The Party publicity department of the county of Guyuan, near the city of Zhangjiakou, Hebei province, announced on April 20 that its Bingshanliang Tourism Project — the county’s first ice-snow tourist project — had signed a contract for a 60-square-kilometer ski resort that can accommodate 18,000 skiers. The total cost is 520 million yuan ($82.5million). It is expected to be China’s best ski area.

The county, which is a part of the Hebei ski zone, has an average elevation of 1,536 meters above sea level and 1,467 square kilometers of forest, with a coverage rate of 68 percent. The county is known as a “Natural oxygen bar”.

It also has the second largest amount of surface water in the Zhangjiakou area with average summer temperatures as low as 17.9 Centigrade degrees, making it the perfect place to spend the summer. Its snow storage period lasts for more than 140 days and average winter temperatures are 12 degrees below zero. Some call it the best ski resort in North China.

In recent years, it has tried to turn itself into an ecotourism site and tourism revenues for 2011 exceeded 600 million yuan, from nearly 800,000 visitors in summer. Winter tourism, however, is still undeveloped and has contributed little to its tourism. To increase the tourism potential, Hebei has added three ski resorts -- Bingshanliang, Saibeilinhai and Jinlianshan -- to its General Development Plan for the Ski-Tourism Industry, in the cities of Zhangjiakou and Chengde.

The first phase of the project will have 30 kilometers of ski trails, four cable cars and other infrastructure, such as hotels, snow making equipment, parking lots, restaurants, and ski equipment rentals. The resort is expected to go into operation in April 2013.

The Guyuan publicity department says it will play an important role in leisure and tourism industry development.