Trainers grow in huge demand

As the wave of snow-based sports and recreational activities sweeps China, finding adequate number of qualified ski trainers to guide first-timers is proving to be a challenge.

According to the Chinese Ski Industry White Book, authored by two industry experts Wu Bin and Wei Qinghua, by 2020, 2 percent of Chinese population, or 26 million people, will grow fond of skiing, spawning a high-end ski market worth 30 billion yuan ($4.58 billion).

However, as Wu, general manager of Beijing Carving Ski Equipment Co Ltd, said, 78 percent of the current population who have been involved in winter sports are first-timers. This means most of them will need a trainer to teach and coach them how to negotiate the white slopes well.

Li Na, a private tour operator in Beijing, said ski trainers could be expensive. For example, a personal trainer at a ski center on the outskirts of Beijing can charge up to 250 yuan per hour. There are 24 such centers in and around Beijing.

“For tours of 30-ish people, we’ve only one trainer, usually a senior player rather than a qualified athlete,” said Li. “But almost half of the tour will be newbies and, of course, our trainer can’t take care of everyone.

“Most of them help each other to take their first step, or sometimes, you just need to learn while rolling down the slope,” she said.

Li Xiaoming, president of the Beijing Ski Association, said the Chinese winter sports industry started to grow only recently and has higher entry barriers compared to other sports. So the market is in serious need of qualified trainers.

According to Wu, who researched 100 ski centers, each of them has 48 trainers on average. Half of their trainers have over five years of experience each.

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“China is the largest emerging market in the global ski industry, but the biggest bottleneck we face is the lack of professionals, including coaches and other technical staff,” said Wu. “It’s easy to upgrade the hardware, you simply need to pour the money in, but for human resources, it needs time.”

Wu said only by cultivating more talents in the industry, better services can be provided, so as to monetize the business potential. To convert first-timers into regular players and spark more consumption — that’s the industry’s goal now.

According to Huaxuezoo.com, one of China’s largest ski websites, online booking for coaches has grown over tenfold in the past few years. In 2015, such bookings generated 310,000 yuan; in 2016, the figure surged to 3.69 million yuan.