The high post-event maintenance costs and low usage of Winter Olympic venues have been major problems plaguing host countries. Unlike the Summer Olympics, the Winter Olympics are limited by the geography of the competition and are usually held in smaller cities and regions. In the face of winter sports due to seasonal restrictions and traffic problems, the post-competition utilization of winter Olympic venues has brought more challenges to their operators. After the successful hosting of the Beijing 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, Zhangjiakou Winter Olympic Village is facing a similar transformation path.

Constantly adapting transformation strategies

Guyangshu Stadium Group is one of the two venues in the Zhangjiakou competition area of the Beijing Winter Olympics, including 3 competition venues (National Ski Jumping Center, National Cross-Country Skiing Center, National Biathlon Center), 1 non-competition venue (Zhangjiakou Mountain Broadcasting Center), 1 contracted hotel (Zhangjiakou Xueruyi Metropark Ruijing Hotel) and Zhangjiakou Winter Olympic Village, covering a total area of 80 hectares.

As the owner unit of the Guyangshu venue group, how to complete the operation transformation of the post-event venue in the post-Winter Olympics era is an important issue facing Xingyuan Group. "The entire Olympic Village complex includes a total of 10 courtyards, 31 buildings, and 1920,<> rooms, and the support task was successfully completed during the competition, and our main thought after the competition is, how should such a large Olympic Village be used?" Li Sheng, chairman of Xingyuan Group, said in an interview with a reporter from Beijing Business Daily.

The Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games have ended, and Zhangjiakou Winter Olympic Village has officially embarked on the transformation road of venue reuse after the games.

In Li Sheng's view, the post-competition utilization of Olympic venues is a world problem. In order to transform the Winter Olympic Village, the Xingyuan Group team visited a number of countries and regions that have hosted the Winter Olympic Games, including South Korea, the United States and Germany. Li Sheng's team found that cities that do a good job of transformation are based on their own geographical location and local culture.

At the beginning of the planning, Zhangjiakou Winter Olympic Village was mainly positioned to ensure competition training and pan-concept apartments, but in the process of transformation, it was found that the flow of tourists brought by pan-concept apartments alone was not enough to support the development of the Winter Olympic Village, and Chongli tourism was mainly based on winter skiing, how to seize the summer passenger flow market? Research became a breakthrough.

"In the process of receiving a large number of study groups, we found that the accompanying elderly also like to live in the Winter Olympic Village, so we hired a professional team for planning and design, and at the same time drew on international experience, and after organizing experts to discuss and certify, we decided to develop the two industries of travel and health care and research, especially the future market space of health care is huge." Li Sheng emphasized.

The passenger flow of the two major sectors of sojourn and health care and research can not only effectively make up for the shortage of summer tourists in Chongli, but also minimize the cost of renovation. Indoor and outdoor barrier-free facilities for the Winter Paralympic Games, zero-pressure beds customized for athletes, and the Chongli Branch of Peking University Third Hospital, a 15-minute drive from the Winter Olympic Village, can directly adapt to the elderly living in the Winter Olympic Village.

Fixed, do health care

Travel and health care, a new positioning that has not been mentioned, is also rare in the cases of reuse of the World Winter Olympic venues.

However, Zhangjiakou Winter Olympic Village, which is less than a two-hour drive from Beijing, has just ushered in the historical opportunity of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and Mongolia to jointly build a "pension circle around Beijing". Choosing to live and retreat has both market verification and policy support.

In September 2022, the Office of the Beijing Municipal Working Committee on Aging and the Beijing Association for the Aging released the "Beijing Aging Development Report (9)", which shows that Beijing has officially entered a moderately aging society.

In June 2023, the Beijing Elderly Care Service Network specially set up the "Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Elderly Care" section to comprehensively display the details of high-quality elderly care institutions in Tianjin, Hebei, Inner Mongolia and other places, focusing on promoting elderly care service projects in Beijing.

In August 2023, Zhangjiakou Winter Olympic Village, which hosted the youth research group, welcomed more elderly people. "The national youth music quality competition we received in the summer, with a total of more than 8,3000 participants, and more than 1,2 people actually arrived in the Winter Olympic Village, basically a child will bring 4 old people or <> old people. Many elderly people who accompany their children to participate in the summer study decided to sign a long-term rental agreement shortly after arriving in the Winter Olympic Village, planning to return to live here when the snow season comes. According to Li Sheng.

