World’s New Biggest Indoor Snow Centre Announced For China’s Shenzhen
The new largest indoor snow centre in the world is reported to be under construction and will open in China’s Shenzhen in 2025.
China is already home to the three largest indoor snow centres in the world, according to The World Indoor Snow Centres Report, but the new centre will be slightly larger than the existing biggest in the planet, which opened at Harbin in 2016.
While the current largest centre in the world (pictured above) is located in the northern province of Heilongjiang, where temperatures drop into the minus 30s Celsius in winter making it actually warmer to ski there indoors than out. Shenzhen, dubbed China’s tech city, is located in Guangdong province in the south of China where snow and frost are almost never seen and the lowest temperatures in winter are still around +12C. At 120 million, Guangdong’s population is also four times that of Heilongjiang.
Around 15 million people live in Shenzhen alone, which already has two indoor snow centres, one of which, in the Window of the World theme park (pictured above), was one of the country’s first to open nearly two decades ago. But they are north less than 10% of the size of the Ice and Snow World
Ice and Snow World will be spread over more than 10 hectares (24 acres) and have winter sports facilities spready across 80,000 square metres (nearly 20 acres, or “about 11 football pitches”) – about 10% bigger than the Harbin centre. It’s lift-served vertical of 83 metres (272 feet) and longest run of 441 metres (nearly 1500 feet) will also be slightly bigger than Harbin’s – although there are longer runs (up to about 600 metres/nearly 2000 feet) and slightly greater lift served verticals (up to about 90 metres/nearly 300 feet) at existing centres with smaller overall snow areas in France and Germany in Europe.
(The solar panel covered roof of the Alpincentre Bottrrop in Germany is more than 600 metres long)
Other planned indoor snow centres that were also due to be bigger than Harbin in places like the Middle East, appear to have stalled or have reduced their scale to more modest dimensions.
Unlike many of China’s current crop of giant indoor snow centres which were built by giant corporation Wanda, and are now run by another giant corporation Sunac, Ice and Snow World appears to be financed by the Chinese state-owned Zhuhai Huafa Group which is reported to have invested over 29.6 billion yuan (US$4.15 billion) in the project, which Shenzhen city government support.
“With the theme of ice and snow as the core feature, we expect to create an efficient and complex cultural tourism complex,” Hu Qi, an official in charge of design at Zhuhai Huafa, told the Communist Party’s mouthpiece People’s Daily.
The paper also spoke to Huang Yuanchao, deputy general manager of Huafa’s Shenzhen branch, who said: “The centre will host international competitions and promote skiing for all. Snow quality at the resort would meet the standards for hosting international skiing competitions, and future plans might include starting a youth winter games training camp.”
The building, shaped like a blue whale leaping out of the water, will also include themed hotels and shopping centres to draw tourists. It is being built next to the Shenzhen World Convention and Exhibition Centre and is expected to attract around a million tourists annually from around the world, and compete with other mega theme parks such as Shanghai Disneyland and Universal Studios in Beijing, the Shenzhen government statement hope.
IndoorSnowNews.com which publish a 120 page China Indoor Snow Centres Report, estimate China will have opened more than 50 indoor snow centres, six of them in the world’s 10 largest, by this coming autumn. They currently have 47 centres open with six more due to open in the latter half of 2023.
Shenzhen’s Ice and Snow World is expected to be ready by November 2025.
