Central China's Largest Indoor Ski Resort Opening
China’s remarkable indoor snow centre scene will see a new, even bigger centre open next year, overtaking the latest largest which opened in Shanghai next month. The country is also expects to open its 60th indoor centre in 2025.
Although there’s been world media focus on the planet’s new biggest indoor snow centre opening in Shanghai in September, it’s really just a part of China’s remarkable indoor snow centre scene which will see another, even bigger centre, the first to reach 100,000sqm and currently under construction in Shenzhen, open in 2025, when the country is also expected to open its 60th indoor centre.
Meanwhile, Central China's largest indoor ski resort “Ganlushan Snow World," is due to open later this month in Wuhan, a city of 13 million and better known internationally for being the epicentre of a certain global virus, with an indoor snow area of 60,000 square metres. That places it third on the world’s largest indoor snow centres by slope area list, giving China the top five positions with the only centres in the world offering more than 50,000 sqm of slopes. Ski Dubai, once incorrectly perceived as the world’s largest, is also now knocked out of the top 10 on the indoor snow area table.
The new centre is located in Wuhan's Huangpi District, on the bank of the Sheshui River, a tributary of the Yangtze. Apart from COVID 19 the area is also known as the birthplace of Hua Mulan, the legendary Chinese heroine from the 4th century and protagonist of Disney's 1998 animated film Mulan.
The centre has six slopes ranging from 110 to 260 metres in length and a vertical of 73 metres with a maximum capacity of 2,500 visitors at once. It’s part of a still larger ice and snow themed park, Wuhan Ganlushan Cultural and Creative Town which includes an ice and snow-themed mall, an amusement park, a Song Dynasty-style water town, and a hotel cluster..
The project is the latest from the Sunac Group, which already runs seven indoor sbnow centres in China, most of them in the world’s 10 largest, in this case working in partnership with Wuhan Urban Construction Group and is reported to have a 70 billion yuan (approximately 9.95 billion U.S. dollars) price tag.
According to the Wuhan Ice and Snow Sports Association, the city currently has ten ice skating rinks, and four ski resorts are either completed or under construction, contributing to a rapid rise in participation in winter sports.
There are now more than 50 indoor snow centres across Chine with local media reporting the four have opened or are under construction in Wuhan alone.
