Ski Tourism: A Case Study as a Booster for the Economic Development of Chongli in China

Chongli, an internationally renowned ski mecca, is famous for hosting the 2022 Winter Olympics. As a booster of local economic development, ski tourism facilitates Chongli in moving away from poverty, and provides a new model for the economic development of other impoverished areas in China. The aim of this research is to analyze the impact of ski tourism in Chongli on local economic development in detail, to clarify the relationship between ski tourism and its related industries, and propose improvement measures, using the methods of the literature review, Delphi and investigation. This paper presents a detailed analysis of indicators which reflect ski tourism and its economic development, and calculates the degree of influence of skiing tourism on local economic development. The results show that, except for transportation, storage and postal services, the local economy of Chongli is positively affected by the income of ski tourism and the number of ski tourists. The influence coefficient of ski tourism has exceeded the average level of social influence. Based on the place of ski tourism in Chongli, some strategies, such as extending the industrial chain and improving product quality to strengthen the economic impact of ski tourism, are proposed.