Ski resorts in nation hit hard by epidemic

Skiing venues in China have closed since the Spring Festival holiday under the impact of the novel coronavirus outbreak.

The ski season in the country is almost over and operators must wait until next winter to start operations again. The economic losses to ski venues in the short term could exceed 8 billion yuan ($1.14 billion), industry researchers said.

The number of operating skiing venues nationwide this year is expected to drop to 720 from 770 last year. The number of people who will go skiing is forecast to decline to around 11 million, falling 47.4 percent year-on-year, a skiing industry research report by the Beijing Ski Association stated.

In China, the ski season usually starts in November and the golden period runs for about three to five months, depending on the weather conditions of different regions. The operation time for skiing venues this season was forced to end early.

"Traditionally, the number of people who go skiing during February and March accounted for 40 percent to 50 percent of the total in a year," said Wu Bin, vice-chairman of the Beijing Ski Association.

"The shutdown of skiing venues during the Spring Festival holiday is like pouring a basin of iced water on the operators and avid Chinese skiers. The negative impact is catastrophic in the short term," he said.

Genting Resort Secret Garden, a large-scale ski resort located in Zhangjiakou city, Hebei province, said the stoppage of operations will cause a loss of 110 million yuan for the venue.

Two international ski competitions, the X Games and the Audi Nines, which were to be held in Asia for the first time, have been canceled.

"For a skiing resort like us, the cost of operation is far from being recovered. The resort is still doing maintenance work, and it is ready to re-open anytime, depending on the conditions of epidemic controls,"Genting Resort Secret Garden said.

"We are also doing preparation work for summer operations. In summer, we offer multiple entertainments such as downhill mountain bikes, cable car sightseeing, hiking and summer camps," the company said.

Separately, Beijing-based Carving Ski Group said for most skiing venues nationwide, their operation time has shrunk by about 70 percent of the total. Equipment sales have been lethargic and there are no new orders. The company is a major supplier of ski equipment and a management specialist of ski areas.

"It has been a warm winter globally, and the opening time for most skiing venues in China was delayed for about half-a-month to one month. Some ski venues in South China even gave up the opening of business because of the warm weather," said Liu Yu, an industry researcher at Carving Ski Group.

"Shortly after the opening, there came the unexpected outbreak of the epidemic, and the skiing venues were forced to close. For such a short period of business operations, it's hard for operators to take back the costs of snowmaking, and the fees for water and electricity," he said.

At the end of 2019, the Beijing-Zhangjiakou high-speed railway began operation, and it has helped shrink travel time to the resorts from four hours of driving to about one hour.

The ski venues in Zhangjiakou are located about 200 kilometers northwest of Beijing and will host the snow sports events of the 2022 Winter Olympic Games. The resorts had seen a growing number of visitors.

The epidemic occurred at the height of the ski season has hit the market hard.

Like the catering sector, ski venues count their revenues based on operating days. For most resorts, the revenues received from the first to the fifteenth day of the Spring Festival can account for more than a third of the total revenue of a season.

For some small-and medium-sized venues, the revenue can make up for more than half of the total for the season, according to Wu.

The cash flow of skiing venues is now broken. With most ski venues operating seasonally, they now face a severe problem of brain drain, Wu said.

Last year, there were 770 ski venues in China, up 3.77 percent year-on-year. Heilongjiang province in Northeast China had the highest number with 124 skiing venues, almost twice the total of second ranking Shandong province.

A total of 20.9 million people went skiing last year in China, up 6.09 percent over the previous year. Hebei province, Jilin province and Beijing, respectively, saw the highest growth rates in the number of skiers.

Large-scale ski resorts at tourism destinations saw the fastest growth. Heilongjiang province and Shanxi province saw a decline in the number of skiers, according to the report.

"China is the largest market for entry-level skiers. Despite the overall skiing market being on the rise, in the past five years, the number of hard-core skiers has gone down slightly. China's ski market has begun to differentiate," Wu said.

More affluent millennials, including those born after 1995 and 2000, spend most of their leisure time skiing and snowboarding, said a report by Qunar, one of the largest online travel agencies in China.

For Tian Shen, 28, a bank employee and an experienced skier in Beijing, winter means hitting the slopes at various places in China. She had been going to ski resorts in Zhangjiakou almost every weekend last winter, but lost the chance to do the sport this season.