In response, Club Med and the Hong Kong Ski Association have partnered with the aim of making skiing and snowboarding a fashionable and popular sport for Hongkongers.
Following in the wake of PyeongChang 2018, where Hong Kong’s first ever Winter Olympics snow sports representative Arabella Ng came 56th in the giant slalom, and with Beijing 2022 just four years away, Hong Kong has seen a wave of excitement in winter sports.
In response, Club Med and the Hong Kong Ski Association have partnered with the aim of making skiing and snowboarding a fashionable and popular sport for Hongkongers.
Announced at a press conference at Club Med Yabuli on Monday March 5, the collaboration will focus on building a professional ski and snowboarding team to represent Hong Kong at the winter Olympics at Beijing 2022, as well as working with the city’s schools to help send kids on ski holidays, culminating in competitions that may identify future Olympic talents.
“It is a long journey building a professional team. It doesn’t take four years, it takes much more,” said Samson Siu, secretary general of the Hong Kong Ski Association, who added that more talent will be identified and added to the team in the coming years. “But we are at the very beginning of this journey and are excited to be here.”
Nine hopeful skiers and boarders were introduced at the conference, ranging from 12 to 20 years old; the Olympics requires entrants to be at least 16 years old when competing.
Club Med will be supporting their training with two hosted training stays of five days each per year for the kids and their parents at a Club Med ski resort. They can also help potential team members get assessed, as with Chloe Cornu-Wong. The 13-year-old is currently boarding at a French ski school where she is already competing in ski races. Thanks to Club Med, she was assessed at Club Med Les Deux Alpes and her dream of skiing in the Olympics is on its way.
Jack Archer, 14 years old, is living in Hong Kong and shares his time playing ice hockey for the Hong Kong national team when he’s home with skiing when overseas, taking his Olympic inspiration from Austrian Marcel Hirscher and American Ted Ligety.
“I started skiing when I was about two, so I started to ski almost the same time I started to walk,” he says. “For ten years it was a hobby, then I realised I could do it as a sport competitively and started racing two years ago. Ever since I joined the national team I have been to Club Med Beidahu, here and Whistler. I train slalom, GS and also hope to train Super G, and my favourite thing about skiing is the speed – it feels really great to go down the pistes as fast as you can.”
For Club Med, with official worldwide partnership for the Olympics beyond their marketing budget, they tapped into the brand’s DNA focusing on family. “Our mission is to help young teams and support them to get prepared for the Olympics,” said Sebastien Portes, general manager for Hong Kong and Macau.
“We can help the kids blossom and improve their skills and meanwhile the brand will be visible in the four years leading up to the Olympics. Hosting the training of the teams is the backbone throughout this journey.”
Between now and 2022 the athletes need to participate in international competitions to gather FIS (International Ski Federation) points in order to qualify for the Olympics.
It hasn't officially snowed in Hong Kong since ’75, but that has not stopped Hongkongers from being huge ski fans. Club Med estimates over 300,000 Hongkongers take ski vacations every year, mostly flying to Japan, also Korea, and some to Europe, with China beginning to be explored too.
Similar agreements have been signed with the Taiwan and Australian ski associations, with the China Ski Association in the final stages.
With over 20 ski resorts in five countries worldwide, Club Med has two in China (Yabuli and Beidahu), and two in Japan (Sahoro and Tomamu).
Tomamu in Hokkaido opened December 2017 and has already welcomed 17,000 guests this winter, 2,200 from Hong Kong. There are ski resort projects in PyeongChang and Thaiwoo in China, one of the Olympic sites for Beijing 2022.
Also opened last December was Club Med Grand Massif, close to Geneva, in the fourth biggest ski domain in France with a Club Med near St Laurent, Quebec, Canada due soon. The brand is due to open one ski resort a year in the Alps, and various in Asia, cementing a mission to be the worldwide leader in ski all-inclusive holidays.