New World’s Largest Indoor Snow Centre Opens Next Month
The world’s new largest indoor snow centre is set to open in China next month, more than six years after it was first announced.
The world’s new largest indoor snow centre is set to open in China next month, more than eight years after it was first announced.
Now known as ‘The Shanghai L+ Snow Indoor Skiing Theme Resort’ (it was called Wintastar Shanghai when first announced in 2015), the vast facility, located in Shanghai's Lin-gang Special Area will contain 90,000 square metres (over 22 acres) of indoor snow space, almost about a third more than the current largest, also in China, located at Harbin in the North East.
Tickets are reported to have gone on sale this week for the new centre’s opening, scheduled for September 6th.
The snow area is just a part of the huge resort which spans a total of 350,000 square metres and also includes a huge 20,000 square metre water park, part of it (opening in 2025) outdoors with another 20 water-based activities.
Although the snow area will be the world’s largest by area, it will not have the world’s longest indoor snow slopes. That title, at over 600 metres, has been held by two centres in France and Germany for more than 20 years now …although another Chinese facility recently announced plans for a new 700 metre long indoor snow slope.
Shanghai L+ Snow Indoor Skiing Resort will though have one of the most challenging indoor slopes yet, a 340 metre long run with a gradient of 26 degrees. There’s also be three other runs including a beginners area and what’s termed a teaching slope. For non-skiers, a big market in a hot city like Shanghai with 26 million people, there’ll be 20 snow-themed entertainment activities.
The centre will also be making use of Shanghai’s sunshine to generate solar power to help power its huge energy needs. A massive solar array on its roof has used different coloured panels to create a mural of a skier for passing aircraft. It’s not know how much of the energy the centre needs is met by this and other green energy initiatives (some centres in Europe now generate all the green energy they need on site).
Indoor snow centres have boomed in China over the past decade with no sign of a let up in demand now the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics are behind them. If anything, demand is reported to have increased as temperatures soar.
As most of China’s vast population live in hot cities and the cost in time and money of travelling to the conventional ski areas in the north is relatively high for many, the indoor snow centres help meet that demand.
The country now has more than 50, about a third of the world’s total, with at least one in every province and including 7 of the planet’s 10 largest, many of them built in the last five years.
Shanghai L+ Snow Indoor Skiing Resort will have three ice and snow-themed hotels with nearly 1,000 rooms between them. They’ll include 17 "Ski-in Ski-out" suites where the guests can step directly from their room onto the slopes.
