A Small Village in China Was Marketed to Tourists as a Snowy Paradise. It Was Actually Covered in Cotton Wool

Fake snow is better than none at all. At least, this is likely what managers at the Chengdu Snow Village in Central China believed when they ran out of real snow. The Chinese tourist attraction was marketed as an idyllic winter destination, featuring snowy landscapes, rooftops, trees adorned with snowflakes, and gardens filled with snowmen. However, the project only worked partially: While visitors arrived, the snowfall didn’t. As a result, the village had to improvise.

A great idea. Chinese tourists love winter landscapes. Unsurprisingly, the popular “snow town” Zhong Guo Xue Xiang in Northeast China attracts many families with its picturesque white scenery every year. This led officials in Chengdu to ask: Why not create a similar tourist spot? What if they could leverage the winter snow to develop their own vacation village? The result was the recent opening of Chengdu Snow Village.

Poor execution. Chengdu Snow Village was marketed as a winter wonderland. While it successfully attracted tourists, it ultimately failed to provide the one thing it needed most: snow. True to its name, the village was supposed to be a snowy destination. However, weeks went by without the desired snowfall. It wasn’t snowing in the quantities managers needed to blanket the village in white.

“It snowed every winter in the past. So we upgraded this area to become a tour site and promoted it widely before its opening,” one worker at Chengdu Snow Village said. She added, “We were waiting for the arrival of snow. Unfortunately, the weather did not side with us.”

Back-up plan. As the Lunar New Year vacation approached at the end of January, the conditions in Chengdu Snow Village weren’t as expected. The temperatures were warmer than forecasted, and the landscape looked nothing like the picturesque, snow-covered images that visitors had in mind. Faced with this situation, the organizers opted to use cotton wool and soapy water.

Although natural snow was absent, the village discovered a way to create its own artificial flakes. “In order to create a ‘snowy’ atmosphere, the tourist village purchased cotton for the snow...” the Chengdu Snow Village project said in a statement. The result is evident in the online photos and videos showcasing how the village covered its roofs and trees with cotton wool and soapy water.

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Crisis averted? Not quite. Visitors quickly realized that what they saw piled on the rooftops or scattered along the roads wasn’t snow, but cotton. They were quick to express their anger on social media. One visitor said, “I feel cheated. I think my intelligence has been insulted!” Another person echoed this sentiment, saying they were “speechless” when they discovered that the snow was fake.

Widespread controversy. The Chengdu Snow Village project admitted that the combination of cotton wool and soapy water “did not achieve the result we had anticipated” and left “a bad impression among tourists.” Managers apologized and explained that the snow production had failed. They also proposed refunding their customers.

However, their apologies did little to quell the uproar. According to Global Times, Chinese authorities are investigating whether this situation qualifies as misleading advertising. In response, the tourist village announced it’d temporarily close for renovations, with no set date for reopening. The story of Chengdu’s unusual experiment with fake snow has gone viral, and international outlets, such as Sky and The Independent, have reported the incident.

Not the first time. Chengdu isn’t the only destination encountering frustrations due to a lack of snow. Ski resorts in France, Italy, and Spain have faced similar challenges, with some even closing permanently.

In China, another unusual situation has been reported in Harbin, a town famous for its harsh winters and popular ice festival. Due to climate change, the layers of ice extracted from the Songhua River have become thinner–now only measuring 8 to 12 inches instead of 3 feet like in previous years.

A question of imagination. A similar controversy occurred in the province of Henan in Eastern China. There, the managers of a natural park decided to intervene in nature to create a more remarkable spectacle.

Instead of using cotton wool and soapy water to create fake snow, authorities installed a pipe to ensure that the spectacular 1,030-foot Yuntai Waterfall would have a consistent flow of water all year round, regardless of any droughts.

Image | Hide Obara

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