China to see winter tourism boom

BEIJING - China will see fast growth in winter tourism over the next few years, mainly due to policy support after Beijing's successful bid to host the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, a new report showed.

The number of tourists will grow by an annualized rate of 15 percent to reach 340 million in the 2021-2022 winter from about 170 million in 2016-2017, the China Tourism Academy forecast in the report.

Winter tourism revenue will increase from about 270 billion yuan ($40.8 billion) in 2016-2017 to 670 billion yuan in 2021-2022, an annualized growth rate of 20 percent.

By then, the winter tourism boom will be associated with a combined output of 2.88 trillion yuan in tourism and other sectors, the report said.

Beijing won its bid to host the 2022 Winter Games in 2015. Since then, local governments of Beijing and the provinces of Hebei, Heilongjiang and Jilin have unveiled policies to promote the "ice and snow tourism" industry.