I hope that everyone will realize skiing freedom as soon as possible.
Text/Zheng Yawen
Editor/Fan Tingting
The 18-year-old skiing Nova Valley Ailing is undoubtedly the most recent top stream. In the women's freestyle ski jump at the Beijing Winter Olympics, she won the first gold medal in the event for China. This is also the first women's snow sports gold medal in Chinese history.
Skiing has never been China's strong point, and Gu Ailing made a good start and instantly brought a lot of heat to the sport.
In fact, in recent years, the domestic ski atmosphere has been very strong. Ski resorts have long been more and more open regardless of latitude, and the team of ski enthusiasts has become larger and larger.
The cost of this sport, which was originally regarded as a rich man's, is getting lower, and the ski resorts that are everywhere are inseparable from "artificial snow" – most ski resorts, including the winter Olympics, use artificial snow. Artificial snow is inseparable from snow machines, behind the rise of skiing, in fact, is the industrial revolution of domestic snow machines.
Until a few days before the New Year, Han Qixin's company had already taken a holiday, and the factory's snow machines were still shipping. Han Qixin's company is Jinan Sainuo Environmental Protection Co., Ltd., which used to produce cannon fog machines and now mainly builds snow machines. Affected by the Winter Olympics, the factory, which originally could only sell dozens of snow machines a year, sold 100 units last year. This sales volume, in the domestic snow machine factory, is quite good.
Start with imitation
Time forward 5-6 years, domestic ski slopes, almost can not see the figure of domestic snow machines. In 2017, Han Qixin participated in an equipment exhibition in Beijing, where imported snow machines were displayed, and the price of a machine was at least 200,000 to 300,000 yuan.
In those years, there were few factories in the country that specialized in the production of snow machines. First, domestic skiing is immature, and the other is the lack of technology.
The working principle of the snow machine is not difficult to understand, that is, to imitate the formation process of natural snow, mix cold water below 5 ° C with compressed air, load it into an evaporator at -25 ° C to freeze, and then use the cutting machine in the machine to shred the ice, and finally spew out with the air, which becomes artificial snow.
However, the mechanism, technology and core components are the key factors that determine the quality of the snow machine. For example, compressors, most of the snow machines that meet the standards of the arena, use sliding vane compressors. Due to technical and price reasons, domestic factories use piston-type and screw-type compressors, and this subtle difference will make artificial snow have a qualitative gap.
In the formal arena of the Winter Olympics, the requirements for artificial snow are extremely high, the particle size is moderate, and it cannot be as soft as natural snow. For a long time, domestic snowmakers have not reached the standards of regular competitions.
After the successful bid for the Olympic Games, the state put forward the slogan of "300 million people on ice and snow" and began to set up a scientific research group to develop snow machines suitable for use on the field.
This also allows businessmen, including Han Qixin, to see the potential of the ski market. The technology that domestic factories have, although they cannot meet the requirements of the regular arena, can meet the entertainment needs of skiing.
Han Qixin's previous production of gun fog machine, mainly used for air dust removal, cooling, fire fighting, etc., on the basis of gun fog machine to do machine improvement, you can achieve the effect of snow machine.
The natural snow is sprinkled on the ground, which is in the state of snowflakes, which is relatively loose and needs a snow compressor to compact the snowflakes. Artificial snow is the state of ice crystal particles, "the current ski resorts, many are in low latitudes, you must also use this snow, because it is more familiar and sun-resistant." ”
Artificial snow and natural snow are no different in terms of safety. Even snow fields such as Changbai Mountain require artificial snow. But artificial snow also has drawbacks, "falling up is more painful than natural snow." ”
After the exhibition, Han Qixin began to recruit scientific researchers and spent more than a year developing a snow machine for use in outdoor ski slopes. "To put it bluntly, there is no mature snow machine technology in China, and at the beginning it was imitating foreign equipment."
The cost of snowmaking a year can buy 10 Porsches
In 2018, Han Qi's new company's snow machines sold only a few dozen units. The scale of ski resorts has not developed, and most of the large ski resorts use imported snow machines. Domestic technology general snow machine, natural sales are mediocre.
"This is a threshold and quite niche entertainment project, and too few people play in China." Today's well-known Sunac Ski Resort, at that time, there was no shadow, and the outdoor ski resorts in the north were also concentrated in Zhangjiakou, Tianjin and other places. The natural snow fields in northeast China and Xinjiang are the most famous.
A large outdoor ski resort, at least 10 snow machines at night must work at the same time to meet the operation of the snow field. The price of an imported snow machine is at least 200,000-300,000 yuan, and the indoor ski resort also needs the assistance of various temperature control, humid control equipment and sensors, and the cost is also higher than that of the outdoor ski resort. It is said that an indoor ski resort like Guangzhou Sunac costs 10-20 million a year to make snow, and it can almost buy 10 Porsche 911s.
Therefore, from the cost of snowmaking and the cost of ski equipment, it is decided that skiing is an "aristocratic sport".
