Beijing to be on track of Tour de France

Taiwan actor Ethan Juan will serve as the ambassador of the China events for the second consecutive year.

Activation Group, an integrated marketing agency that introduced the events to China, is aiming to grow the concept of sports plus community and sports plus tourism amid the national campaign of fitness for all.

Activation will work with Amaury Sport Organization (A.S.O), a France-based sporting events organizing group, on a Paris-Roubaix Challenge tour program for Chinese cycling enthusiasts.

China is home to a 75 million cycling population, among which 10 million participate in competitions, according to statistics in 2015. The total number has been increasing by 30% annually from 2016 and is expected to reach over 120 million by 2020. The cycling population mainly come from major cities and eastern provinces like Beijing, Shanghai and Zhejiang province and are aged 20 to 25 with high education and pay.

Kathy Zhou, general manager of Activation Group, said the China events are meant to aim to grow cycling as a life style rather than simply a way of transportation.

"With the China events, we are promoting the cycling culture to boom among the population before we can see a rosy future of the sport in China," Zhou said.

Zhou said Activation is working on some Tour de France standard training areas in major parks in the city.

Li Jianyi, chairman of CITIC Guoan Co Ltd, organizer of the L’Étape Beijing race, said the race will be the first event after the Beijing-based sport organizing and marketing group launched the cycling program. Profit will be long term before there is a big enough group of cyclists.

"Things like cycling equipment, training costs, rehabilitation and psychological consultation are all potential markets as long as we have a target group with high education and pay ... now we are undergoing a process of cultivating the market and improving the industry chain," Li said.

Li said the cycling events are a good start to combine sport, tourism and marketing, which otherwise were unrelated as the events are expected to yield new increase points in different areas.