China's winter sports run at red-hot white (2)

Visitors play ice sports at the National Aquatics Center in Beijing on Feb 4. The center, also known as the Water Cube or Ice Cube, served as a main venue for the 2022 Winter Olympics. WEI XIAOHAO/CHINA DAILY

Sustainable development

"In addition, a large number of venues built under the influence of the Beijing Winter Olympics, including outdoor and indoor ski resorts, have also laid a solid foundation for the sustainable development of skiing in China from the perspective of supply."

While Olympic boom legacies can bring a high value-added platform to ski learning and promote the popularization of skiing, Vanat said the mindset of the people is also favorable to push further ski learning at school, as well as the organization and promotion of ski camps for young people.

He suggested another aspect that needs to be nurtured is the growth of family ski holidays.

"But this needs to be done wisely, to avoid sending early beginners straight into the mountains, where they will be displeased and definitely finish their ski career with a bad experience."

Instead, he said, he would like to see families first turn to urban or peri-urban ski learning facilities to learn about skiing before venturing onto real mountains.

Alpine destinations are confident the mushrooming growth of the ice and snow sector could have a knock-on benefit for ski resorts in Europe.

The country's rapid development of winter sports has led to a growing number of Chinese people visiting overseas destinations during the winter, a boon that many European destinations enjoyed in the years before COVID-19.

Austria welcomed 1 million Chinese travelers in 2019, the Austrian National Tourist Office said.

"That means within 10 years before the pandemic, the number of Chinese guests in Austria grew by 400 percent," said Emanuel Lehner-Telic, the office's head of markets Asia-Pacific. During the winter season of 2018-19, Austria welcomed 340,000 visitors from China, almost 60 percent more than in the winter of 2014-15.