Club Med, Fosun betting on 300 million skiers to catapult resorts

French resort operator Club Med, a subsidiary of China’s Fosun Tourism Group, is pushing ahead with plans to capitalise on China’s ambitions of becoming a skiing superpower.

These include developing a ski promotion and tourism system in China that will let Club Med and Fosun gather data to promote their growing network of mountain ski resorts to Chinese outbound tourists.

Sebastien Portes, strategic director for Asian mountain at Club Med, said the national focus on skiing and winter sports was a golden opportunity. Club Med currently operates 50 beach resorts and 20 mountain ski resorts.

Skiing holidays are more profitable for the company than beach resorts, he said.

To help encourage skiing, there are now 30 indoor snow centers in China, including five that came up in the past year, according to Snow Forecast, a ski news website, more than any other country.

Fosun is working with French ski resort operator Compagne des Alpes to build its own large indoor ski resort near Shanghai, at an estimated cost of RMB 2.4 billion (USD 335.7 million).