Volkswagen Ski: Behind the Fast and the Furious
China News Weekly reporter / Huo Siyi
Published in the 1033rd issue of "China News Weekly" on February 28, 2022
Chongli glitters to the dazzling snow track, Gu Ailing's 1620 jumps, and the snowmobile sleigh race that "stupidly can't tell" whether to lie down or lie down... The 2022 Winter Olympics just passed, for the first time Chinese people are so close Feel the joy of ice and snow from a distance.
At the same time, the "Snow Season Staring Group", which is a hot topic in the snow friends circle every year, has also entered the public eye for the first time.
Although skiing originated in the Altay region of China, it has become a modern sport in the West with a history of more than 100 years of development.
In a classic ad from the 1920s, a skier stands next to a brand-new Mercedes, and skiing and modernity are unmistakably linked.
But modern skiing has been in China for less than 30 years.
What kind of sport is skiing and what level of development is China's mass skiing in are still topics worth discussing.
The "ski fever" spawned by the Winter Olympics
Wen Ji, a 29-year-old snowboarder, believes that skiing has become popular at an incredible speed.
His most direct feeling comes from consumption.
Every year in March and June, ski brands will have two clearances, and the discount can be as high as 60 to 20 percent. However, since a year or two ago, Wenji found that after March, the goods will not be available. "Skiing has always been small. In many industries, the production capacity will not change much in the short term, and the situation of not being able to buy ski equipment has never happened before." In addition, in the past two years, the waiting time for the ski lifts has also become longer.
A parent who just took the baby to ski a few times this year told China News Weekly that in the past few months of the Winter Olympics, more and more parents around them are talking about skiing.
There are more than 20 children in her kindergarten class, seven or eight of them are practicing skiing, and some even bought snowboards.
"In my opinion, this is considered a serious entry into the pit, unless the economic foundation is particularly good, or it is determined to take the baby to skate for a long time, parents generally do not buy snowboards and snowshoes by themselves, because children are growing every year, and snow equipment needs to be It's expensive to keep updating," she said.
In addition to the crowded ski resorts, snow friends also found that more and more people are posing on the snow trails, people's equipment is getting more and more expensive, and the ski resorts have become an outdoor social field. The reflection of the snow itself is even more eye-catching.
If you look at the data, the real heat of skiing does not exactly match the "skiing fever" people perceive.
According to the "2020 China Ski Industry White Paper" released by the Mob Research Institute, in 2015, the number of skiers in China was 9.6 million.
However, in the first year after the successful bid for the Winter Olympics, according to the White Paper on China's Ski Industry, the total number of skiers in China increased rapidly to 11.33 million in 2016, and by 2019, this number was 13.1 million, compared with 13.2 million in 2018 Slightly down.
Due to the impact of the epidemic, according to model calculations, the number of skiers during the 2020-2021 snow season has further dropped to 10.86 million.
According to data from the Tmall New Life Research Institute, the domestic ski market has grown explosively from the 2019-2020 snow season. Tmall ski category sales have increased by 200% year-on-year, and the number of new ski brands emerging in 2021 is twice that of 2020. , there is constant hot money entering this niche sport.
From the perspective of penetration rate, in 2019, the penetration rate of skiing population in China was only 0.9%, while the penetration rate of skiing population in the United States, Germany and France all exceeded 10%, of which the penetration rate in the United States was as high as 18.0%.
Today, skiing is still a niche sport in China.
Skiing is considered a way of life belonging to the middle class.
In 1934, the Italian government built the first modern ski resort Sestriere in the Alps, which was the beginning of alpine skiing into the middle class.
Earlier, Nordic skiers had to go through long ascents and treks of various inclines in order to freeride.
But since the birth of the first alpine lifts (the prototype for cable cars and ropeways) in the late 1920s, skiers have been able to get to the top faster and easier, enjoy the thrill of sliding down steep terrain, and enjoy extreme speed. The pursuit also starts from this moment.
At the same time, with the development of the economy, European skiers also began to have more vacations. In the ski resorts, there is nothing to do, holding a cup of hot coffee in hand, staring at the snow-capped mountains in a daze.
In China, there are mainly two types of skiers in the early years. One is the athletes who practiced skiing skills for the Olympic Games in the 1990s. Most of them switched careers from gymnastics and started to promote skiing among the people after retiring.
The other type is that they have come into contact with skiing in Europe, North America and other places after going abroad, and continue to devote themselves to this sport after returning home.
In the first decade of the 21st century, many Internet company entrepreneurs and financial workers entered the snow circle, probably because in that era, there were only a few types of professional practitioners who were not only rich, but also had flexible working hours.
