Matching Switzerland’s Allure: The Ambitious Vision for Tourism Development in Jilin and What Drives It

“World’s golden ski belt, powder snow, calm wind, warm sun”; “Hometown of mountains, lakes, grasslands and hot springs”; “Paradise for summer outdoor sports”. When someone describes a travel destination like this, which name comes to your mind? Switzerland? Or Hokkaido, Japan?
There is another correct answer. Because such descriptions also apply to a Chinese province – Jilin.
Located at the same latitude of 41 to 43 degrees north as the world’s three major powder snow bases, Jilin under Changbai Mountain has a sense of being unknown to the world compared to other world-class ski destinations such as the Alps in Europe and the Rocky Mountains in North America.
As early as 2018, Jilin’s culture and tourism industry began to shout to the world: to “upgrade” and move forward to a world-class ecological culture and tourism highland. And six years later, Jilin is becoming the next Switzerland!

In the winter of 2023, Jilin’s popularity is without a doubt.
Since last year, Jilin has seized the opportunities of the end of the epidemic and the holding of the Beijing Winter Olympics. The government, internet celebrities, and those in the wine and tourism industry have worked together to sort out the tourism resources in the province and conduct comprehensive publicity, attracting a large number of domestic tourists as well as tourists from Hong Kong, Macau, South Korea, and Singapore to flock to Jilin. By the end of 2023, Jilin finally surprised everyone with a beautiful report card of a total tourism revenue of 527.7 billion.
In addition to the unique natural resources such as mountains, lakes, hot springs, forests, and volcanoes, hotels, as a major pillar of the cultural and tourism industry, have made great contributions to the rise of Jilin. Jilin’s endowment of cultural and tourism resources has laid the foundation for the development of the wine and tourism industry, while the high-quality and diverse supply of hotel products has further promoted the high-quality development of the cultural and tourism industry.

Has Jilin’s hotel industry cultivated its internal skills well?
In 2023, the wine and tourism data of Jilin, Switzerland, and Japan are as follows:

01# From the supply side, Jilin has sufficient hotel rooms, and the scale will continue to expand.
As can be seen from the above figure, regardless of tourism revenue, number of receptions, number of hotels, or number of hotel rooms, Jilin far exceeds Switzerland and has been steadily rising. However, the number of hotels in Switzerland is showing a significant downward trend. In 2012, Switzerland had 4,742 hotels. In 2019, this number was 4,234, and this year it is almost falling below 4,000. In 2023, there are 16,092 hotels in Jilin Province with 200,000 hotel rooms. Among them, there are 66 star-rated hotels and 3 five-star hotels. It is planned that by 2025, the number of accommodation enterprises in the province will reach 20,000 and the number of beds will exceed 500,000. With the policy support of the Jilin provincial government, Jilin’s tourist reception capacity will reach a higher level in the future.
According to the “Jilin Province’s Trillion-level Tourism Industry Offensive Action Plan (2023-2025)”, Jilin’s “Jixing Stay” action will establish a cooperation mechanism between the Jilin government and the China Tourist Hotels Association, introduce brand hotels, investors, and operators, and accelerate the upgrading of tourism accommodation facilities. “Trillion-level cities” and “billion-level counties” will build a number of new hotels and homestays according to the growth of local overnight tourists. According to laws and regulations, idle government real estate that meets the conditions will be revitalized and transformed into hotels in a market-oriented way, striving to increase the number of beds by 2,000-3,000. For counties (cities) without brand chain hotels, for the first five brand chain hotels that settle in, a subsidy of 30,000 yuan for franchise fees will be given annually for three consecutive years. For newly-built hotels that are put into operation, according to more than 300, 200, and 100 hotel rooms, a one-time reward of 3 million yuan, 2 million yuan, and 1 million yuan will be given respectively.
02# Compared with Switzerland and Japan, Jilin has a huge price advantage for hotels and is more attractive to foreign tourists.
Judging solely from hotel prices, the average room rate of star-rated hotels in Jilin is relatively low, less than one-third of that in Switzerland and about half of that in Japan. Judging from the tourism/hotel revenue ratio of Switzerland and Japan, tourists going to Switzerland and Japan basically spend half of their money on accommodation. Although only the revenue data of star-rated hotels in Jilin is available, it is still much lower than that of Switzerland and Japan.
Many hotels near Jilin’s ski resorts offer ski packages. Take the five-star Swiss Hotel in Changbai Mountain Huamei Resort as an example. For a one-night accommodation during the ice and snow season at 1,299 yuan, it not only includes three meals a day but also includes rights and interests such as skiing for two adults and one child, hot springs, children’s playground, UTV vehicle, and airport transfer. At the same price, in Switzerland, you can only stay in an ordinary two-star hotel. And the skiing cost per person per day is at least about 500 yuan. Skiing for two adults and one child is 1,500 yuan, not including the cost of skiing equipment. No wonder in the 2023 snow season, Huamei Resort sold 600 million yuan in Li Jiaqi’s live streaming room.
03# High-end hotels are relatively concentrated and drive the development of surrounding areas to form hotel clusters.
Thanks to the booming ice and snow economy, the total number of “national ski tourism resorts” in Jilin Province has reached five, remaining the largest in the country. These five national ski tourism resorts are concentrated in Jilin City (Songhua Lake, Beidahu), Baishan City (Wanda), Tonghua (Dongchang), and Yanbian (North District of Changbai Mountain). Around these five national tourist resorts, five relatively mature hotel clusters have been formed.
Taking Baishan City as an example, Baishan currently has one national tourist resort (Changbai Mountain Wanda International Resort) and one provincial tourist resort (Changbai Mountain Huamei Resort). There are more than ten high-grade tourist hotels with a total of 3,841 rooms, accounting for 75.88% of the city’s total, and 6,636 beds, accounting for 76.32% of the city’s total.
During the ice and snow season, tourists from Beijing, East China, South China, Hong Kong, Macau, South Korea, Singapore and other places mostly gather in the five major resorts. Ski vacation packages and Ski in-Ski out are important reasons for tourists to choose hotels (Ski in-Ski out means that skiers can put on their ski boots and ski suits at their accommodation, be fully armed, and go directly to the ski slope or cableway as soon as they go out without having to wear ski boots and carry ski equipment to take a shuttle bus to the ski resort). Hotel packages not only include skiing but also various activities such as hot springs and snowmobiles. And hotels such as the Westin Prince Hotel in Songhua Lake Resort, the North American Time Hotel in Beidahu, the Sheraton and Westin in Wanda Ski Resort can all achieve Ski in-Ski out, providing great convenience for skiers. Therefore, these major resorts are basically fully booked and extremely popular during the snow season.