In the summer of 2023, Zhangjiakou Winter Olympic Village, which tested the water for the first time to live and recuperate, was effectively verified. Zhangjiakou Winter Olympic Village has formed a business layout with travel and health care, research camps, event guarantees, etc. as the core, and realized the market-oriented transformation of post-competition utilization. At present, all rooms in the Winter Olympic Village have been put into market operation.

Each person can drive 3,2 yuan of consumption per year

On September 2023, 9, the civil affairs departments of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei jointly issued a series of policies and plans for the coordinated development of elderly care services, which will encourage Beijing's elderly care projects to extend their layout to Hebei, and will rely on the Beijing elderly care service network to open the online payment function of elderly care institutions in Tianjin and Hebei Province, and open up the remote payment channel for disability care subsidies for the elderly in Beijing.

According to the latest data disclosed by the Beijing Civil Affairs Bureau, the number of elderly people of Beijing nationality who are currently living in pension institutions in Hebei Province has reached 5000,<>.

In order to accurately attract customers from Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Xingyuan Group has set up an investment promotion office in Beijing to connect various group tourism, research institutions, health care institutions and the State General Administration of Sports. For the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei market, two characteristic travel and health products, winter skiing and summer summer escape, were launched.

It is estimated that Zhangjiakou Winter Olympic Village is built according to the architectural characteristics of northern China and presented in the form of courtyard courtyards. Some courtyards have three buildings, and some courtyards have four buildings. According to the reception data of Zhangjiakou Winter Olympic Village in the summer of 2023, the apartment hotel in the Winter Olympic Village can accommodate 4848,2 people at the same time. In two courtyards that can accommodate research teams, it can accommodate 1982,600 people at the same time. Room rates average RMB 1000 per room night in low season and RMB <> per room night in high season.

"We have brought 12 long-term rental agreements for travel and health care in just one major youth event, with a minimum rental period of 4 months, and an average of 6000,7000-5,8 yuan per month." It is reported that since the official launch of the travel and health care project to the market in May this year, the Winter Olympic Village has received a total of 8,5 people as of August this year, in addition to the training of more than 1000,50 athletes, the remaining 50% is research and study, and <>% is travel and health care.

"For the reuse of venues, we adhere to the combination of flat competition and four-season operation, and for Chongli, it is the summer season and snow season, and we will continue to expand other businesses on the basis of retaining the sports function of the venue to lead the tourism of the entire Chongli District."

Li Sheng also said that combined with the travel and health care products launched by the Olympic Village holiday apartments, calculated according to the two holidays of summer vacation and winter vacation, and taking into account factors such as the hot sale of travel and health care products next year, it is predicted that each elderly person can bring at least 3,2 yuan of consumption to Zhangjiakou Winter Olympic Village every year.

Beijing Business Daily reporter Cheng Mingjie

Dialogue with Li Sheng, chairman of Zhangjiakou Xingyuan Group:

The industrial advantages and challenges of transforming the Winter Olympic Village into health care

Xingyuan Group is the owner unit of the Guyangshu venue in Zhangjiakou Winter Olympic Village, and the reporter of Beijing Business Daily exclusively talked to Li Sheng, chairman of Xingyuan Group, and made an in-depth report on the advantages of venue reuse and the current business status.

-Beijing Business Daily: What are the main products and specific business models for the travel and health care market?

Li Sheng: At present, the apartments we rent for long-term use include one-bedroom one-living room units, two-bedroom one-living room units and three-bedroom one-living room units, and there are barrier-free facilities from kitchen, bathroom to outdoor, so we can get involved in the field of health care without hardware transformation, which can well meet the living needs of the elderly. Seniors will choose long-term rental apartments and designate months to move in, for example, they will choose to rent here in June, July, November and February, and after meeting their schedules, we can continue to host and operate the house for the rest of the time.

-Beijing Business Daily: From the perspective of the consumption habits of the elderly who have already lived in the Winter Olympic Village, what are the characteristics and phenomena worthy of attention?

Li Sheng: The elderly live in the Winter Olympic Village and rarely generate other consumption other than rent and fixed living expenses. But before leaving, they usually come to our cultural and creative store and buy some Winter Olympics-themed cultural and creative products to bring back to the children. We have registered 15 trademarks in 87 categories with Xueruyi as the trademark, and produced plush toys, desk lamps, calendars and other cultural and creative products, which are very popular with the elderly.

-Beijing Business Daily: In addition to the existing adaptive renovation, what are the new renovation plans for the Winter Olympic Village next?

Li Sheng: We plan to build a new public ski resort this year, with the theme of family and childhood, which can attract a large number of people to visit, and also attract the flow of various cultural tourism formats in the Winter Olympic Village, and better realize the actual operation of the flat competition.