The rapid expansion of China’s ski market has led to people switching careers to become ski instructors and indoor snow centres are reported to be playing a part in providing instructor training facilities ahead of the main season.

The 2022 Winter Olympic host now has more than 800 ski areas according to researchers but most of these have opened in the past five years or so. Similarly there are 35 indoor snow centres in China now, as well as training their own instructors, they’re training instructors for the hundreds of new centres.

In Yanqing District, 75km from capital Beijing, dozens of farmers have formed the Haituo farmer ski team which has grown from 18 people to nearly a hundred over recent years, inspired by the upcoming Winter Olympics.

“We just played for fun on ice and snow before, but now we have undertaken professional ski training with just one goal – getting a national ski instructor and referee’s certificate,” one of the team told China News.

Up to now, more than half the team members have obtained this certificate and gone on to  voluntarily train more than 12,000 people since 2017.

“Yanqing is one of the three competition zones of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, and I hope to make my due contribution as a ski instructor born here,” the instructor continued, concluding, “I will also try my best to lead more members of the Haituo farmer ski team to find employment on snow, enabling more people to enjoy winter sports, which is our mission and a great privilege.”