bring experience of extreme sports to the country.