But for a long time, the growth rate of the ski group was very slow, and the real turning point came in the successful bid for the Winter Olympics.
At this time, there are already more middle-class people in China who have enough economic strength to develop this hobby.
With the rise of the younger generation, Snow Circle has also been involved in the wave of new consumerism, adding cool, handsome and other young elements to the original middle-class symbol of skiing.
The most typical example is the snowboarding fever that has risen among young Chinese in recent years, a skiing sport that became popular in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s.
Compared with double boards, single boards are more free, exciting and thrilling, and soon form a unique subculture.
Europe's largest outdoor skate park, Mellowparks, built China's first snowboard park in Beijing Nanshan Ski Resort in December 2004. The advertising slogan is "Snowboarding keeps us young forever", which is especially attractive to young Chinese .
"At most, 300 snow friends come to our club a day, and basically 9 out of 10 people want to learn snowboarding." Rui Huanhuan, founder of You Rui Culture Communication and founder of Yexian Ski Club, told "China Newsweek said.
In Wenji's view, China does not have the deep skiing culture in Europe, and you can play whatever is popular abroad. After the snowboard culture entered China from the United States, it quickly formed a crushing advantage among young people, even surpassing the popularity in the United States. welcome.
The snowboard is really cool after skating, and the ski suit is more handsome, and it feels "like flying", which is the pleasure that a double board can't give.
"In a very martial art expression, like Edgeworth," he said.
Different from the old-school European middle-class competition life style, Chinese middle-class skiers are now playing with feeling.
The economic threshold for skiing is very high. A ski ticket can easily cost 400~500 yuan, and a full set of equipment can be rented for 200~300 yuan, plus transportation and catering costs. Yuan starts.
However, Wenji observed that since the last snow season, the snow circles began to "roll in" on the equipment, which was not only expensive but also trendy, and the so-called trends were all fired up.
For example, the American ski brand Burton has an ak457 series, which is very expensive. A non-discounted ski jacket is around 6,000 yuan. Now it has basically become a novice suit, and there are ak series everywhere on the snowfield.
Anyone who says that they want to start official skiing almost has one piece. Senior skiers jokingly call it a "pushing school uniform" (pushing is basic skiing).
The advantage of this snow suit is its waterproofness, but in the snow conditions in China's ski resorts, a more cost-effective Decathlon snow suit is "completely sufficient".
Snowboards are also the hardest hit by equipment involution.
Rui Huanhuan said that the "I can't hit the series" is often seen on the snow field, and a single board may cost 70,000 to 80,000 yuan.
On top of that, goggles, helmets, bindings, snowshoes… pretty much every gear from head to toe comes at a premium.
Rui Huanhuan also owns two ski brands, so he knows the market very well.
"As long as it has something to do with skiing, any product can be sold twice as much," she said.
more than just games
However, many skiers view skiing as a game, a fashionable and popular sport, while underestimating its dangers and lack of reverence.
Wen Ji has always been cautious, but at the beginning of skiing, he only thought that it was a sport with similar difficulty as skateboarding.
But he soon discovered that skiing was more dangerous than he thought, and friends around him frequently suffered injuries such as clavicle fractures, coccyx fractures, lumbar intervertebral problems, knee effusion, and cruciate ligament ruptures caused by falls.
After the inner ligament of his right leg was injured, he immediately went to buy armor to protect his ribcage and spine, and secretly vowed that in the future, the speed will not exceed 30 kilometers per hour "this line" unless it is necessary. .
Rui Huanhuan is an avid skier with 12 years of snow age, and she skis for more than 100 days in almost every snow season.
In the early days of skiing, she suffered a temporary loss of memory after a fall, and after regaining consciousness, she had to hurriedly search for "clues" in her clothes pockets.
She was also diagnosed with chondromalacia in her knee because she didn't know how to warm up before skiing and didn't regularly exercise her core and leg muscles.
Under such a physical condition, when a long-term continuous high-intensity skiing exercise is like boiling a frog in warm water, the knees will slowly be injured until one day "suddenly can't stand up", and this kind of sports injury is irreversible.
In these lessons, Chinese skiers gradually exercised their own safety awareness: for example, they must warm up before skiing; the first thing is to learn the correct wrestling posture; they must do full body protection; they must observe the snow before skiing condition, whether the snow surface is reflective, which may mean there is ice surface; it is necessary to observe how many people are on the snow trail, whether there are people sitting on the ground under some slopes, and which direction the wind is blowing; and the snowboard must be buckled upside down. Snow, prevent "slipboard" and so on.
