Beijing World Winter Sports Expo 2019 Closes, Sets New Record

The World Winter Sports (Beijing) Expo 2019 (the WWSE 2019), organized by the Beijing Olympic City Development Association and the International Data Group (IDG), implemented by Beijing Olympic City Development Center and IDG World Expo China Co., Ltd., and supported and participated in by the IOC, the Association of International Olympic Winter Sports Federations, Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, Chinese Olympic Committee and All-China Sports Federation, was closed at the China National Convention Center.

With the continuation of the theme "Power of Ice and Snow", the WWSE 2019 made innovative breakthroughs in internationalization, industrialization, popularization and other aspects, and was flooded with responses from all walks of life. According to the data, the WWSE 2019 has set a new record from the perspective of exhibiting brands, participating experts, scholars and visitors. In terms of exhibiting brands, there were more than 600 domestic and overseas exhibiting brand exhibitors from nearly 20 winter sports powers such as Finland, Austria, Norway and other countries and regions. In terms of participating experts and scholars, there were more than 240 authoritative experts and scholars in the field of winter sports. At the same time, more than 100 industrial cooperation projects were reached at the WWSE 2019, which effectively promoted the joint, exchange and integration of international winter sports resources.

During the exhibition, more than 550 key media from home and abroad, at central, provincial and municipal level reported on this World Winter Sports Expo. On the opening day, CCTV News reported on the grand occasion of the WWSE. the "Learning Power" platform of the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee talked about that this World Winter Sports Expo was an important measure to promote the Olympic spirit and assist in the preparations for Beijing Winter Olympics. It not only greatly mobilized the enthusiasm of the audience, attracting 160,000 visitors, but also created a good development environment for the development of winter sports industry in China.

This World Winter Sports Expo was highly valued by the leaders of all parties. In the exhibition area, many leaders, including CAI Qi, Secretary of the CPC Beijing Municipal Committee, President of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games; XU Qin, Deputy Secretary of the CPC Hebei Provincial Committee, Governor of Hebei Province and Executive President of the Beijing Organising Committee for the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games; ZHANG Jiandong, Vice Mayor of Beijing, Executive Vice President of the Beijing Organising, Committee for the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games and Vice Chairman of Beijing Olympic City Development Association; HAN Zirong, Full-time Vice-president and Secretary-general of Beijing Organising Committee for the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games; LIU Jingmin, Executive Vice Chairman of Beijing Olympic City Development Association; Jiang Xiaoyu, Vice Chairman of Beijing Olympic City Development Association, FU Xiaohui, Secretary General of Beijing Olympic City Development Promotion Association, XU Zhou, IDG Asia President; and Orient Zhu, Vice President of IDG Asia, inspected the exhibition booths respectively of Beijing Organising Committee for the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, Chinese Olympic Committee, BTV Winter Olympics Documentary Channel, Shougang Group Co. LTD, Zhangjiakou People's Government, Jilin Municipal People's Government, Yanqin District People's Government, Changbai Mountain, Ice and Snow Experience Zone (EUROJOY Skating Rink), Burton, ES Ice & Snow, Shijingshan Ice and Snow Center, CARVING SKI, Finland National Exhibition Group, Innovation Norway, France Rhône-Alpes, Canada National Tourism Administration, and YNIQ. They fully affirmed the work of this World Winter Sports Expo.

Domestic and foreign guests proposed valuable advice and comprehensively discussed the achievements of international industry.

With the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 approaching, all sectors of society are also full of strong confidence in the development of winter sports industry in China. At the opening ceremony and the main conference of this World Winter Sports Expo, guests and leaders of all circles at home and abroad shared their views on the development of winter sports industry in China, and expressed their best wishes.

Thomas Bach, President of IOC (International Olympics Committee), congratulated the organizers in a video on the hosting of the WWSE 2019 and wished the conference a complete success. Sauli Niinisto, President of Finland as the guest country said in a greeting video clip that the Winter Sports Expo is a milestone for Finland in this year's winter sports cooperation between China and Finland, which will continue until the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games and beyond.

