‘Shei shuo jingji bu hao? (Who says the economy isn’t doing well)?”
This was the top comment on a video that went viral on super app Weixin (known internationally as WeChat) at the beginning of this winter season in China last November. The clip showed the stalled queues at the hottest slope of the season: Ruyi Resort in Hebei Province, north China. Not skiing. Just… waiting. For lifts. For their turn to participate in something that, a decade ago, would have seemed absurd: China’s winter economy, in full, glorious swing.
That comment captures something the statistics alone cannot. Because while economists wring their hands over growth targets and economic transition, something else is happening on the ground.
Or in this case, on the snow.
Midnight at the summit
Let us paint you a picture: late January, Hebei Province, temperatures hovering around minus 15 degrees Celsius. The gondolas are still running at 9 p.m. Floodlights turn the slopes an eerie and beautiful blue-white. From the ridge, you can see the village below: Hotpot and Korean BBQ restaurants steamy-windowed, a lone craft beer bar glowing, lit food trucks doing brisk business and wisps of heat curling from outdoor hot springs where skiers soak their tired limbs.
This is Chongli, around 200 km northwest of Beijing. Once a sleepy rural district in Zhangjiakou, Hebei, it was transformed for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics into north China’s premier winter playground, with cash now pumping through the tills at all hours.
The question is: How did this happen (almost overnight)?
The answer is a perfect storm: Olympic ambition, infrastructure that borders on the obscene, a generation of consumers who treat skiing as a content vertical and a national policy push to turn winter’s darkness into a golden hour for the economy.
From bingxue to Beijing 2022
Let’s rewind. Bingxue means “ice and snow.” It’s the term from which China’s new ice and snow economy takes its name, but bingxue sports have ancient roots in China, with Altay in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region recognized as one of the birthplaces of skiing more than 10,000 years ago. But for most of the modern era, skiing has been a niche pursuit for the ultra-wealthy and the occasional expat. Ski resorts were few, far-flung and inaccessible.
Then, in 2015, Beijing won the bid to host Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games. At the time, China led the world in the number of ski resorts, 568 to be exact, but the number of people who had engaged in ice and snow sports was still below 100 million. With its winning Olympic bid, China made a promise to triple that number and engage 300 million people in ice and snow sports by the time the Games began. Skeptics scoffed.
And so between 2015 and 2022, in addition to preparing the winter Olympic venues, the country expanded its nationwide winter sports infrastructure to accommodate the anticipated tripling of engagement, building new ice rinks, ski resorts and high-speed rail lines to mountains that had barely had roads a decade prior.
By the time the Olympic flame was lit in the Bird’s Nest national stadium in Beijing, 346 million people had been engaged in winter sports.
Today, according to the 2024-25 China Ski Industry White Paper, released late last August, China has 748 ski resorts in operation. To put that in perspective: Europe, with a landmass similar to China’s, is home to over 4,000 ski resorts, or one resort for every 187,000 people. In China, that ratio is currently one resort for every 2 million people—give or take. The gap isn’t a shortfall; it’s a measure of how much room this market still has to grow
All that infrastructure is doing its job: People are using it. The 2025-26 winter season got off to a record start, with 35 million resort visits in the first month alone—a 10-percent year-on-year increase, according to the China Ski Industry Report released in December 2025.
This year, the stars aligned. The nine-day Spring Festival holiday (February 15-23), China’s biggest annual holiday, landed smack in the middle of peak ski season, just as the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games (February 6-22) kicked off in Italy.
Chinese athletes like freestyle skiing gold medalist Gu Ailing (Eileen Gu) and snowboarding golden boy Su Yiming were making podium runs in Italy while millions back home were making their own, on slopes from Chongli to Xinjiang.
Olympic fever, plus holiday downtime, plus fresh snow? That’s the kind of math that breaks spreadsheets.
“The Winter Olympics buzz has definitely brought bigger crowds to the slopes this year,” Mao Bowen, a Shanghai skier making turns at the Yabuli Ski Resort in Heilongjiang Province, northeast China, told Xinhua News Agency in late February. “More people are choosing to ring in the New Year on snow.”
