Enjoying a slice of the cold

These efforts have helped the province boost its visitor numbers to 115 million in the first three quarters this year, an increase of 12.5 percent compared with the same period last year, according to the provincial tourism authority.

Domestic tourism income hit 145.35 billion yuan for the same period, a rise of about 23 percent.

A total of 145 million travelers visited the province in 2016, an increase of more than 11 percent year-on-year. They spent 160 billion yuan, an increase of nearly 18 percent.

In a related development, Inner Mongolia, Tibet and the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous regions are integrating their rich ice and snow resources with their distinctive ethnic cultures and landscapes.

Those places are becoming popular winter tourism destinations and are expected to pack in visitors, the China Tourism Academy report says.

Inner Mongolia's Chifeng offers photography, self-drive and folk art performance tours to the Beijing residents in December.

"Improved transportation has cut travel time to Chifeng from Beijing, so after you can conclude your business in the daytime you can then sit in a Mongolian yurt on the prairie, savoring milk wine, listening to the morin khuur (horse-head fiddle), and look up at the starry sky," says Zhou Jinzhuang, the deputy mayor of Chifeng.