"Going to Jilin to celebrate the New Year" has become a hot topic on many social platforms.
The peak season of ice and snow, combined with the new trends of "reverse Chinese New Year" and "traveling Chinese New Year", has ushered in a new peak period for Jilin's cultural tourism – but Jilin has its own look in the eyes of different people. Some people are fans of Jilin's ice and snow, while others are interested in the fancy activities during the Spring Festival in Jilin. Some users even mentioned that the various local services are impressive.
This Spring Festival, why does Jilin continue to be popular? What did Jilin do right? This deserves deep attention from both inside and outside the industry.
Jilin invites you to come here to celebrate the New Year
It is an established fact that Jilin is indeed very popular this Spring Festival.
During the Spring Festival and snow season in 2026, Jilin is expected to receive 180 million ice and snow tourists and achieve annual goals of more than 330 billion yuan in total ice and snow tourism revenue. Both metrics achieved double-digit growth.
The China Association of Travel Agents and Tuniu Travel released the "2026 Spring Festival Tourism Consumption Trend Report", which pointed out that New Year's customs culture, ice and snow tourism, and cold escape and health care are the three most popular travel themes. In terms of ice and snow tourism, ice and snow tourism destinations including Changchun ushered in a peak travel period during the Spring Festival holiday.
According to data from Wanda Hotels and Resorts, as of January 21, Changbaishan Wanda International Resort’s Spring Festival holiday bookings increased by 14% year-on-year, and ski resort attendances increased by 8.5% year-on-year; Wanfeng Tonghua Ski Resort’s Spring Festival holiday bookings increased by 16% year-on-year, and ski resort attendances increased by 19% year-on-year.
Data is just a result. What did Jilin do this Spring Festival and the entire snow season?
"Jiu Guan Finance" believes that Jilin's unique ice and snow resources, as well as the continuous optimization and new supply, are the fundamental factors that remain highly popular in Jilin.
In layman's terms, it means that there are more places for users to play and more fun places.
A concept needs to be mentioned again here: Jilin’s ice and snow economy is far from the stereotype of “skiing”.
Affected by the terrain, there are mountains in the east of Jilin – Jingfeng, powder snow, warm sun, and skiing; and ice in the west – winter fishing, skating, fishing and hunting, etc.
Overall, users who come to Jilin to experience the charm of ice and snow already have multiple choices on their destination list.
for example:
Changchun Wanda Mall was put into operation at the end of December last year and has the largest indoor ski resort in Asia;
Si Jinan River has created an immersive fairy tale snow world, Jilin City has added Paotai Mountain and Beishan ski resorts, and CTS Songhua Lake Ski Resort has added 100,000 square meters of wild snow venues;
Products such as Renxingli in Siping City, Ice and Snow Joy in Liaoyuan City, G331 Border Ice and Snow Road in Baishan City, Chagan Lake Ice Lake in Songyuan City, and Korean Intangible Cultural Heritage Ice and Snow Park in Yanbian Prefecture were newly unveiled.
In addition, Jilin’s old cultural tourism projects are still popular.
Five resorts, including CTS Songhua Lake Resort, Beidahu Ski Resort, Wanfeng Tonghua Ski Resort, Changbaishan Wanda International Resort, and Changbaishan Huamei Resort, are all national-level ski resorts.
The above-mentioned advantages are mostly given by nature and belong to "depending on heaven". What makes Jilin stand out during this Spring Festival is actually more about the overall local experience projects.
"Jiu Guan Finance" learned that during the Spring Festival this year, cultural tourism projects across Jilin Province will be launched in droves.
On the one hand, there are various intangible cultural heritage and folk activities.
The New Year's Market of the Puppet Manchukuo Palace Museum, Changchun Confucian Temple Museum launches "Celebrating the New Year in the Museum", Jilin Manchu Museum launches the Jilin Manchu New Year's Eve activities, etc., as well as the "Changchun Xinmin'Miao' Meeting" on Xinmin Street, and the "Celebrating the New Year in Changchun" activities in Sijinanhe will launch special Changchun banquets such as the Big Goose Banquet and the New Year's Pig Banquet.
On the other hand, the cultural atmosphere in the fireworks during the Jilin Spring Festival.
