After watching Summer Surf Shop, a show on streaming site iQiyi in which four Chinese stars surf in Riyue Bay in south China and run a store, Xiao Yun, an insurance company employee, was inspired to head for the bay with her friends to try their hand at surfing.

It was the 33-year-old's first surfing attempt and to her delight, she mastered the skills quickly. She found the instructors were mostly booked even though it was not yet peak tourist season in July, when she went there.

With the novel coronavirus epidemic under control in China and buoyed by her good experience during the trip, Xiao has now decided to make surfing a regular routine. "It is fun and takes me close to nature," she told Beijing Review. "Once you learn the technique, renting the board is not expensive."

Surfing is one of the many sports growing increasingly popular with Chinese tourists in recent years. Besides visiting famous scenic spots for recreation, many tourists are seeking sports for a more adventurous and personalized experience, which has boosted the sports tourism market.

"The popularity of sports tourism can be attributed to improved living standards and rising awareness of the importance of health. As domestic tourists' demands upgrade, they are embracing sports tourism combining sports events and participation in sports activities," Dong Erwei, a professor with Hainan University-Arizona State University International Joint Tourism College in Hainan Province, told Beijing Review.

New recreation

To develop sports tourism, the tourism and sports administrations issued a guideline in December 2016, promising to build 100 sports-themed tourist destinations and 100 quality events by 2020. A document released by the State Council, China's cabinet, in 2019 also proposed to further integrate tourism and sports by holding high-level events and contests as well as building demonstration zones.

For many Chinese tourists, especially the young generations, sports tourism has become the new fad. A 2018 survey by China Youth Daily polling 2,004 people born between the 1960s and the 2000s found 79.3 percent of them had enjoyed sports tourism. Among these fans, 51 percent were born in the 1980s.

The respondents showed interest in niche sports tourism activities including hiking, cycling, rafting, skiing, rock climbing and ice-skating. Diving and surfing are seeing steady expansion in island tourism while marathons in many cities are attracting a great number of runners every year, the survey said.

According to a report by Shenzhen-based Qianzhan Industry Research Institute last year, the market scale of China's sports tourism industry reached 260.5 billion yuan ($37.1 billion) in 2018. There is still vast room for improvement as sports tourism consumers represent only around 5 percent of all Chinese tourists, which is below the world average of 15 percent.

As tourists' enthusiasm rises, many provinces are ratcheting up efforts to develop sports tourism zones and hold sports events. Some have already developed well-known venues and travel routines combining recreation and sports activities based on local conditions.

Typical ones include the Wanlong Ski Resort in Hebei Province, north China, the Olympic sailing center in Shandong Province, east China, and hot air balloon travel across the Danxia landform in Zhangye, Gansu Province in northwest China.

The epidemic earlier this year saw many skiing and ice-skating venues suspend business while marathons and other sports events were canceled. Now as business resumes with the epidemic under control in China, the operators are seeking to transform their businesses to accelerate recovery.

The marathon held in Dongying, Shandon Province, in April attracts tens of thousands of participants every year and is a key sports tourism driver. With the event suspended due to the epidemic this year, Shandong is exploring new tourism modes, such as creating self-driving routes for more personalized tours.

After a long shutdown, the Jiulong International Ski Resort in Shanxi Province, north China, resumed business on May 1. Chang Yulin, chairman of the resort, told Xinhua News Agency that it had to be closed in January, which is its peak tourist season, causing a loss of nearly 10 million yuan ($1.4 million).

Undaunted, the resort plans to invest 50 million yuan ($7.1 million) this year to improve its facilities. "The large-scale investment is due to promising prospects of the ice and snow industry and our confidence in the future development of the sports tourism industry," Chang said.

To boost the industry, many provinces have introduced supporting policies. Heilongjiang Province in northeast China, which holds the largest snow and ice festival in the world, has subsidized severely affected ski resorts. Hebei Province in north China gave sports consumption vouchers worth 15 million yuan ($2.1 million) to residents to boost the market.

With the sports tourism industry restarting, Shi Yong, a professor at Shanghai University of Sport, told Xinhua that China's sports tourism market has huge potential as people's awareness of the need to stay fit will grow due to the epidemic.

"The proportion of sports tourism will increase, with an estimated year-on-year growth rate of 10 percent," Shi said. "The total revenue of sports tourism is expected to reach 1.6 trillion yuan ($230 billion) by the end of 2021."

Sports brand

Many provinces plan to develop sports tourism zones and boost sports consumption.

Hainan plans to develop itself into a national sports tourism pilot zone from 2020 to 2025. The plan, unveiled in April, will pioneer the development of a brand image for China's sports tourism with initial progress expected by 2022. The construction of the zone will be completed by 2025.

"Hainan has chosen sports tourism as its development direction because of the advantages of its visa-free entry policy and unique island natural resources surrounded by the ocean," Xu Xianghong, an official from Hainan's sports bureau, told China Sports Daily. Hainan is also developing into the first free trade port on the Chinese mainland, which makes it enjoy a visa-free entry policy.

The plan includes drawing world-famous sports tourism developers and their products to make Hainan an international tourism consumption center. It will also develop brand competition events that cover yacht sailing, golf, marathons, surfing, beach volleyball, boxing, chess and e-sports.

Jilin Province in northeast China has also unveiled plans for furthering sports tourism. According to a press conference held by the information office of the provincial government on June 30, sports tourism consumption will be boosted in the next one and a half years starting from July 1. The measures include organizing self-driving tours, sports contests, hiking and cycling events and marathons at the Changbai Mountains and boosting the snow and ice industry.

However, Hainan's Dong has a warning. "Sports events such as marathons and hiking are held in many provinces, leading to homogeneous development. China's sports tourism resorts need to develop diversified activities in line with local conditions to meet the personalized demands of tourists," he said.

The industry also needs to train high-quality and experienced talents to provide better services to retain consumers and expand the market. Moreover, there should be destination branding by developing major sports events to catalyze tourism development. As the epidemic wanes, some sports tourism activities in which face-to-face contacts can be reduced such as outdoor recreation and visits of sports museums can be gradually restored to boost the sports tourism industry, he added.

(Print Edition Title: A Sporting Chance)

Copyedited by Sudeshna Sarkar

Comments to lixiaoyang@bjreview.com