L*SNOW resort opens as world's largest indoor ski facility

The Shanghai L*SNOW Indoor Skiing Theme Resort in coastal Lingang area officially opened to the public on Friday and was verified by Guinness World Records as the world's largest indoor ski facility.

At the opening ceremony, the Guinness World Records announced that the snow world area of the resort amounts to 98,828.7 square meters, earning it a new Guinness World Record.

The vertical drop inside the snow world is nearly 60 meters, with three ski slopes totaling nearly 1,200 meters in length and a snow entertainment area.

The resort incorporates dining, accommodation, entertainment, and shopping with a Nordic inspired design.

The resort's internal testing phase started in August with ticket sales beginning on August 8. As of September 1, 27 internal testings had been conducted with nearly 100,000 visitors received during the period.

An indoor snowfield train, the first of its kind in the country, and a snow mountain jumping platform, both in the snow entertainment area, were "must-visit" attractions for most visitors, according to the operator.

As of Friday, more than 100,000 tickets to the resort had been sold, with families with children and young tourists the main buyers.

The resort operator said a professional team collected visitor feedback during the internal testing period, and the resort's software and hardware facilities and personnel arrangements will be optimized based on that feedback.

Since the Beijing Winter Olympics, the popularization of ice and snow sports has accelerated the integrated development of ice and snow with culture and tourism, catering and retail, equipment manufacturing, and other industries.

As one of the major tourism investment projects in Shanghai's "14th Five-Year Plan," the resort fills a gap in the ice and snow tourism industry chain in Shanghai.

It has further strengthened the cultural tourism project cluster in Lingang, and will resonate with surrounding heavyweight cultural tourism projects such as the Shanghai Astronomy Museum, empowering regional tourism, industry insiders said.