Jilin characteristics are everywhere, including rituals such as Manchus offering sacrifices to heaven, Koreans offering annual meals, and Mongolians offering sacrifices to fire, as well as folk foods such as killing pigs for the New Year, steamed sticky bean buns, and intangible iron flowers.
Some users shared their feelings on social platforms, "As long as you want, there are different projects waiting to be experienced every day."
What did Jilin do right?
In the past two years, the ice and snow economy has been booming. Jilin can stand out, and the reasons behind it are worthy of attention.
We can first look at the statement of Ai Yu, head of the Sports Economics Department of the State Sports General Administration. Recently, he mentioned Jilin many times when introducing new highlights of the ice and snow economy:
Jilin City, Jilin Province and other places are actively promoting the construction of high-quality outdoor sports destinations with ice and snow themes, and provide consumers with better and higher-quality services and enhance consumer experience by upgrading hardware facilities and other methods. (hardware facilities)
It is more convenient to participate in ice and snow sports in Jilin Province and other places – during the "snow holiday", students can enjoy free ice and snow sports every day; there are more station services and more intensive flights; (Policy Support)
More events and activities – Changchun holds the launch ceremony of the main venue of the 12th National Mass Ice and Snow Season, with branch venues set up in many places across the country, and plans to host more than 2,000 events. (Part of the cultural tourism content)
According to "Jiu Guan Finance", Jilin Cultural Tourism's approach can be simply summarized into three points.
First, Jilin Cultural Tourism’s products are becoming more and more high-quality, and are gradually becoming branded and IP-based.
Why do you say that?
We have a set of data here:
As of the end of 2024, Jilin Province has 311 A-level tourist attractions, including 9 5A-level scenic spots and 2 national-level tourist resorts, all ranking first among the three northeastern provinces and one region; there are currently 26 national-level ski tourist resorts in the country, of which Jilin occupies 5, ranking first in the country in number.
This is the infrastructure that can make Jilin’s ice and snow economy and Spring Festival boom.
Branding and IP are important reasons why Jilin stands out in many tourist destinations with ice and snow projects as the theme.
In addition to the three northeastern provinces, the areas where my country is developing its ice and snow economy include Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang and other places. Users have many choices to experience the ice and snow culture. However, Jilin has gradually branded the characteristics of many of its regions.
for example:
The label of Changchun City is "Learn to Ski, Go to Changchun". In addition to the local ski resorts, there are also more than 2,000 professional ski instructors for the six major ski resorts;
Tonghua strengthens the IP of "Xueqi Tonghua Youth Cheating". This is derived from the first alpine ski resort in New China – Jinchangzi Ski Resort, which was born in Tonghua. "Youth cheating" caters to young people.
Jilin City has long been building the city IP of "Rome City·Skiing Paradise". In addition, there are also Yanbian Prefecture's "Long Daytime Snow, Jimei in Yanbian", Songyuan City's "Enjoy Fishing, Come to Songyuan", etc.
At the same time, Jilin Province also launched iconic brand activities such as Jilin Snow Expo, Chagan Lake Winter Fishing Festival, and Vasa International Ski Festival. This has contributed positively to building Jilin’s cultural tourism brand.
Second, Jilin’s cultural tourism services focus on sincerity, thoughtfulness and comprehensiveness.
Let’s take Changchun as an example.
A user left a message on the social platform, "When you come to Changchun to ski, you don't have to carry equipment back and forth. Mail and express delivery services are available locally at any time."
"Jiu Guan Finance" learned that this is a "snow equipment direct to the ski resort" service jointly launched by the "Changchun Fangxin Travel" platform and JD.com, which was launched in December last year, so that tourists can "free their hands and travel light."
In order to better serve tourists across the country, Changchun has also specially released "17 measures to improve Changchun's travel services", covering transportation, catering, accommodation, tourism, shopping, entertainment and other fields.
There is also a service aimed at major merchants and enterprises in Jilin Province.
Before this year's snow season, Jilin Province specially went to the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta and other places to promote, and launched pre-sales of key ski resorts in advance. Among them, the pre-sales amount of Beidahu Ski Resort was 150 million yuan, and the pre-sales amount of CTS Songhua Lake Resort was 90 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 25% and 17% respectively.