Many celebrities also came to the venue and offered suggestions for promoting the development of winter sports industry in China, including ZHANG Jiandong, Vice Mayor of Beijing, Executive Vice President of the Beijing Organising, Committee for the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, Vice Chairman of Beijing Olympic City Development Association; LIU Jingmin, Executive Vice Chairman of Beijing Olympic City Development Association; Hanna Kosonen, Minister of Science and Culture of Finland; Jan Dijkema, President of the International Skating Union (ISU); Kate Caithness, President of the World Curling Federation (WCF); Sarah Lewis, Secretary General of the International Ski Federation (FIS) and Member of the Coordination Commission for the XXIV Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022; TONG Lixin, Director of Sports Department of Beijing Organising Committee for the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games; Signe Brudeset, Norwegian Ambassador to China; Emanuele de Maigret, Minister Counselor of the Italian Embassy in China; Jusa Susia, Commercial Counselor of the Sulan Embassy in China, Head of East Asia of the Finnish National Business Promotion Agency; YU Bo, Deputy Secretary of the Yanqing District Committee of Beijing and District Chief; WANG Tingkai, Secretary of Jilin Municipal Committee of Jilin Province; LI Chunlin, Mayor of Yulin City, Shaanxi Province; LI Hong, Vice Mayor of Zhangjiakou Municipal Government of Hebei Province; CHEN Zhe, Director of Heilongjiang Provincial Sports Bureau; Michael Mayr, Sales Director of Technoalpin Asia; ZUO Xiaobing, Deputy Chief of Shijingshan District, Beijing; Zhang Li, Vice President of International Data Group (IDG) China; CAO Wenzhong, Vice President of China Economic Information Service of Xinhua News Agency; WEI Silong, Senior Researcher of Culture and Tourism, Xinhua Index Division, China Economic Information Service of Xinhua News Agency; ZHAO Yinggang, Deputy Director of Sustainable Development Commission of Beijing Organising Committee for the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games and President of the Chinese Association of Sled; Antoine Deneriaz, Men's Downhill Champion in the XX Olympic Winter Games in Turin and CEO of SAS DÉNÉRIAZ, Tanja Poutiainen-Rinne, Runner up of women's alpine skiing in 2006 Turin Winter Olympic Games and Member of the Athletes Committee of the Finnish Olympic Committee; CHONG Jian, World Champion for Figure Skating and CEO of Beijing Yixiang Ice and Snow Fashion Culture Co., Ltd. and WANG Bingyu, World Champion for Curling.

Zhang Jiandong, Vice Mayor of Beijing and Executive Vice Chairman of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games also had fully affirmed the WWSE 2019: "We hope that all of you will use the WWSE as a platform for in-depth discussions and exchanges, extensive practical cooperation in enterprise docking, project cooperation, personnel training and winter tourism. More fruitful results will be accomplished."

He further hoped that the WWSE Organizing Committee will further innovate the organization and operation of the WWSE, working with relevant parties at home and abroad to continuously upgrade the professional, international and popular levels of the WWSE. The concept is to make the WWSE better and better. In doing this, we will make new and greater contributions to the better quality development of the ice and snow sports and the ice and snow industry, and for sure we will hold a splendid, remarkable Olympic Games event.

In addition to the opening ceremony and the main conference, the WWSE 2019 also organized such parallel forums based on the whole chain of winter sports industry to assist the practitioners of winter sports industry to seek successful experience and learn from authoritative solutions as the Olympic City Development Forum, the Finland Day Theme Activities, the Ice & Snow Culture Development Forum, the Competition of Ice and Snow Entrepreneurship, the China Ice Hockey Development Forum, the Snowfield Operation & Management Forum, the China Winter Sports Talent Development Forum, the International Mountain Tourism Development Forum and the Venue Design and Construction Forum.

At the Olympic City Development Forum, many leaders shared their experience from preparations for Olympic Games, development and utilization of Olympic venues, and inheritance of Olympic heritage to collect much strong power for China's winter Olympic heritage strategy and sustainable urban development, including HAN Zirong, Full-time Vice-president and Secretary-general of Beijing Organising Committee for the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games; LIU Jingmin, Executive Vice Chairman of Beijing Olympic City Development Association; FU Xiaohui, Secretary General of Beijing Olympic City Development Promotion Association; XU Zhou, IDG Asia President; Sarah Lewis, Secretary General of the International Ski Federation (FIS) and Member of the Coordination Commission for the XXIV Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022; Stefan Froberg, Deputy Director of the Sports Department of Helsinki and John Olaf Gauss, Vice President of the Norwegian Olympic and Paralympic Committee and Sports Federation.

The exhibition area is richly diverse, and arranged with exhibition platform to comprehensively show winter sports industry.

