China's snow industry output likely to reach 1 trln yuan

BEIJING - China's ice-snow industry output reached 600 billion yuan (about $94.2 billion) in 2020 and will likely reach 1 trillion yuan in the near future, according to an industry report.

Inspired by the upcoming Winter Olympics, over 70 percent of respondents expressed a willingness to increase their consumption of ice-snow tourism, according to the report issued by the China Tourism Academy and Mafengwo, a travel service and social networking platform.

Chinese tourists made 170 million trips featuring ice and snow in 2016-2017, and the figure is expected to reach 305 million during the 2021-2022 ice-snow tourism season, said the report.

Ice-snow tourism income is forecast to hit 323.3 billion yuan in 2021-2022.

Residents of first- and second-tier cities accounted for 86 percent of the country's ice-snow tourists, with Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou remaining the top three tourist sources, the report said.