In the just-concluded New Year's holiday, the tourism market in various places was booming, and Harbin was the most eye-catching.

Data showed that Harbin Airport transported 205,000 passengers during the New Year's holiday, up 27% from the same period in 2019, setting a historical high; Harbin tourism heat on Ctrip platform increased by 240% month-on-month, ranking fourth in the national destination tourism heat list, only behind Beijing, Chongqing and Guangzhou.

Netizens squeezed into the Ice and Snow World, only to find that the most popular 500-meter ice slide has a sign saying "6 hours to wait."

On January 1, tourists queue up in the Harbin Ice and Snow World to experience the Super Ice Slide.

Photo/Xinhua

The daily life of the locals is also a popular "view."

The Northeast bathing centers are indispensable. According to media reports, the number of customers at some bathing centers in Harbin doubled in December, and most of the customers came from the south. Some people dragged their luggage directly to the bathhouse.

Even though Northeastern cuisine has spread across the country, bloggers still have a way to find the rarest delicacies. For example, ice sugar dumplings, ice sugar spicy strips, ice sugar hairy crabs, and ice sugar shrimp... 

Yang Yanfeng, director of the Online Tourism Research Center of Beijing Union University, pointed out that this year, Harbin's Ice and Snow World was built particularly magnificent, with investment and modeling being the best in history. It is a unique ice and snow tourism product. More importantly, in the early winter, Heilongjiang conducted detailed, large-scale, and multiple-destination marketing, and the market started very early. Today's results can be seen as the inevitable result of the government's strong marketing.

Photo/Xinhua

In Europe and the United States, cities that have become popular for ice and snow tourism are often ski resorts. Switzerland, located in the Alps, has bred a large number of ski resorts. In 2022, ice and snow tourism alone brought Switzerland about $8 billion (about 5.7 billion yuan) in revenue. The small town of Chur in eastern Switzerland has even developed the famous Chur Music Festival due to the gathering of skiers. Skiing, which is nicknamed the "white opium," has brought a large number of consumers to the local area.

In comparison, domestic skiing culture is still in the process of cultivation. According to statistics, the number of skiers in China just increased to 12 million in 2022, and is expected to reach 35 million by 2027. For Northeastern cities, it is still too early to become popular due to skiing.