300 million Chinese are running in the opposite direction, how can the ice and snow economy get out of the "cold winter"?

Image source @ Visual China

Text | Guan Tide New Consumption, Author | Snow Flying, Edit | perilla

In the spring of 2022, ice and snow sports became the most "Versailles" way of life in Chinese.

The snow field has become a mecca for punching cards. The average price of a single trip of 1,000 yuan; nearly ten kinds of complex equipment, queuing for half an hour, skiing for five minutes; and falling on all fours and eight forks, can not match the infinite pleasure of dopamine and endorphin secretion.

Skiing has become a "luxury currency" for young people, and it has also achieved an emerging trillion-level market.

Sanya is no longer the best choice to escape the winter cold, 300 million skiers migrate in the opposite direction, facing the cold, all the way north.

01 Ice and snow are hot, deep change

On the day of the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics, it coincided with Lichun, but the upcoming spring could not melt the "ice and snow dream" of the public, and as the ice piers and Gu Ailing became the new top streams, the domestic ski atmosphere ushered in an unprecedented climax.

According to the relevant data of the State General Administration of Sports, the number of domestic ski resorts was 568 in 2015, reached 770 in 2019, and is expected to exceed 1,000 in 2022.

The data of related companies more obviously confirms the heat of the ice and snow economy. According to enterprise investigation data, there are currently nearly 6900 ski-related enterprises in the mainland, and 1383 related enterprises have been added in 2021 alone, a record high, an increase of 57% year-on-year.

The rapid growth of the number of enterprises is fundamentally due to the surge in market demand.

In fact, since Beijing successfully won the right to host the Winter Olympics on July 31, 2015, the domestic ski industry has begun to heat up, becoming one of the fastest growing sports industries in China in recent years.

After the State General Administration of Sport put forward the call to "drive 300 million people to participate in ice and snow sports", more and more people joined the tide of experiencing ice and snow sports.

The "China Ice and Snow Tourism Development Report (2022)" released by the China Tourism Research Institute pointed out that under the stimulation of supply and demand such as the Beijing Winter Olympics, the return of ice and snow outbound tourism, the upgrading of tourism consumption, and the national layout of ice and snow facilities, The number of ice and snow leisure tourists in the country has increased from 170 million in the 2016-2017 ice and snow season to 254 million in the 2020-2021 ice and snow season, and it is expected that the 2021-2022 ice and snow season will reach 305 million person-times, and the mainland ice and snow leisure tourism revenue is expected to reach 323.3 billion yuan.

The explosion of the ice and snow economy is most directly reflected on social platforms. In the early winter of 2021, "Lin Hai Xueyuan" began to brush the screen on the social platform, and the little sisters wearing bikinis and stepping on skis occupied the major ski resorts, although this behavior was controversial, but the side proved the popularity of the ice and snow economy, the structural changes of the consumer population and the quiet change of the way ski resorts were operated.

First, the skiing crowd is not only changing to younger and more popular, but also accelerating the expansion of the female market.

According to the Mob Institute, before 2019, male skiers accounted for more than 70% of the total population; data from the 2020 China Ski Industry White Paper shows that the proportion of male skiers has dropped to 60%, and the number of female consumers in some ski resorts has surpassed that of men.

Second, the ski industry began to take advantage of the momentum, and the marketing method showed a trend of rejuvenation.

On social media or short video platforms, Hanfu girl "Royal Snow Flight", "Lin Hai Xueyuan" beautiful frozen people and other content often appear in the recommendation area, which is a repeated jump between the ski industry in the fashion circle, entertainment circle and business circle, and a mutual achievement between traffic and businesses.

At the same time, a number of related video programs such as "Super Fun Ski Conference", "Supernova Games", "Ice and Snow Burning", "Friends in the Snow" have been launched one after another, which not only completed the set goal of warming up for the Winter Olympics, but also became the driving force of the development of the ice and snow economy.

Third, the ice and snow economy has gone to the public and boosted the process of specialization.

The economy is the foundation of sports, China's small ball, American basketball, European football, Olympic athletes frequently cut gold on the field, behind which is the popularity of these sports among the local people.

Skiing is a sport with higher dangers and thresholds, as more and more consumers enter the ski resort, the demand for ski courses and instructors will also grow at the same time, and then reverse the popularity of skiing to solve the needs of professional athletes from the root.

02 Market segments, blossoming everywhere

The rapid heating up of the ice and snow economy has led to the development of related industries, the most direct of which is equipment.

Gu Ailing became a new top after winning the gold, and since 2021 alone, she has become the spokesperson for at least 20 brands, many of which are related to sporting goods.