The logistics of desire
Getting your ski on as a resident of the capital is almost insultingly easy. If you take a high-speed train from Beijing North Railway Station at 7:30 a.m., you’ll reach Taizicheng Railway Station in Chongli by 9 a.m. Inside the station—massive, heated and humming with energy, there’s the Nap of the Earth—Ski Supermarket, a ski equipment rental operation that takes up a good chunk of the concourse.
“Just three years ago, people would come in a little nervous—’Will the boots fit? Will the bindings be right?'” a local staff member shared with Beijing Review in January, adjusting a rack of skis. “Now, they know exactly what they want. And they want it fast.” Ski apparel, skis, boards, poles, helmets, goggles—the whole kit: suited, booted and paid for in under 30 minutes. Total for a one-day rental? Roughly 300 yuan ($43), depending on the quality of the jacket you choose.
Outside the station, a free shuttle bus waits to ferry you to your resort of choice, Thaiwoo, Wanlong, Yunding, Ruyi and another one or two options. Thirty minutes later, you’re at a ticket counter buying exactly the pass you want: four hours, a full day or the 1.5-day experience, i.e., day plus night skiing for roughly 700 yuan ($100).
By 10 a.m., you’re shuffling forward in the queue for the chairlift, snow underfoot, the first run stretching out before you like a promise you’re not entirely sure your quads can keep.
Shred till you’re dead
Since Beijing 2022, skiing has attracted more thrill-seekers and trendsetters. But this season feels different. This season, the sport has truly arrived. On lifestyle app Xiaohongshu (RedNote), the hashtag “skiwear” had amassed nearly 800 million posts as of February 24. On Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, the same hashtag topped 1.1 billion posts. Ski-apparel-related videos rack up millions of views and tens of thousands of likes. For young skiers, style matters as much as carving powder. Or even more.
Trending now: “colorful mountain” (clashing brights) and “oldschool revival” (1990s color-blocking that Gen Z decided is cool again).
But ask parents who’ve been at this awhile, and priorities shift. “We focus on practical, safe gear,” Selano Li, a Beijing parent whose son Jayden has been skiing for a couple of years, something almost unimaginable a decade ago and, for some, still a status symbol today, told Beijing Review. “A comfortable base layer—no cotton! A colorful helmet so instructors can spot the kids easily. A bright waterproof outer layer so he’s even more visible in that white world. Thick wool socks, insulated gloves. Nothing fancy, just what the instructor recommends.”
The ripple effect is unmistakable: Winter sports enthusiasm is driving related industries hard. China’s winter sportswear market hit $29.8 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach $52.6 billion by 2030, according to a report published by Beijing-based marketing firm Daxue Consulting at the conclusion of the 2024-25 winter season last March.
Even newbies want to look good, intensifying competition in the mid-to-high range skiwear bracket—because “beginner” no longer means “basic.” Here, hardhitting labels like Japanese Descente go head-to-head with iconic French Salomon as well as homegrown players like Vector (known for its fit for Asian body types), Nobaday and Li-Ning (which blends traditional elements with technical shells).
According to Daxue Consulting, 78 percent of participants are first-timers; many of them spend around 2,000 yuan ($292) on the essentials—jacket, gloves, goggles, socks, a base layer and the occasional balaclava. (And then there’s the turtle puff, that plush, fall-softening phenomenon wobbling down every baby slope in China. It’s not technical gear. It’s a vibe.)
The hashtag “poor people skiing” had 26,000 posts on Douyin at the time of writing, with users sharing tips on second-hand skis and unbranded gear. When skiing has its own budget-hack discourse, you know it’s shedding its “ultra-wealthy only” label.
At every major resort, photographers aren’t shooting the slopes, they’re shooting the people. Fashion is what gets you snapped, posted, liked. The snappers work prime spots, feeding images into apps like GOSKI, China’s leading social and service platform dedicated to winter sports. Thousands of photos are uploaded daily. Filter by outfit color, download your finest run for $2, prove to the world you shredded it.