"But all these precautions are useless when you step on the wrong slope, because you don't have the ability to control your body." Wenji pointed out that the most common problem for beginners is the wrong choice of slope. , Beginners dare to go to the intermediate and advanced courses after skating a few times, which is the direct cause of most injuries. Novices not only fall themselves, but also hurt others. Generally, those who are hit are more seriously injured.
"I know a man who, for the sake of being handsome, went on the road without basic skills. He broke two helmets in half a month, hit himself into a concussion, and hit someone else with a fractured tailbone. No matter how I tried to persuade him, it was useless. " Rui Huanhuan said angrily.
She pointed out that weak personal safety awareness is an important reason for the easy fall in the snow field, but more fundamentally, the whole environment lacks safety education.
Even if you hire a ski instructor, many ski instructors will not tell newcomers how to stretch and how to properly wrestle in their first class, but often say, "Skate one day to take you to the beginner track, and the next day to take you to the intermediate track."
Saibei Ski Resort is the first ski resort in Chongli. Its founder and tourism planning expert Guo Jing pointed out to China News Weekly that in some old skiing countries in Europe, after nearly a hundred years of ski culture inheritance, children will accept it from an early age. Ski safety related education.
For example, beginners should be well protected. In the first few skids, they must ask the coach to learn basic movements. In some dangerous areas with warning signs, they should slow down. Novices should not go to the intermediate and advanced roads. When there are many people, they should slow down. The skiing "safety net" is in your head.
However, the foundation of China's ski culture is still shallow. Therefore, in the view of many skiers, the responsibility for safety is not borne by themselves, but the responsibility of the ski resort. Skiing safety comes from the improvement of safety facilities in the ski resort, not the improvement of self-awareness. .
"This is the fundamental difference between Chinese and foreign ski safety concepts. The Chinese pursue speed and passion."
Yang Yuping, chief physician of the Department of Sports Medicine, Peking University Third Hospital, and vice president of Chongli District, in the paper "Analysis of Injury Situation of Mass Skiers in a Large Snow Resort in Chongli, China", counted the two snow seasons of 2018 and 2019. (Every year from November to March of the following year), it was found that a total of 753 cases of skiing injuries occurred in the two snow seasons. The injured were mainly 21 to 30 years old, and 76.6% of the injured were falls. , followed by bumps.
The most common injury types were contusions and trauma (29.5%), and joint and ligament injuries (22.2%).
If you ask the audience who have just learned about skiing for the first time through this Winter Olympics, what kind of sport is skiing?
Most people's first reaction is that skiing is "wrestling".
In fact, although ski falls are very common, it is common for novices to have poor control.
However, compared with foreign countries, the skiing injury rate in China in recent years is indeed high.
According to the statistics of Yang Yuping and others, in the two snow seasons of 2018 and 2019 in a ski resort in Chongli, the average daily injuries per 1,000 skiers were 4.53 and 4.46, respectively, and the monthly fluctuations were very large. For example, in March 2018 It reached 9.56 cases once a month.
In contrast, studies have shown that in some Western countries with a longer tradition of mass skiing, the injury rate per 1,000 daily cases has stabilized between 0.5 and 3 over the years.
Many industry insiders pointed out that the high injury rate of skiing in China is due to the fact that most of the skiers are novice skiers. various emergencies.
In his paper "The Role of the Winter Olympics Ski Field Medical Stations and Near-Earth Medical Security Hospitals in the Skiing Rescue System", Yang Yuping specifically counted the causes of skiers' injuries.
He collected data on skiing injuries admitted to the Wanlong Ski Field Medical Station in Chongli from November 2018 to April 2019. The medical station recorded a total of 755 cases of skiing injuries, of which 53.6% were injured due to "technical defects and mistakes". ”, the proportion of injured skiers less than 5 years reached 81.2%, of which 111 cases (17.3%) were beginners.
Generally, each ski resort has three kinds of ski trails: beginner, intermediate and advanced. The primary trail is mainly aimed at beginners, and the slope is gentler. After beginners are proficient in some basic skills, they can go to the intermediate and advanced trails.
However, Yang Yuping found that among the injuries recorded in Wanlong Ski Resort, the number of injuries on the intermediate track was the largest, accounting for 40%. The reason may be that many beginners did not master basic skiing skills, but pursued excitement or overconfidence.
Wenji's speed at the time of the ligament injury was about 35 km/h, which is not fast, but he did not rest well the day before, and it was windy that afternoon.
When changing directions, he was a little lost, so the snowboard "eats" into the snow at the moment of changing.
