Small Town Chongli Thrives Due to Beijing Winter Olympics

Together with Zhangjiakou, it is possible that the biggest beneficiary from Beijing's successful bid for the 2022 Winter Olympics is Chongli, a small town located around 200 km northwest of the capital, with a population of about 30,000 people, as reported by the Xinhua News Agency.

Chongli has seen skiing and tourism become a huge contributor to its economy, with over 530,000 tourists, roughly 17 times more than its entire population, visiting the town during China's Spring Festival 2016. It earned more than 400 million yuan ($61 million) in tourism, a 26.1-percent growth when compared to the same period last year.

Average house and real estate prices have also skyrocketed in the formerly poverty-stricken Chongli County, which is under the administration of Zhangjiakou City, going from 5,000 yuan on average during the Winter Olympic bid to currently about 10,000 yuan.

The construction of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou high-speed train already started last year. The rail service is expected to be fully operational by 2019.

The Olympic venue, convenient transportation, pleasant climate and ski resorts are attracting more citizens from Beijing to purchase houses in Chongli.

As of now, Chongli has opened five ski resorts to the public, arousing people's interest in skiing in the county as well as other parts of the country.

"We received over 8,000 people on Jan. 2, marking the peak of the resort per day," said Yu Donglin, who manages Wanlong, one of Chongli's largest ski resorts.

An estimated 2 million people are expected to take part in the snow season, which is near ending. In contrast, the last three seasons only saw 1.01 million, 1.42 million and 1.67 million of tourists, respectively.

"Wanlong got out of the red in 2015 after 11 consecutive years' loss," said Yu.

Meantime, preparations work for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games are already underway. The topic has made its way during the ongoing National People's Congress.