And if you’re going to be documented at minus 15 degrees Celsius, the face beneath the goggles better hold up. Enter the beauty industry. Harbin in Heilongjiang Province and the Changbai Mountains in Jilin Province aren’t just ski destinations anymore, they’re functional test sites for iconic skincare labels like Vaseline and premium Chinese sensitive skincare brand Winona. Sub-zero temps, howling wind, that particular dry cold? Those aren’t deterrents. They’re marketing opportunities.
But enough about the faces, let’s talk about the places—specifically what happens to them after dark.
The night shift
Somewhere amid the policy talk and the pilot programs, China’s “night economy” stopped being a concept and started producing queues. Very long, very profitable queues.
First articulated in 2019 and refined ever since, the policy explicitly encourages extended hours, diversified offerings and the infrastructure to support them. Winter provides the perfect stress test: If you can keep people spending after dark in sub-zero temperatures, you can keep them spending anywhere.
“When I first heard about the ‘1.5-day ticket’ at Yunding Ski Resort in Chongli, I thought it was a quirky concept,” Filipe Porto, a researcher of international relations and skiing aficionado based in Shenzhen in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, told Beijing Review last March. “But it turned out to be really cool to enjoy skiing at night. Resorts pause briefly to groom the slopes, and then it’s back to carving through the floodlights.”
This winter season, Yunding has extended its cable car operations, joining a growing list of resorts keeping lifts running until 10 p.m., according to a January report by RedStar News. Across China’s major ski areas, night operations now generate an estimated 30-40 percent of total daily revenue, industry insiders told the news portal. The math is simple: Daylight hours are fixed, but consumer appetite isn’t. By running after dark, resorts effectively increase their capacity without building new slopes.
Night skiing participation grew 67 percent year on year in the 2024-25 winter season, with spending per visitor averaging 30 percent higher than daytime equivalents, according to the 2024-25 China Ski Industry White Paper.
Back in 2023-24, Fulong Ski Resort in Chongli was already running regular night operations—the only one in the area doing so at the time. The logic: Night skiers are more likely to stay for dinner, drinks and lodging, turning a daytrip into an overnight stay.
And when the numbers get big, the analysts start circling.
The economists weigh in
“Chongli’s experience highlights an important dynamic: When frictions are reduced and capacity constraints are alleviated, demand can respond strongly,” Tommy Xie, OCBC Bank’s head of Asia macro research, told media outlet U.S. News in February. “But,” he added, “China has no shortage of examples where over-investment… eventually resulted in underutilized or abandoned assets.”
At Nap of the Earth, inside Taizicheng Railway Station, business is booming. “This season has already been non-stop,” a staff member told Beijing Review in January. “Weekends are packed. Holidays are a whole different level.”
The numbers back this up. Student Yan Jingyi, 23, told U.S. News she earns over 10,000 yuan ($1,456) monthly as a ski instructor, surpassing entry-level salaries in almost any industry. Taxi driver Ren Bing said he makes 9,000 yuan ($1,310) each winter month, about a third more than he did as a truck driver in Beijing.
A resident surnamed Luo, put it simply: “People say China’s economy is not good now, but I haven’t felt that.” It’s a sentiment reminiscent of the aforementioned viral Weixin comment.
Is Chongli representative of the whole country? Of course not. But up here, at least, the bingxue boom feels real.
The bottom line
None of this explosive growth is accidental; it has been engineered. The floodlit slopes, the gondolas doubling as content studios, the 10 p.m. Korean BBQ runs, much of it would not exist without Beijing 2022. A generation learned that bingxue wasn’t something to avoid; it was something to chase. And now, they’re even chasing it after dark.
The through line is clear: 300 million was never the finish line. It was the starting gun.
Now the question is how to keep the momentum going to ensure the whole glittering apparatus does not become a very cold, very expensive ghost town.
Winter is no longer a season to endure. It’s a new frontier for community, style and commerce, stretching from first light to last lift. A true cold rush.
Or a cold crush. –The Daily Mail-Beijing Review News exchange item