"I felt like I could switch over, but I actually got stuck because I didn't have enough control over my body," he said. "Why do people like us have a higher chance of getting hurt because I'm just getting into the intermediate level. Dao, but he still does not have the ability to master the intermediate Dao proficiently."
Compared with other sports, the threshold of skiing is relatively high, because the comprehensive control of the body is very high.
Chen Yibing, a former Olympic gymnastics champion, explained to China News Weekly that skiing has a more detailed control over snowboards. For example, the entry-level movement of snowboards requires the transition and conduction of the body's center of gravity, from shoulders, knees to ankles. It looks very simple, but in fact it is a very comprehensive and complex process.
Most people who have no foundation in sports find it difficult to control multiple parts of the body at the same time.
Compared with ordinary people, Chen Yibing, who has been practicing gymnastics since the age of five, has achieved extreme control over his body. Even so, he was injured by skiing.
According to his recollection, when it was relatively dark when skiing in the wild, he did not notice a hole under the grove, and the snowboard slanted into it, causing a fracture of the right ankle.
Yang Yuping pointed out to "China News Weekly" that in the past two or three years, in the skiing injuries he received, there have been more serious injuries, "fractures, ligament tears, and concussions are particularly numerous."
Rui Huanhuan worries that without adequate education and popularization of ski safety, a large number of bold and fearless newbies will flood into the ski resort, which will bring hidden dangers.
How to face a primary market?
Many people have a misunderstanding that the ski industry in Europe is more mature, so the safety management of ski resorts is stricter.
In fact, on the contrary, according to the Chinese understanding, ski management in Europe is very "loose". Most areas of the ski resort do not have protective nets, but only set up warning signs in some dangerous areas. It is recommended to slow down or slow down. If you see dangerous behavior, you will stop it in time.
This is an informed management model, not a constraint type.
Guo Jing pointed out that because the managers of European ski resorts believe that every skier who comes here will be responsible for himself and others, and skiers will choose the slopes that suit their abilities.
But in some details, European ski resorts have done better. For example, before beginners rent ski equipment, they must first fill out a form, indicating your height, weight, shoe size, technical level, etc. "Customize" the most suitable ski equipment for different situations. The tightness of the veneer binding and the length of the snowboard are all related to the skier's technical level, so as to improve the "fit" between the ski equipment and the customer as much as possible and reduce the potential safety hazard. .
In 2006, Saibei Ski Resort, founded by Guo Jing, cooperated with Dole Meidi, an old Italian ski resort, and tried to introduce advanced management experience from Europe.
"Because Chinese people are reluctant to fill out the form, and they don't understand why they need to fill in the form, they think it's a waste of time, and many people fill it out blindly," he recalled.
In addition, Dolomite built a high-end road in Saibei, which is high on the outside and low on the inside, attracting ridicule from domestic snow friends.
But in Europeans' concept, the essence of alpine skiing is to enjoy the process of overcoming nature, getting close to nature and integrating into nature with the body, so their ski trails are built according to the natural mountain topography. When chiseling mountains, you don't deliberately "leveling" the snow trails.
Why does Europe's nearly 100 years of ski resort management experience become unacceptable after entering China?
Wu Bin pointed out that because Europe is facing a mature market, and China's ski industry is still in the primary market stage, that is to say, the market has not been really cultivated, and consumers are mainly skiers who experience one-time experience.
In this context, the entire industry is immature in terms of safety awareness, teaching system, consensus on rules, and the establishment of unified norms.
According to the "White Paper on China's Ski Industry", in 2019, nearly 80% of skiers were skiers, and the average number of skis per year was 1 to 2 times.
In the 2021 snow season, although the proportion of one-time skiers dropped from 72.04% in 2019 to 57.64%, the number of skiers per capita is still less than 2 times, but it has risen from 1.6 times in 2019 to 1.9 times. .
Laurent Vanat, an expert in the Swiss ice and snow industry and editor-in-chief of the "Global Ski Market Report", pointed out to "China News Weekly" that even in Europe, there are no effective measures to prevent novices from going to the intermediate and advanced trails.
But the difference with China is that only 20% of people in Europe are beginners, while in China about 80% of people are beginners, so there are "much more" security issues exposed than Europe.
Many industry insiders pointed out that the market is too rudimentary, which is also the biggest challenge facing the Chinese ski industry.
On the surface, because too many novices occupy the market, it will bring challenges to the safety management of the ski resort, but the deeper drawback is that the high injury rate is not conducive to the transformation of one-time ski experiencers, that is, it cannot be cultivated. Their interest in skiing has made them long-term customers of the ski resort. The direct consequence is that the market cannot be "bigger" and the industry cannot develop.
