Austria's top lift operator says China's ski domes can inspire Europe

While Austria has long-been a skiing mecca, the number of inhabitants hitting the country's slopes has significantly declined in recent decades due to rising lift prices and temperatures.

In China, the trend goes in the opposite direction. In the last five years, the number of skiers and snowboarders in the country has almost tripled - helped by the construction of massive ski domes in many Chinese cities.

Christoph Eisinger, who runs Europe's second largest ski destination Ski Amadé near Salzburg, covering 760 kilometers of groomed slopes, says this construction strategy on the slopes is something European countries could adopt.

"This easy access to skiing - this is what we can learn in Austria from Chinese ski resorts," Eisinger told CGTN. "Ski domes definitely would help a lot to actually keep this lifestyle also in the big agglomerations of Europe alive."

Austria's biggest winter sports area is trying to increase cooperation with Chinese ski resorts. Over the last five years, 500 Austrian ski instructors traveled to China to train their Chinese counterparts.

"Our trainers they fly over and they stay about two months in China," Gerhard Sint, Salzburg region Head of ski instructors, told CGTN. 

"This cooperation is getting more and more intensive because more and more ski resorts are developed in China."

Meanwhile, China's often relatively small-scaled resorts could learn from the Alpine trend to interlink multiple ski areas creating much larger ski destinations.

"To ride on all of our slopes you need three or four days," explains Andreas Kocher, a lift attendant at Ski Amadé.

After the slope, it's time for après-ski. Eisinger predicts this festive Alpine lifestyle will soon make its way to China.

"I think also Chinese ski resorts could actually adopt this concept," Eisinger adds. "It keeps skiers in the sport for decades."

Another measure to remain attractive to skiers is the exchange of know-how. Eisinger started cooperating with China's Thaiwoo resort seven years ago and is hoping to continue this cooperation in the future.