China's Winter Olympics medal hopes could boost New Zealand ski fields

Wednesday, 20 February 2019

Chinese snowboarder Lu Yang competing in the halfpipe at the 2018 Winter Games NZ at Cardrona Alpine Resort. Last year 51 Chinese took part.

While the hand-wringing over New Zealand's relationship with China continues, the ski industry is busy tapping into Chinese Olympic ambitions.

Just two days after the China NZ Year of Tourism launch was postponed by Chinese officials, the Christchurch consulate general of the People's Republic of China, Wang Zhijian was talking up opportunities for our ski industry.

He told a New Zealand China Trade Association function in late January that with Beijing hosting the next Winter Olympics in 2022, winter sports had become 'a new priority for bilateral cooperation' with more local ski coaches and resort managers invited to work in China, and a growing number of Chinese tourists coming to ski at Wanaka and Mt Hutt.

Cardrona Alpine Resort is due to double in size by the time of the Winter Olympics and general manager Bridget Legnavsky said that with slow growth from Australia and New Zealand, China was an obvious target .

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Cardrona was into its fourth season of training Mandarin-speaking ski instructors and the company website has a Mandarin video for Chinese visitors considering a day in the snow.

'When you look at new markets, China is pretty much a no-brainer.'

'Skiing is becoming cool and the main reason is the Beijing Olympic games … they want to have really good representation of athletes and there's enormous [Chinese] Government support and investment to fill their quota of spots in every single discipline.

'Everyone is trying to get a piece of China and there's probably enough for everyone because the scale is enormous.'

China has announced plans to build hundreds of new ski resorts and get millions of its residents skiing in the lead up to the Olympics.

Ski fields are hoping to appeal to Chinese visitors wanting to ride the chairlift and trying sledding, as well as hard core athletes training for competitions over the Northern Hemisphere summer.

New Zealand ski fields face competition from Chile, Argentina and Australia for off-season Chinese skiers, but Legnavsky said our big advantage was the accessibility of ski fields near Queenstown and Christchurch.

'Getting airports close to resorts is vital for the Chinese because they really don't like driving long distance.'

Legnavsky said Cardrona had hosted Chinese Ski Association coaches and skiers and its pipe park and free style ski area were particularly suited to them because their strength was in gymnastics, rather than alpine ski racing.

Last year Chinese athletes made up 51 of the 750 participants at the Winter Games NZ, the Southern Hemisphere's biggest international snow sports event, held in Queenstown, Wanaka and Naseby.

Games chief executive Marty Toomey said that as well as elite Chinese athletes training here, there were opportunities for more Kiwi instructors, snow makers and groomer drivers to work in China in the off-season.

It is not known how many of the almost 450,000 Chinese visitors who came here last year went skiing, but NZ Ski chief executive Paul Anderson said numbers were definitely growing and the company's Queenstown information desk fielded about 5000 enquiries from Chinese residents in 2018, compared with under 1000 in 2016.

A lot of effort had gone into getting 'China-ready' with snow and ski experiences suitable for a range of Chinese visitors, some of whom were just happy to ride the chairlift to stand in the snow, or try snow shoeing or sledding.

Anderson said plans to build a $7.5m hot pool complex at Methven would add to the appeal of the Mt Hutt Ski Area for Chinese visiting New Zealand over winter.

Whether the Chinese interest in skiing held up after the Winter Olympics remained to be seen, Legnasky said, but she is hopeful it will.

'The good news is a whole lot of new people have started skiing and take it seriously. It's one of those sports that once you get quite good at it, it's hard to let it go, it's very addictive.'