In addition, Jilin has arranged 100 million yuan in ice and snow consumption vouchers to leverage ice and snow consumption scenarios such as skiing, scenic spots, concerts, and transportation.
These on-the-ground services not only bring tourists to the local area, but also inject vitality into the sustainable development of Jilin's cultural tourism industry.
Third, Jilin Province really regards the Spring Festival and the ice and snow season as major events for the province, and pools the efforts of the whole society to promote the construction of cultural tourism.
In Jilin, ice and snow sports courses are universally available in compulsory education schools;
In Jilin, many ice and snow tourism lines are customized and free of charge. This ice and snow season, 5 new direct flights have been added, adding 16 city routes;
In Jilin, you can really see many high-level events with a global dimension.
The 2025-2026 International Ski Federation Freestyle Skiing Aerials World Cup China and Asian Cup competitions, and the 2025-2026 National Freestyle Skiing Snowskills Championship will all be held in Jilin Province.
With these long-term and intensive development strategies and periodic supply of high-quality content, it is difficult for Jilin to be popular during the Spring Festival and snow season.
How to invest in Jilin hotel industry?
The popularity of Jilin’s cultural tourism industry is bound to drive up the overall operating standards of the local hotel industry. So, how is Jilin's hotel industry developing? Is it worth the investment? How to invest?
A basic fact is: Despite the rapid development of Jilin's cultural tourism industry, Jilin's hotel industry still has a lot of room for improvement.
According to a report by Huamei Consultants, among the number of hotels of various grades in Jilin, three-star hotels account for 66%, four-star hotels account for 26%, and five-star hotels account for 8%.
In fact, most of the tourists who go to Jilin and even the Northeast during the snow season are high-net-worth individuals, with strong demand for high-quality accommodation systems. Overall, although Jilin has added more than 60 large-scale hotels in the new snow season, there is still a large gap in the supply of high-star hotels.
However, Jilin's specialty hotels are showing a booming development trend.
Changchun Beihu Hongju Hotel, which will open at the end of 2024, will be Banyan Tree’s first high-end brand hotel in Northeast China. The hotel is located in the Wetland Park and has themed activities throughout the year;
The Changchun High-tech InterContinental Hotel, which opened in July last year, focuses on “ice and snow” themed experiences in catering and entertainment;
Changbaishan Wanda Momoland Hotel has a magic forest theme. The interior of the hotel is like a magical world, which is highly praised by families with children;
Changbai Mountain Zaizhihe Resort Hotel Erdaobaihe Branch's "Stew yourself in an iron pot" has long become a special project of the hotel.
"Liquor Management Finance" believes that overall, Jilin's hotel industry generally presents the following characteristics:
First, market supply is growing, but there are still gaps in some products.
Second, the seasonal fluctuations in hotel guest sources are obvious, but they are gradually weakening.
Third, the room for hotel room price premiums is limited, but benefiting from cost-side dividends, the return on investment is still within a reasonable space.
So, how will Jilin's hotel industry develop in the future, and how should we invest?
The advice of "Jiu Guan Finance" is:
On the one hand, choose a good location, a good property, and invest in a high-quality hotel.
This is not a correct nonsense. Compared with many mature markets, for hotel investment in Jilin Province, operating dividends and brand dividends have to give way to location dividends and property dividends.
At the same time, investment hotel products must be specialty hotels, mid-to-high-end and above hotel products. Such products are more competitive and vital.
On the other hand, localized operations should not be limited to ice and snow projects. Digging into local culture and folk intangible cultural heritage may make it easier to create differentiation.
Experience and services surrounding ice and snow sports have become hotel standards. Hotels also need to do more work on cultural attributes and form soft power and differentiation through intangible cultural heritage experiences, folk activities, special catering, etc.
The third is to cooperate with other local cultural tourism projects to form a "full-link travel service" and create ecological services.
In this path, the hotel can be a part of the travel journey or the origin of travel to Jiji. The role of the hotel has changed from "a bed" to a unique accommodation experience of travel memories.
In fact, only the rapid development of Jilin's hotel industry can better empower the sustainable development of Jilin's entire cultural tourism ecology. This is a further upgrade and optimization of Jilin’s entire cultural tourism industry, and is also an important promoter of Jilin’s overall tourism.