On the official flagship store of ANTA Tmall, Gu Ailing's same sweatshirt and the same down jacket were placed on the front page of the store. Search for the keyword "Gu Ailing" on Taobao, and the first thing that appears is ski clothes and peripheral products.

On February 6, Alibaba released the "Year of the Tiger Spring Festival Consumption Trend Report", which mentioned that on the opening night of the Beijing Winter Olympics, more than 1 million netizens poured into the olympic Tmall official flagship store, many peripheral products of the winter Olympic mascot ice pier were almost "seconds empty", "The Chinese team clothing for the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics" was on the Taobao hot search, and the sales of down jackets and sweatshirts in the official flagship store of Anta Tmall increased significantly compared with last week.

In addition, from Chinese New Year's Eve to the fourth day of the first month of the first month, Tmall ski equipment increased by more than 180% year-on-year, and the ice sports category increased by more than 300% year-on-year.

According to the consumption data of the Jingdong platform during the Spring Festival, the overall turnover of ski sports products increased by 322% year-on-year, of which the turnover of ski masks reached 15 times year-on-year, and the turnover of ski pants, ski goggles, snowboards, ski clothes, ski shoes, etc. also achieved high growth; the overall turnover of ice sports products increased by 430%, of which the turnover of figure skates, speed skating sharpeners and speed skates increased by 553%, 420% and 368% respectively.

According to the Spring Festival consumption data released by another e-commerce platform, Suning Tesco, sales of home appliances with red, national tide and tiger elements increased by 125% year-on-year. The sales of tide play gift boxes represented by China's ice and snow co-brand IP blind boxes increased by 115% year-on-year, and the sports category of Suning Tesco platform increased by 134%.

The growth of the market size of ice and snow sports equipment is not just a temporary need.

According to the "2021-2027 China Ski Equipment Industry Market Development Model and Strategic Consulting Research Report" released by Zhiyan Consulting, the size of China's ski equipment market in 2020 is about 12.69 billion yuan, and it is expected to exceed 15 billion yuan in 2022.

The heat of the ice and snow economy has also led to the growth of the cultural tourism hotel industry.

Tongcheng travel big data shows that during this year's Spring Festival, the number of orders for ice and snow scenic spots nationwide increased by 68% compared with the same period last year's Spring Festival. Among them, compared with ice and snow sightseeing scenic spots, outdoor ice skating rinks, ski resorts, ice and snow theme parks and other ice and snow sports related scenic spots and venues are more concerned by tourists.

Ice and snow sports to the masses is also an opportunity for the training industry.

According to the "White Paper on China's Ski Industry", from 2014 to 2019, the size of China's ski equipment market increased from 3.22 billion yuan to 11.75 billion yuan; the size of the ski training market increased from 4.2 billion yuan to 6.91 billion yuan, an average annual growth rate of 10.47%.

Wang Zhan, founder of ski training institution Xueleshan, once said that the development of China's ice and snow industry is still in its infancy, and ski training in the next five years is the focus, only to solve the problem of snow friends base, ski equipment and social and other supporting services can be more rapid development. "It's like a driving school, you have to teach people to drive before there is a car market."

New Oriental, which completely bid farewell to K12, also began to lay out ski training business. In June 2021, Wanyu Fangfei obtained tens of millions of A round financing, and the investor was New Oriental. Founded in 2017, Wanyu Fangfei is an ice sports training and aesthetic education institution, which mainly provides ice sports training mainly for figure skating and ice hockey for teenagers aged 3-15, and its angel round investor is Bosideng.

That is to say, the ice and snow economy completed a magnificent reversal in the Spring Festival in 2022 and absorbed gold in the consumer market, but sports venues, equipment and clothing, education and training and other enterprises have already completed the preparation with a keen sense of smell.

03 There are still many problems and a long way to go

The contradiction between strong demand and supply is most likely. Relative to the rapidly growing trillion-dollar market, the current preparation is still insufficient.

Wu Bin, author of the "White Paper on China's Ski Industry", once mentioned that there are a total of 715 ski resorts in China, and the number of uplink equipment (cable cars and ropeways) of a ski resort determines the standard level of the ski resort, and most of the international high-quality ski resorts have 4-5 uplink equipment. However, there are 159 snow fields equipped with more than 1 uplink equipment in China, and less than 50 ski fields that can benchmark 4-5 uplink equipment in the world.

In contrast, the 2020 Global Ski Market Report mentions that by the end of 2020, a total of 67 countries around the world will provide outdoor ski resorts with more than four lifting equipment, with a total of more than 2,000.

Behind the 300 million people on the ice and snow, there are also problems such as the popular ski resorts are full, the ski equipment is rented out, and the first experience is not good enough to affect the return rate.

