CGTN Europe spoke with Justin Downes, President of Axis Leisure Management.
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00:00Let's now hear from Justin Downs, President of AXIS Leisure Management.
00:05Certainly the Harbin Ice Festival has become a global phenomenon.
00:09It always used to attract millions and millions of visitors, including a lot from overseas.
00:15And so there's still many millions of people in China, or tens of millions of people in China that have yet to experience it.
00:21So what it does is it exposes people to the winter environment.
00:26Then it triggers their interest in getting involved in the winter sport that comes as a result of that.
00:31So people go to Harbin, they experience the snow and the ice, and then they say,
00:35Hey, mom and dad, I want to go skiing or ice skating or snowboarding.
00:40And it's a really important part of the whole ecosystem.
00:43Talk to me about winter sports and which ones are gaining popularity in China.
00:50Certainly skiing and snowboarding are the most user friendly, easy for the mainstream population to pick up.
00:57It's not a specialist sport per se.
01:01It's not limited by time or space.
01:04So skiing and snowboarding is enjoying extreme popularity right across the country,
01:10from the northern ski resorts in outdoor ski destinations to the south in indoor ski domes.
01:19The pickup both from the youth and from the more senior, more mature population is quite phenomenal, really.
01:27How much of a boost has Beijing's 2022 Winter Olympics been for the snow economy?
01:35Well, even even well before the Olympics happened.
01:38So going back to 2015, when the Olympics were announced, the economy of snow sports or winter sports was already on the rise.
01:46The Olympics solidified that. And ever since the day that Beijing won the Winter Olympics,
01:52the government has thrown its full support behind anything to do with winter sport,
01:57whether it's education relating to people getting involved as a career in winter sport or participation or the media culture, social well-being.
02:08The government has been 100 percent behind it.
02:11So the Winter Olympics really confirmed that the pathway for China being a dominant global force in winter sport was was because of the Olympic Games.
02:21So no question that's been a phenomenal outcome.
02:25Is it possible to put a number to the value of the snow economy?
02:29It's not just tourist destinations, but it's also the manufacturer ski poles, for example.
02:36Oh, no question. I mean, it's a it's a massive, as I said, an ecosystem.
02:40So China is now one of the world's leaders in development of chairlifts and snow making machines.
02:45Whereas 15, 20 years ago, it was all about importing from the international market.
02:50So the production and design, you know, creation of retail clothing brands and ski, ski equipment, ice skates.
03:00It's quite phenomenal, really, where China has come from, come from to where it is now.
03:05Ten years ago, everybody, China used to watch what was going on in the rest of the world.
03:10Now the rest of the world is watching what China is doing because China is innovating because it's the most mature,
03:17maturely advancing market for introducing new product into the market, new consumers to the market.
03:24So China has definitely become an industry leader and the rest of the world is watching.