Jilin hosts 1st Annual Conference of National Skiing Resorts Association and Winter Sports and Camp Education Forum

The1^st Annual Conference of the National Skiing Resorts Association and Winter Sports and Camp Education Forum, an event co-sponsored by Jilin Province Department of Culture and Tourism, Jilin City People's Government, national training bases for ice and snow tourism professionals and the National Skiing Resorts Association, kicked out in Jilin city's Vanke Lake Songhua Resort on March 19.

The event attracted over 180 representatives of famous skiing resorts and camp education agencies from 14 Chinese provincial-level regions including Jilin, Beijing, Heilongjiang, Liaoning, Hebei,  Tianjin, Xinjiang, Sichuan and Shaanxi.

Jin Xudong, deputy head of Jilin Province Department of Culture and Tourism, presided over the gathering, and read a letter of instructions and congratulations from Jilin governor Jing Junhai.

Head of Jilin Province Department of Culture and Tourism Yang Andi made a keynote speech at the event entitled "Work Together to Start a New Era for China's Ice and Snow Economy."

In recent years, Jilin province has given ice and snow economy a high position, spurring it with policies, projects, cross-industry collaboration and marketing, and now there is widespread public participation in, attention to and promotion of the snow and ice economy across the province, said Yang in her speech.

In the future, Jilin province will pool and make good use of all kinds of resources and strengths, boost training of ice and snow professionals for members of the National Skiing Resorts Association, build a promotion and marketing platform for the association, conduct policy research on drawing visitors to association members, support the association to draw up national standards, push ski resorts to integrate with other business forms, open new channels of exchanges and contact for the association, among other measures for the ice and snow industry to become more standard and organized and achieve higher quality, said Yang.

Representatives of more than 10 ski resorts read the National Skiing Resorts Association Declaration 2019 together on the occasion.

Ski resorts representatives agreed that with rapid tourism growth, ice and snow resources should be tapped to drive development of culture, sports and industry.

Besides, famous ice and snow tourism experts from both home and abroad shared experiences on such topics as preparations for the Beijing Winter Olympics and Paralympics, trend of ice and snow industry and opportunities from the Winter Olympics, how the National Skiing Resorts Association can promote ice and snow industry development, culture and tourism integration and innovation in Jilin province in a new era, role of national training bases for ice and snow tourism professionals.

The National Skiing Resorts Association, initiated by Vanke Lake Songhua Skiing Resort, Mount Changbai International Resort, Mount Changbai Luneng Skiing Resort, Beidahu Skiing Resort and Changchunmiao Xiangshan Skiing Resort, is the first of its kind in China. So far it has over 80 members from more than 10 ice and snow cities.

The association plans to launch a series of sports events under the umbrella of the Ice and Snow Silk Road Cup, aiming to produce more ice and snow professionals.