The "White Paper on China's Ski Industry" mentions that the ski resorts in the ice and snow economy are divided into three categories, one is the tourism experience type, accounting for about 75%, and the reception crowd is mostly a one-time experience, with an average stay of two hours; the second is the ski learning type, accounting for about 22%, the customer group is mainly teenagers and guests with certain economic strength, for repeated consumption; the third type is a vacation destination with skiing as one of the core businesses, accounting for about 3%.

Resort-type ski resorts can be booked for as much as a month or as little as a week or two, and before the arrival of the popular holiday, if you only book a few days in advance, the ski resort and surrounding hotels will definitely be full.

In addition, the ski industry is not a profiteering industry and requires long-term and fixed hardware costs. According to data from the Head Leopard Research Institute, the profit margin of domestic ski resorts is about 15%.

Holiday destinations are more well-funded and stronger in the procurement of hardware facilities. For small and medium-sized ski resorts, the cost growth will only slow down significantly after the number of people on the spot breaks through the break-even point, but before that, it will face the dual pressure of facility costs and customer acquisition costs.

According to Tianyancha data, in 2021, there were only 9 financing incidents in the field of ice and snow project-related enterprises, compared with only 1 in 2019 and 2020, which is in stark contrast to the sharp increase in the number of enterprises.

In addition, in the financing in 2021, training institutions such as Xueleshan and SNOW51 have obtained a total of 1.2 billion yuan in financing, accounting for 62.17% of the total financing of the ice and snow industry in the whole year, and the financing of ski equipment brands also accounts for a considerable proportion.

Although the market size exceeded 300 billion, the number of participants exceeded 300 million, and large funds entered the market, more institutions still maintained a wait-and-see attitude.

On the one hand, ski resort operations and ski equipment are heavy asset investment, investment costs are usually in the billions, the investment threshold is high, the return period is long, and the concept of some investment institutions is contrary to the concept. It is often real estate developers who invest in ski resorts, and most investment institutions target asset-light projects such as ski equipment, ski training and derivative content.

On the other hand, the capital market still seems unable to accurately judge the prospects of the ice and snow economy.

The Winter Olympics have stimulated the rapid growth of the ski population, but most of them are experiential consumption, and how to convert this part of the population into long-term users and maintain the large-scale growth of senior players is a problem for the entire industry.

At present, the level of domestic ski instructors needs to be improved, the total number of domestic ski instructors is between 20,000 and 30,000, but there are less than 5,000 ski instructors who can meet the international minimum standards, while less than 1,000 people can meet the level of intermediate and senior ski instructors.

Secondly, the Winter Olympics are the driving force for the growth of the ice and snow economy, but the recurrence of the epidemic will still bring unknown factors. The epidemic's restrictions on travel will affect residents' desire to spend; if the epidemic is completely over and overseas tourism is reopened, domestic snow parks will continue to face the competitive pressure of overseas snow parks.

According to the "China Ski Industry Development Report", the population penetration rate of China's ski market is only 1%, while Switzerland, the world's number one nordic ski country, is as high as 35%, Japan, which is geographically similar, has 9%, and the United States is 8%. In these countries and regions, ski resorts that have been operating for many years are more professional and more attractive to veteran ski enthusiasts in a short period of time.

The shortcomings of venues and hardware equipment are difficult to make up in the short term, in addition to equipment supplies and education and training, the future power point of the ice and snow economy can be adjusted to content and creativity. For example, drawing on the idea of combining the cultural and cultural fields with the national tide, we will create a regionalized and distinctive cultural tourism ice and snow tourism project, provide differentiated services, and develop into an ice and snow town integrating tourism, entertainment, commerce and real estate.

04 Conclusion

In the southern Altai Mountains, known as the "Thousand Mile Petroglyph Gallery", in the cave on the east slope of the Dundebulak River Valley in Altay City, Xinjiang, there is a painted petroglyph with 10 villains. The little people in the petroglyphs are clearly visible, stepping on fur skis, holding poles, bending over and bending their knees, and gliding in the wind and snow is not much different from the movements of modern skiing. Relevant studies at home and abroad show that this petroglyph was painted more than 10,000 years ago.

In January 2006, domestic experts and scholars drafted the Altay Declaration, and on December 15 of the same year, a press conference was held on "China, Xinjiang, Altay is the Earliest Origin of Human Skiing".

On January 18, 2015, after a gap of nine years, Chinese and foreign experts jointly read the 2015 Altay Declaration on behalf of Asia, Europe and the Americas in Altay: Altay is the birthplace of human skiing.

In 2022, with the opening of the Beijing Winter Olympics, the boom of ice and snow swept through China, the ancient culture recovered again, and China's ice and snow officially went to the world.