Skiing fans in Beijing have been delighted for the past three weeks, while the majority of Beijingers do not find any cause for celebration from the recent bone-chilling weather.

"It's fantastic!" said Ding Zhaohui, a local salesman, expressing his luck at being able to make the most of the ski club membership card his employer awarded him last year for his outstanding performance.

His ski card will expire in 2006, so he was afraid that this winter, which started off rather warmer than normal, would not give him any chance to take to the slopes.

The arrival of the cold front since December 22 means that Ding's "ski dreams" will come true. The average daytime temperature for November and the first 22 days in December 2004 was 3℃ higher than every year since 1991, statistics showed.

Almost all the ski resorts in the city had postponed their opening from the scheduled November to December.

Generally speaking, November to March is the operational season of the ski business. But being unable to open meant that some small ski resorts were at risk of going to the wall.

The warm weather led to the permanent closure of some resorts in December, due to the high maintenance fees for the artificial snow and related facilities.

"Almost all the snow on the skiing slopes is man-made," said Yang Chunsong, a sales manager with Mount Jundu Ski Resort, in the suburbs of Beijing.

Yang said that local ski resorts had been placed under very great pressure.

"In fact, potential ski consumers are limited to a rather narrow group," he said.

Most skiers are generally well-off, said Yang. And most people only go skiing once to try it out, he added.

Mount Jundu Ski Resort covers some 150,000 square meters, and is the city's second-largest ski resort, employing about 300 staff. It received about 2,500 visitors on New Year's Day, though its average weekly capacity is 1,000, Yang said.

Tian Younian, secretary-general of the China Ski Association, said that recent rises in the cost of electricity and water price rises, plus the influence of the warm winter, were having a damaging impact on the ski business, with five of the original 15 outlets having closed.

(China Daily January 15, 2005)