GLOBALink | "Hot and cold" blending gains popularity among winter tourists flocking to NE China's Shenyang-Xinhua

SHENYANG, Jan. 28 (Xinhua) -- Leveraging its unique natural resources, Shenyang, the capital city of northeast China's Liaoning Province, offers special winter tourism experiences by combining ice-and-snow excitement with hot spring relaxation, attracting visitors from across the country.

Visitors enjoy a hot spring surrounded by ice and snow at a hot spring resort in Shenyang, northeast China's Liaoning Province, Jan. 9, 2026. (Xinhua/Li Gang)

As the development in China's ice-and-snow tourism turns from roughly "heating up" to increasingly delicate, regions across the country are shifting their focus from scale expansion to differentiated cultural expression and higher-quality offerings. Shenyang, a major tourist city in northeast China renowned for its bath culture, is moving beyond sheer reliance on natural resources and placing greater emphasis on service quality and cultural features in their quests to retain visitors.

Visitors pose for pictures in front of a wall made of ice bricks with frozen flowers inside at a hot spring resort in Shenyang, northeast China's Liaoning Province, Jan. 17, 2025. (Xinhua/Li Gang)

Visitors play on snow at a hot spring resort in Shenyang, northeast China's Liaoning Province, Jan. 9, 2026. (Xinhua/Pan Yulong)

Visitors enjoy outdoor hot spring at a hot spring resort in Shenyang, northeast China's Liaoning Province, Jan. 9, 2026. (Xinhua/Pan Yulong)

According to the China Ice and Snow Tourism Development Report (2026) released by China Tourism Academy, China's ice-and-snow tourism has entered a new phase of sustained growth. A total of 360 million ice-and-snow leisure trips are expected to take place during the 2025-2026 winter season in the country, with related revenue amounting to about 450 billion yuan (about 64.79 billion U.S. dollars).