The guest of honor of WWSE 2019 is Finland. "Winter Begins in Finland" is the theme of Finland to participate in the WWSE, and the most authentic "Father Christmas" from Rovaniemi, Finland, also came to the venue to interact with the visitors. At the same time, more than 40 companies and institutions from Finland appeared in the National Pavilion, showing their strengths in winter sports equipment, winter sports training, winter sports education and ice and snow tourism around the three themes of education and training, intelligent design, and culture and tourism. In the Finland Theme Activities, Finland and China signed several cooperation agreements on ice and snow culture, winter sports, and ice and snow education. Seizing the opportunity of the WWSE, Finland and China are promoting diversified cooperation in various vertical fields of winter sports industry.

In addition to Finland, more than 20 winter sports powers, including Austria, Norway, France, Italy, New Zealand, Japan, Georgia, the United States, Canada and the Czech Republic, gathered in the National Pavilion, presenting in detail the rich winter sports resources and the development of winter sports industry of each country.

In the Olympic-themed exhibition hall, the Chinese Olympic Committee and the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2022 Olympic Winter Games gave the audience a wonderful presentation on the progress of preparations for the 2022 Olympic Winter Games, the division layout and venue planning, the competition items at the winter Olympic games and winter Paralympic games as well as more details of the winter sports attracting 300 million participants. In the exhibition hall of the Chinese Olympic Committee, the king of Asian short-track speed skating, Li Jiajun and the Olympic champion gymnast, He Kexin interacted with the audience. The mascot for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games "Bing Dundun" and "Xue Rongrong" in the exhibition hall of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2022 Olympic Winter Games attracted a large number of audience to take photos. In addition, exhibition halls of Winter Olympics documentary channels of TV stations of Zhangjiakou, Yanqing, Shijingshan, Shougang and Beijing presented their achievements in the preparation process of the winter Olympics by various means from all aspects.

Ice and snow countries and cities from home and abroad all showed up in the exhibition hall of winter tourist destinations with characteristic tourist products. Our Jilin, Heilongjiang, Changbaishan and Altay also took part in the Expo and demonstrated their rich ice and snow tourist resources including scenic areas and scenic spots, tourist route products and resort hotels. Yulin City of Shaanxi Province attracted many audience with their wool clothing of local characteristics and their achievements in cross - boundary combination of fashion and ice sports.

Various well-known Chinese enterprises in ice and snow industry including Carving, ES ice & snow, Eurojoy and Genting Resort Secret Garden were all present at the exhibition halls of winter and high mountain technology, indoor ice and snow technology as well as outdoor and individual equipment with their most advanced equipment, apparatus, devices and tourist products. In addition, more than 600 well-known brands at home and abroad, such as COSI Sports, Poma, Wandi, Doppel Mayl, Shengxiang Ski, Xueyilan, Nortek, TechnoAlpin, ALPINE, Decathlon, Kroceus, EasySerp, Yingjie, Hongliang Sports, Tuocheng Sports, Luckin Coffee and other well-known brands have brought wonderful exhibitions at this Expo.

Put the policy of "promoting industry through conferences" into practical implementation, more than 100 projects are signed to promote the industrial cooperation

Adhering to the primary principle of "promoting industry through conference", taking the good opportunity of the Expo, the WWSE aims to promote the in-depth communication and facilitate to make substantial results in industrial cooperation by setting up public stages and business and commercial discussion areas, organizing a series of industrial activities for resources promotion, enterprise communication and city exchange. According to reports, the WWSE had contributed to agreements of over 100 projects reached by Shijingshan with IDG Asia, TusStar (Yanqing) with Huati Competition (Beijing) Sport Management Co., Ltd., Organizing Committee of Zhongguancun Yanqing Industrial Park and three ice and snow sports companies including Huaxing Yunrui, Battle Times and Qingteng Sports, Kisakallio Sport Institute Finland with Shanghai University of Sport, Xi'an Physical Education University, Capital University of Physical Education and Sports, Harbin Sport University, HC Kunlun Red Star and Beijing Wode Studies Education Science and Technology Co., Ltd., Finland Somu Skiing Center with Zhangjiakou Wanlong Skiing Resort Center, International Ice Dragon Boat Federation and Huati Dongshi, Flossa International Leather Industrial Part with Finland Mikaya Co., Ltd., Finland KSF Sports Co., Ltd., Russian-Chinese Club with Special Fund for Ice and Snow Cultural Development of Beijing Cultural Development Foundation, Hebei Ice and Snow Industry Technology Research Institute with Hebei Normal University, Red Soil Ice and Snow Foundation with Xuezu Technology Company, Administration Committee of Zhangjiakou Gaoxin District with GNM and Zhishan Sports Company, Bureau of Industry and Information Technology of Yulin with Jamewish Consulting Co., Ltd., Shaanxi Yanglaoda Clothes Co., Ltd. with Beijing Wanghao Shengda Business Trade Co., Ltd., Yulin Seven Sheep Clothes Co., Ltd. with Heilongjiang general sales agent of Seven Sheep products, Yulin Munsell Clothes Co., Ltd. with Qinhuangdao Maoye Department Store Co., Ltd. and Yulin Jiuzhou Saishangyang Clothes Co., Ltd. with its general sales agent in Hebei.