But change is also happening. Internationally, the European and American ski markets have fully matured, and Japan and South Korea, which are closer to China, also have a strong ski culture, and there are mature hotel facilities around the ski resort.
Data show that the penetration rate of skiing in Western countries is between 10% and 30%. China's ski penetration rate is less than 1%, but with the popularization of science at the Beijing Winter Olympics and the birth of national idols like Gu Ailing, Chinese are shaping their own ice and snow culture.
The Winter Olympics are undoubtedly the best opportunity to promote the development of ice and snow sports. "In the years after the Winter Olympics were held, the ice and snow industry in Europe, the United States, Japan and South Korea showed a good growth trend, which will certainly be achieved in China." Liu Yushan, founder of skiwear brand vector, said.
The price of a domestic snow machine, the minimum as long as more than 50,000 yuan, almost 80% cheaper than the imported snow machine. As ski enthusiasts increase, the market expands, and to some extent, the cost of ski resorts is thinned. Originally at least 400 yuan of outdoor ski tickets, now non-holidays, more than 100 yuan can be bought, some ski resorts can even be as low as tens of yuan when doing activities.
The rise of skiing and domestic snow machines has also led to the development of ski resorts. Wu Jiezeng opened a playground in Qingyun, Dezhou, Shandong Province, and two years ago, he added a small ski resort near the playground, and because of the epidemic, the ski resort was not officially opened until New Year's Day this year.
A ski resort run by Wu Jiezeng
Because it was a trial operation, Wu Jiezeng set the price of the ski ticket at 28 yuan, and as a result, in just one month, the ski resort created a turnover of more than 800,000 yuan. "Basically every day the explosion, this price will not be able to stick to it immediately, to rise to the normal 98 yuan."
His snow machine, is through Alibaba's domestic trade B2B platform 1688, to find Han Qi's new purchase, two snow machines spent more than 100,000 yuan, a month's snowmaking cost of about 16,000, not only returned to the cost, but also made a lot of money. Two years ago, he had considered importing snow machines, but the price and cost put him off.
In the past two years, with the maturity of domestic machinery, Han Qixin's snow machines have also begun to appear on large ski resorts such as Zhangjiakou Taiwu Town.
Dubai tycoons also love skiing
Xiaojing, a post-95 who works at an Internet company in Hangzhou, has been in love with skiing for more than two years. Every month, she would fly from Hangzhou to the Sunac Ski Resort in Guangzhou or Chengdu for "three days in a row".
The snow ticket of Sunac Ski Resort is 400 yuan, plus the cost of configuring ski equipment, in the past two years, Xiaojing has spent a total of more than 100,000 yuan on skiing.
On the ski slopes, Xiaojing knows a lot of "snow friends", most of them are like Xiaojing, ordinary office workers, but also employees of state-owned enterprises and institutions. Everyone's "snow age" is not long, and most of them are pits in recent years.
These young working-class people are the main source of visitors to the domestic ski resorts. There are more and more "snow friends", the market is expanding, and the ski resorts are opening more and more.
Judging from the customers of Han Qi's new company in recent years, the outdoor ski resort is "gradually expanding southward". "The earliest ski resorts are in the northeast, Xinjiang, Beijing, Zhangjiakou and other places, in the past two years, Shanghai, Jiangsu Nanjing, Xuzhou have a lot of orders, and even customers open chain ski resorts."
On the mainland, the snowy area is mainly concentrated in the north of the Yangtze River, and the snow season has its own length. "To the north of Beijing, the winter snow season is 3-4 months, Beijing is almost 2-3 months, and further south is up to 1 month." For outdoor ski resorts, the only time to do business is in the winter when it is sub-zero, and it relies entirely on artificial snow.
But it is not enough to meet the temperature conditions, and the air humidity is also required. "South of the Yangtze River, there is basically no need to consider outdoor ski resorts, because the temperature and humidity are not up to the requirements."
In the past two years, several Chongqing bosses have found Han Qixin and hoped to open a ski resort in Chongqing, but they were disappointed. "The humidity requirement of the snowmaker is less than 70%, and the humidity in Chongqing can reach more than 85%, and it is impossible to create snow."
So most of the South can only hope for indoor ski slopes. Cangzhou Blue Ocean Company in Hebei has been developing indoor snow machines in recent years and has cooperated with many indoor ski resorts in the south.
In the past two years, even customers in Dubai and Saudi Arabia have found their 1688 stores and asked for help with indoor snow machines," said the customer, who also began to like skiing. Shang Haitao, executive director of Blue Ocean, revealed.
Han Qixin's snow machines have also begun to be exported in the past two years. "The ski market in Russia is already very mature and recognizes our machines."
Domestic factories began to sell snow machines, so far only 5-6 years, basically from zero to export. But Han Qixin said, "This gap is narrowing, and there will always be a day of transcendence." "After all, the snow machine developed by the national scientific research team a few years ago has already appeared at the Winter Olympics."
The seller has activated the video number! Welcome to follow