China's Ice and Snow Economy in 2026: How 'Cold Resources' Became a Trillion-Yuan Industry
In January 2026, at the Ice and Snow Tourism Development Forum in Harbin, the China Tourism Academy released a number unthinkable a decade earlier: during the 2025-2026 winter, Chinese travelers were expected to make 360 million ice-and-snow leisure trips and spend roughly 450 billion yuan (about 64 billion US dollars) doing so. The same report confirmed that China's total ice-and-snow economy exceeded 1 trillion yuan for the first time in 2025 β nearly four times the 270 billion yuan scale of 2015.
For international visitors, these numbers explain why ski resorts now operate in subtropical provinces, why Harbin became a global winter destination, and why the 2026-2027 season β the one you can book now β will be the biggest yet.
How the Cold Economy Reached One Trillion Yuan
China's winter economy grew in three waves. The 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics turned skiing from a niche into a national conversation, delivering the "300 million people on ice and snow" participation goal promised before the Games. The 2023-2024 winter brought the "Harbin craze," when the city's Ice-Snow World and its viral penguin mascot made a provincial capital a global phenomenon. By 2025 the industry had outgrown tourism entirely.
According to the China Tourism Academy, the 2025 ice-and-snow economy reached 1.0053 trillion yuan across tourism, sport, culture, and equipment manufacturing. Companies in the sector surpassed 14,000, up 11 percent year on year, with 1,423 new firms registered in 2025 alone. The chain now spans ski lifts and snow groomers, indoor snow domes, ice sculpture, winter photography, themed trains, and even cold-region vehicle testing β a serious business in Mohe, China's northernmost city, where automakers test cars below minus 20 degrees Celsius.
Policy Math: 1.2 Trillion by 2027, 1.5 Trillion by 2030
The growth is not accidental. In November 2024, the State Council issued guidelines on developing the ice-and-snow economy through high-quality winter sports, setting explicit targets: 1.2 trillion yuan by 2027 and 1.5 trillion yuan by 2030. Since 2013, state-level policy documents touching ice and snow tourism have numbered more than 270.
The tools are concrete. Jilin province, home to world-class resorts like Beidahu and Changbaishan, created a 500 million yuan ice-and-snow fund and expanded consumption vouchers to 100 million yuan for the 2025-2026 season. Hubei and Shandong folded ski campaigns into their spring festival consumption seasons. Banks offer interest-free installments for ski equipment, and local governments subsidize "ice-snow through trains" that carry tourists directly to resorts.
Survey data explains the policy attention. In the academy's 2025-2026 survey, 74.8 percent of respondents wanted to try ice-and-snow leisure, and 50.5 percent planned a long-distance winter trip β the first time that figure crossed half. Over 83 percent had already experienced some form of winter tourism.
The South Is Now Part of the Winter Map
The most surprising trend is geographic. In 2025, southern China β led by Guangdong β accounted for about 30 percent of national heavy-asset investment in ice-and-snow tourism, roughly 30 billion yuan, the most of any region. The hottest category was the indoor snow complex: full ski slopes inside shopping districts that allow year-round skiing where natural snow almost never falls.
This "southward expansion, westward spread" pattern ends the northern monopoly on winter sports. Chengdu pairs slopes with hot springs; Guizhou's Liupanshui markets high-altitude "southern skiing" with rural tourism; Shanghai and Shenzhen run indoor parks where children take lessons without ever seeing real snow. For travelers, the effect is a lower entry barrier: beginners can learn to ski for an afternoon without flying to Heilongjiang.
What Changed for Travelers on the Ground
Three shifts are visible. First, service became the battleground: Harbin's Ice-Snow World now includes heated rest areas, free hot ginger tea, and "warm castles" β the "warm-hearted service" model credited for the city's repeat-visitor boom. Second, spending moved from transport and hotels toward experiences: ice sculpture classes, winter photography, performances, and wellness add-ons such as the traditional Chinese medicine recovery centers that Jilin resorts operate beside ski lifts. Third, international visitors are returning, helped by expanded visa-free transit policies; resorts in Xinjiang's Altay region and Jilin report rising shares of skiers from Southeast Asia, Korea, and Europe.
Practical takeaways for foreign travelers: book Harbin, Changbaishan, Beidahu, or Altay well ahead of Chinese New Year; expect international-standard services at major resorts, from multilingual signage to ski rental that accepts foreign cards; and consider the south if you want gentle lessons in an indoor dome instead of a minus-25-degree mountainside.