Excellent activities facilitate industrial development and promote the communication of ice and snow culture

Exhibition of various themes brought audience into the fantastic ice world. Moreover, all the excellent activities such as World Winter Sports Think Tank, the Sino-Finnish Winter Sports Year Series, the research report on the ice and snow industry, the WS TOPS for the ice and snow industry, the ice and snow entrepreneurial competition, the personal equipment show for ice and snow sports, 2019 ice and snow sports industry awards, talks by ice and snow celebrities, teenager ice and snow experience and popular ice and snow carnival also showed the vitality of the ice and snow market successively.

The WWSE activities focusing on the industrial resources integration and industrial innovation promotion establish high-quality exchange and cooperation platform for employees all over the world, promote the connection between capitals and resources and provide energy for the development of ice and snow industry. China Finland Winter Sports Year Activities provided platform for communication of high-quality enterprises from China and Finland and signing of key projects through a series of activities including Finland Theme Activities, China Finland Ice Hockey Forum and Road Shows of Ice and Snow Industry Resource. Winter Sports entrepreneurship competition has selected a batch of high-quality winter sports entrepreneurship projects, providing more industrial and Think Tank resources for potential startups, promoting the docking of capitals and projects, further pushing the program incubation and industrial innovation and improving the economic vitality of Winter Sports. As a domestic selection activity covering the entire ice and snow industry, WSTOPS has developed into a wind indicator showing the latest development of the field of snow and ice at home and abroad, which has strengthened the power of model brands in the ice and snow industry, promoted mutual assistance and exchanges in the industry, and led the industry integration and collaboration.

To provide better service during the communication and cooperation between China ice and snow industry and international ice and snow industry, the WWSE also issued the Report on China's Winter Sports, which has indicated the development profile and future trend of China ice and snow industry and pointed out a direction worthy of reference for the development of ice and snow industry. In addition, the WWSE also established the World Winter Sports Think Tank, gathered with all high-level talents from ice and snow field to provide professional strategic research advice for the development of China ice and snow industry and better stage for the international communication.

Besides deepening the industrial cooperation, promoting the widespread of ice and snow sports is also one of the keywords of the WWSE. Many activities popular with ice and snow lovers like Youth Ice and Snow Experience, Ice & Snow Carnival and Individual Ice & Snow Sports Equipment Show were carried out. Adults took their children to experience the exciting brought by the skiing simulator. Screams and laughter rose one after another. In ice hockey experience hall, young people jostled to get to the front of the queue. Some citizens took enthusiastic participate in the skiing experience activity. On the field of Individual Ice & Snow Sports Equipment Show, the cutting-edge wearable technology and the most fashionable brands made all participants forget to leave. These interesting activities had covered the whole chain of ice and snow industry, successfully inspired the public to actively participate in the ice and snow sports and promoted the popularization of winter sports and spread of the ice and snow culture.

The four-day 2019 WWSE played a strong boost on integrating ice and snow industry resources, popularizing ice and snow sports culture and enabling the development of snow and ice economy. This event had established an international communication stage and gathered top-level organizations, industrial resources and talents from around the world for further discussion on the development. It strengthens the industrial properties, attaches great importance to the strategy of "promoting industry through conferences", and establishes high-quality demonstration, communication and cooperation platforms for employees all over the world, makes practical results in pushing forwards the development of ice and snow industry and improves the economic vitality of ice and snow industry. In addition, it provides a popular ice and snow feast for all people for the purpose of leading more ordinary audience into the ice and snow world to have an initial understanding of the sport, promoting the further popularization of ice and snow sports and culture and making unremitting endeavor to achieve the goal of attracting 300 million people to participate in the sport.