In order to solve the industry pain point of low conversion rate, Wu Bin, vice chairman of Beijing Ski Association, founder of Xuebang Snow Industry, and author of the "White Paper on China's Ski Industry", has conducted a small experiment in Badaling Ski Resort since 2021. .
The entire ski resort has been transformed into a "full teaching" scene. With reference to the "Beijing Mass Ski Exercise Grade Standard" designed by the Beijing Ski Association, there are nine levels in total. All skiers can only enter the corresponding snow level if they pass the level assessment of the corresponding level. road.
Yao Yu, general manager of Badaling Ski Resort, told China News Weekly that the advantage of doing this is that it avoids beginners from going to the intermediate and advanced roads at the source, improves safety, and also achieves the core goal of improving the conversion rate, because it is very important for beginners. Scholars are very friendly, and more and more parents bring their children to "repurchase" and gradually cultivate some consumption habits.
But on the other hand, due to the cumbersome procedures, some experienced snow friends were also "dissuaded", resulting in some economic losses.
Wu Bin said that at present, judging from the operation of two consecutive snow seasons, this model is commercially feasible.
"Although we lost money in the first year, we have achieved profitability in the second year. In order to improve the conversion rate and adapt to the current primary market, this direction is right."
For the future of this model, most of the industry is still in a wait-and-see state.
Wu Bin pointed out that in the early years, for beginners to go to the intermediate and advanced courses, a few ski resorts tried the method of level assessment + free coaches, but these attempts failed in the end.
Luo Li, chairman of Chongli Wanlong Ski Resort, told China News Weekly that since seven years ago, he has set up free public coaching points in the ski resort, and more than a dozen coaches provide services every day.
But whether it is the daily flow of 7,000 or 8,000 people during peak periods, or the daily flow of 2,000 to 4,000 people, so far, the number of skiers who come to seek free training every day has always been in the single digits.
Obviously, the cultivation of the market does not happen overnight.
Over the years, the ski resort has been struggling to survive.
In the 1990s, there were only a few old-fashioned ski resorts in China, all of which were in the northeast, such as Yabuli in Heilongjiang and Beidahu in Jilin.
Around 2000, starting with Saibei Ski Resort, in just two or three years, Chongli, a small county in Hebei Province, has built six ski resorts.
In 2003, Luo Li, the founder of Holiland Group, entered the market with passion and established Wanlong Ski Resort. He soon discovered that the biggest difficulty was the lack of customers.
According to Luo Li, during the 2004-2005 snow season, there were only a few people skating on weekdays, and dozens of people skating on weekends.
In the ten years from 2003 to 2013, Wanlong Ski Resort received a maximum of 40,000 people every year. In the snow season from 2013 to 2014, due to the opening of Yunding Ski Resort, the entire ski culture in Chongli was driven. , Wanlong's annual skiers increased to 65,000.
After the successful bid for the Winter Olympics, Wanlong's annual passenger traffic surged to 450,000 people before the epidemic, an increase of nearly 10 times compared to the early stage. "But even this is not enough to balance our investment and operating costs over the years. In order to balance, at least the annual passenger flow must reach more than 600,000 people. So these years, everyone's life has been difficult. The core problem of this industry is the same as a few years ago, which is the oversupply. The domestic skiing sport was still in its infancy. At this stage, the beginners have not yet practiced, and it is difficult for such a small group to support such a large snow field." Luo Li said.
Wu Bin pointed out that the bid for the Winter Olympics is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the development of China's ski industry.
Since 2015, a large amount of external capital has entered this market. In the early stage, some heavy-asset investments were made, such as the construction of large-scale ski resorts, but after finding that the return on investment was not high, the momentum slowed down after two or three years.
In the years before the opening of the 2022 Winter Olympics, investment has shifted from the supply side to the demand side, closer to consumers, and a large amount of capital has entered the fields of equipment, training, and services.
In the next two or three years, the industry may usher in "some relatively large changes".
In the post-Winter Olympics era, the integration of large-scale ski resorts is an inevitable trend. In the future, the concentration of China's ski industry will continue to increase, and new and old capital will alternate. China's ski resorts will eventually be like Europe, with large-scale ski resorts emerging. resorting.
No matter what the future holds, it is an undoubted fact that at a time when the entire industry is still in its infancy, the most fundamental way to promote the development of the ski industry is to cultivate children's ski awareness from an early age, which includes both ski safety awareness and How to establish a correct understanding of skiing.
This may be a long process, "it will take at least a generation." Several industry insiders said.
"China News Weekly" Issue 8, 2022
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