In the refreshing 22-degree summer, parent-child activities, hot air balloons, hiking, paragliding, cable cars, boating and other outdoor sports activities in the resort area are particularly popular. Tourists directly turn hotels into travel destinations.

In comparison, Switzerland’s resort cluster effect is not obvious, and the amusement items are not concentrated enough. To obtain diverse experiences, tourists often have to take trains and transfer between different cities.
04# Hotel characteristic cultural elements are prominent, but cultural power needs to be further explored.
In recent years, Jilin’s hotel industry has continuously improved and upgraded in terms of service quality, hardware facilities, and management level. Many hotels have done their homework in excavating Northeast culture, Korean culture, film and television resource culture, Shaman culture, etc., and applied these elements to all aspects of the hotel.
For example, at the Hunchun National Garden International Hotel, the hotel building adopts the traditional architectural form of the Korean nationality. All service staff are dressed in traditional Korean costumes. Entering the lobby, there are Korean girls playing the traditional Korean instrument Gayageum. On the walls of various conference halls and corridors, there are also landscapes of Changbai Mountain painted by Korean painters. The Korean specialty delicacies in the hotel restaurant are authentic and delicious, which are highly praised by hotel guests.

However, the application of cultural elements still needs to be deeply explored in most hotels in Jilin. If culture only stays at the application of symbolic symbols, it cannot resonate with people, and it is even more difficult to make people have empathy and memories. Only by enhancing the cultural power of hotels can we enhance the lasting competitiveness of hotels. In this regard, hotels in Jilin may need to learn from the hotels in Switzerland, the predecessors.
Fortunately, at Changchun Chunyi Hotel, we also see the beginning of such an attempt. Changchun Chunyi Hotel, built in 1907, was once “the earliest and most advanced large building in Changchun” and has now been listed as a cultural relic protection unit in Changchun City. The hotel interior retains some original furnishings, items, and many old photos of celebrities who once stayed. The sense of history is very strong and can be regarded as an example of a museum-style hotel.

05# Medium and high-end hotel products generally pay attention to the sense of experience, but the emotional value of most homestay products needs to be improved.
In Jilin’s hotel industry, more and more hotels are gradually tilting from standard accommodation to non-standard accommodation in terms of product creation ideas. From simple accommodation experiences to various extended experiences centered on accommodation, such as “accommodation + entertainment”, “accommodation + sports”, “accommodation + art”, etc.
For example, the Hilton Changbaishan Yilin is planning an extended experience of “accommodation + love”, which is to implement the important IP of “Changbai Mountain” and take “Changbai Mountain – grow old together” as the foothold. With the woods of Hilton Hotel, the ancient red pine tree king, and Changbai Mountain as “props”, tourists can experience the four stages of “acquaintance – running-in – sweetness – lovers finally getting married” in the hotel. Finally, under the testimony of the divine tree, they can view Changbai Mountain together and realize the love experience of “growing old together”.
In the process of pursuing product differentiation of hotels, other hotels also come up with various tricks. For example, at Dongfang First Village in Hunchun, a Korean family living experience is launched. Tourists can live in the traditional homestay of a local Korean family and deeply experience the daily life of the Korean nationality. Many hotels such as Crowne Plaza and Puyue in Erdaobaihe Town are taking advantage of the natural volcanic hot spring group in Changbai Mountain and focusing on a hot spring experience. Everyone shows their unique abilities and makes Jilin’s hotel industry blooming.

