Abstract
Ice, snow, and rime are wonders of the cold season in an alpine climate zone and climate landscape. With its pure, spectacular, and magical features, these regions attract numerous tourists. Ice and snow landscapes can provide not only visually-stimulating experiences for people, but also opportunities for outdoor play and movement. In China, ice and snow tourism is a new type of recreation; however, the establishment of snow and ice in relation to the suitability of the surrounding has not been clearly expressed. Based on multi-source data, such as tourism, weather, and traffic data, this paper employs the Delphi-analytic hierarchy process (AHP) evaluation method and a spatial analysis method to study the spatial differences of snow and ice tourism suitability in China. China’s ice and snow tourism is located in the latitude from 35°N to 53.33°N and latitude 41.5°N to 45°N and longitude 82°E to 90°E, with the main focus on latitude and terrain factors. A poor fit is concentrated at latitude 20.45°N to 35°N and longitude 100°E to 122°E; the difference is that the latitude is low and affected by the Japanese warm current. The analysis of the suitability of ice and snow tourism can be employed as a reference for the development of ice and snow tourism.
Highlights
Ice-snow tourism includes activities that originated in nations located in cold climate zones
This paper mainly studies regional ice-snow tourism; at present, most ice-snow tourism development occurs in the Heilongjiang and Jilin provinces
The lowest point of the average temperature is observed in the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau, whereas the highest point of the average temperature is observed in the South China Sea (Xisha)
Summary
Ice-snow tourism includes activities that originated in nations located in cold climate zones. China’s economy has strengthened, and the concept of national leisure time has resulted in a boom in leisure tourism. The winter landscape is unique, and citizens throughout the nation have a seven-day holiday during the traditional Chinese “New Year (Spring Festival)”. An evaluation in the report by the National Tourism Administration indicates that 14.802 million tourists visited Jilin Province during the 2015 Spring Festival, an increase of 15.53% from the previous year, and 14.784 million tourists visited Liaoning Province, an increase of 11.7%. The total income from tourism was 10.38 billion RMB Yuan, an increase of 12.4%. The development of ice-snow tourism is robust and quick, which has led to general concern among government departments and the scientific community, and it has become a popular research topic
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