World Winter Snowsports Exhibition 2017

Day 1 at the World Winter Snowsports Exhibition 2017 (WWSE) Beijing was super busy for BASI

blend — BASI would like to thank Heathrow Airport for the “World of Opportunity” SME award that has helped BASI attend the World Winter Sports Expo 2017 in Beijing. BASI’s objective here is to raise the profile of the BASI snowsports instructor qualification and course programme in China and develop working opportunities with China’s developing snowsports industry.

We had a busy Day 1 at the exhibition and even sold 3 course places! There were lots of enquiries from visitors looking for everything from ski and snowboard lessons to instructor courses and plenty of resort operators looking for BASI qualified snowsport instructors. Get on that jobs board and book your flight east!

Honoured Guests at Official Opening of Asia’s Biggest Dry Ski Slope

Together with Sarah Lewis, Secretary General of FIS, BASI CEO, Andrew Lockerbie and Partnership Manager, Tania Alliod were honoured guests at the official opening of Asia’s largest dry ski slope.

Built on a 20,000 square meter site at a cost of £4.5 million, the dry slope sits on the site of the Beijing Olympic Park. The massive new dry slope is complete with jumps, air bags, mogul slopes, nordic track, forest skiing(!) and multi user slopes. It is already being used by China’s National Aerials Team to train outside the winter months and has hosted local school groups and junior alpine competitions since its soft opening in July this year.

The Beijing Olympic Forest Park JF Dry Ski Slope official opening was a key media event on Day 1 of the Beijing Show with FIS Secretary General, Sarah Lewis, announcing that the slope is also the first accredited GISS (Get Into Snow Sports) venue in China. GISS is an Olympic initiative in advance of the 2022 Winter Olympics to get 30 million Chinese to try snowsports. Beijing Olympic Forest Park JF Dry Ski Slope is the first venue accredited by FIS to run the 3 x 1 hour taster sessions as part of the GISS initiative.

Sharing the platform with Philip Zhang the slope developer and Sarah Lewis from FIS, was BASI CEO, Andrew Lockerbie. Andrew gave a short presentation on the history of dry slopes in the United Kingdom from the 1950’s and highlighted the importance of dry slopes within Great Britain in growing the participation and interest in snowsports over the last 50 years.

Andrew spoke to Philip Zhang about what this slope means for snowsports in China …