Italian companies eye opportunities in China's winter sports market

BEIJING, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- The World Winter Sports (Beijing) Expo (WWSE) 2023, which closed here on Sunday, has boosted Italian companies' confidence to further explore China's winter sports market.

Gianpietro Beltramello, CEO of Gabel, was participating in the Expo for the first time. Discovering the competitiveness of his company's products - ski poles and alpenstocks, Beltramello said, "We try to achieve and find new distributors or customers, and it goes as planned."

Beltramello added that the company is hoping to expand its business in China, and Chinese consumers' competence has increased a lot in these years.

"We are expecting to cooperate with Chinese companies as well. We are offering these special advantages compared to any other brand, as these technologies that we are proposing are patented and unique," he said.

Italy, which will host the next Winter Olympics in 2026, has a robust winter sports industry. The Beijing Winter Olympics heralded a milestone in Italy's winter sports industry to deepen its ties with China.

During the Beijing Winter Olympics, Italy's export portfolio to China was replete with snowmaking and ice equipment, including snow maintenance machinery and snowcat. In addition, Italian apparel, a synthesis of fashion and sporting utility, also found favor with Chinese consumers.

Zhang Li, executive vice president of the Asia Digital Group, said that China's winter sports industry is expected to be valued at one trillion yuan (140 billion U.S. dollars) by 2025.

At last day of the Expo, Matteo Cordioli, general manager of Brugi Qingdao Trading, was busy with some distributors' consultation.

Before the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, Cordioli's company mainly sold products to European and American countries, but he said the situation is different now.

"This summer vacation, I came back to my hometown in Verona, I found so many tourists back, especially Chinese tourists. They climbed mountains and enjoyed the scenary," Cordioli said. "I bet there will be many tourists enjoying skiing in their winter vacation too."

Gianpaolo Bruno, trade commissioner of the Italian Trade Agency's (ITA) Beijing office and coordinator of ITA offices in China and Mongolia, said that in 2022, China imported 290 million dollars worth of winter sports items, placing Italy first among international suppliers.

"We strongly believe in this market that we have a longstanding tradition in organizing global events and winter sports events. And we have a wide range of companies specializing in different segments of the industry," Bruno said.

According to data from the ITA, in the first two months of 2023, the number of visas issued by Italian visa centers to Chinese citizens increased by 30 percent year-on-year. It is expected that the number of Chinese citizens traveling to Italy will recover to over two million in 2023 and fully surpass 2019's numbers in 2024.