However, generally speaking, homestays in Jilin still have a lot of room for improvement in terms of customers’ emotional experience. For example, Japanese inns known for their sense of experience usually have narrow rooms, simple decorations, and even shabby environments, but this does not affect people’s enthusiasm for Japanese inns. The key lies in that Japanese inns have achieved the extreme in emotional experience. Many Japanese inns are family inheritances and have inherent traditions for several or even dozens of generations. They often have extremely Japanese characteristics. For example, guest rooms provide Japanese-style rooms and provide family-style Japanese cuisine for one night and two meals. They provide Japanese-style men’s and women’s bathrobes, allowing guests to experience the traditional Japanese lifestyle in the extremely beautiful Japanese Zen-inspired tatami, flowers, courtyards, gurgling water, baths, and outdoor hot springs. Here, the innkeeper is not a stylized symbol of the manager but a friend and family member who greets and sees off guests in person and is busy everywhere and meets from time to time. Guests of Japanese inns often feel a deep cultural integration experience from these innkeepers and their homes, and this experience is unforgettable for a lifetime.
When hotel reviews visited Jilin, many homestay owners also introduced their plans for the sense of experience of homestays. For example, the owner of Yincong Homestay in Jilin City started with a coffee shop. As the founder of the well-known moj coffee in Zhejiang, after returning to his hometown Jilin to invest in a hotel, the owner plans to open his coffee shop next to Yincong and integrate coffee culture experience into accommodation.
Some other homestay owners are also actively exploring integrating activities such as travel photography and traditional ginseng digging ceremonies into the operation of hotels.

06# The government builds the stage and enterprises perform, achieving win-win development.
To support the development of Jilin’s cultural and tourism industry, the Jilin government has issued one support policy after another. In October last year, it also printed and distributed the “Jilin Province’s Trillion-level Tourism Industry Offensive Action Plan (2023-2025)”, listing 16 key actions such as the construction of the “Ice and Snow Silk Road” innovation pilot area, sports event drainage, growth of market entities, “attracting tourists to Jilin”, and transportation facilitation, striving to achieve the goal of a trillion-level tourism industry within five years. To implement this plan, guide the standardized development of the tourism accommodation industry, and improve the service quality and management level of tourism accommodation, Jilin has also launched the “Jixing Stay” tourism store grade certification work to provide tourists with rigorous official certification and promotion for better hotel selection.
It is precisely under the guidance of this service-oriented government that hotel enterprises in Jilin can concentrate on doing business well and achieve win-win development between the government and enterprises.

Internal skills need to be cultivated diligently, but on the way to the goal of “the world’s Jilin”, Jilin still has several hurdles to cross.
01# At present, the proportion of high-end hotels in Jilin Province is relatively low and cannot fully meet the needs of more domestic and foreign high-net-worth tourists.

Number of Hotels	Total Number of Hotel Rooms	Proportion of Low-end Hotels	Proportion of Medium and High-end Hotels	Proportion of High-end Hotels	Number of Homestays
Jilin City	754	23972	91.20%	8.80%	0.93%	14
Changchun City	2495	92548	79.30%	20.70%	0.8%	–
Baishan City	213	–	41.70%	58.30%	4.2%	26

The average room rate of Jilin Province is much lower than that of Switzerland and Japan, and in most cities, the proportion of low-end hotels is too large. Generally speaking, low-end hotels in Jilin Province account for 86.68% of the total number of hotels, mid-range hotels account for 12.25%, and high-end hotels account for only 1.07%.
The proportion of high-end hotels in Japan is 14%. According to the 2023 star-rated hotel structure distribution map sorted out by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and Meadin Research Institute, five-star hotels account for 10.66%. Looking at the data of relatively mature tourism development areas in Southwest China such as Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, and Tibet, due to the rich tourism resources in Southwest China, tourism has always been cultivated as a pillar industry. The development time is relatively early and the tourism industry is relatively complete. In 2022, the proportion of high-end hotel brands in Southwest China also reached 12.15%. Looking at Jilin’s 1% in this way, there is still a long way to go.

Of course, there are currently many high-star hotels and even super-star hotels under construction or in planning in Jilin, which will meet the needs of high-net-worth tourists to a certain extent. For example, Baishan City is making efforts to increase the introduction of international brands, the application of domestic brands, the innovation and cultivation of local brands, and introduce high-quality chain hotels such as five-star hotels, boutique resort hotels, and cultural theme hotels to upgrade existing hotels. Among the 26 hotels under construction in Changchun in 2024, there are four five-star hotels, one super five-star hotel, and one six-star hotel.