Amid booming winter tourism in China, the city of Harbin in Heilongjiang province has become a hot destination. When ice and snow integrating with cultural tourism, Harbin has turned "cold" resources into "hot" economy. With a variety of ice & snow-themed cultural and creative products developed and snow sculpture works of classic IP images created, such tour has set off craze boosted by the copyright wind.

Creating blockbuster products

Harbin in winter is like a fairy tale wonderland of ice and snow. A cultural and creative ice cream called "Snowflake Ferris Wheel" has foiled the fairy-tale atmosphere to the fullest extent. This ice cream, jointly developed by the Harbin Ice and Snow World and "Modern", a Chinese time-honored brand, is modeled after the Snowflake Ferris Wheel, a new landmark of Harbin. With a height of 120 meters, equivalent to a 42-story building, this Ferris Wheel has become the largest one in Northeast China. The namesake's ice cream has delicate lines and lifelike shapes, which can be called a beautiful sculpture of ice cream. Seeing the beautiful scenery of ice and snow, tasting the cultural and creative ice cream have filled the sweetness of winter tours and become the common choices of tourists. The relevant ice cream has in turn become a beautiful tie between tourists and the Harbin Ice and Snow World.

"During the New Year's holiday, the sales of Modern ice lolly pops, especially the cultural and creative ones, skyrocketed with more than 100,000 pieces sold during the three holiday days," a principal with the Harbin Ice and Snow World said.

In addition to sweet ice cream, eye-opening refrigerator magnets, milk tea postcards, lilac flowers made of intangible cultural heritage white porcelain and ice & snow-themed silk scarves have also won tourists' praises. Many tourists have been attracted by a number of refrigerator magnets of magic AR series sold on the "Longyue Northern Magic Train" at the intersection of the Central Street and Zhongyi Street in Daoli District, Harbin. Combined with AR technology, these refrigerator magnets are a kind of interactive ones, designed based the Snowflake Ferris Wheel, Siberian tiger and traditional Harbin landmarks - Central Street and St. Sophia Cathedral. Thanks to the designers' creative ideas, the usually ordinary refrigerator magnets are added with new energy via digital technology. This kind of refrigerator magnets were sold out as soon as they launched.

The aggressive demand for these cultural and creative products has claimed the market's nod to the related work of the Harbin Ice and Snow World. According to the above principal, creativity is the core competitiveness of ice & snow cultural creative products. The charm of cultural and creative products lies in marrying products with ice & snow culture, folk culture through novel and unique ideas, while positioning product designs according to market needs and preferences and always keeping an eye on branding in the process.

"Driven by the unique IP creation, we will promote the development of ice & snow cultural creative industry, set a new engine for the ice & snow cultural creation, deeply empower the upgrading of relevant industry and cultivate new economic growth points," the above principal said, adding that the Harbin Ice and Snow World will continue to deepen the development of cultural and creative products, integrate the ice and snow with  culture, trend and art for multi-dimensional cultural and creative IP design and successively launch the unique products adored by tourists.

Enhancing copyright cooperation

Ice sculpture is the protagonist of the Harbin Ice and Snow Festival. In the Harbin Ice and Snow World, scores of snow and ice sculptures make tourists drift into their dreamland.

"The Harbin Ice and Snow World has always been attaching great importance to copyright development and protection. Our ice and snow sculpture works have wide genres, covering buildings, characters, film and television IP, game and animation IP and variety scenes. All ice and snow landscapes involving copyright have been officially authorized," the principal outlined.

During this year's festival, the Harbin Ice and Snow World has cooperated with Youku to launch six IP themed sculptures on Youku's hit dramas "Empresses in the Palace", "Rural love story", "Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee", "Street Dance of China", "Till The End of The Moon" and its new animation of Chinese style, materializing the interaction between popular trends and ice and snow. The 20-meter-tall ice sculpture palace has reenacted the panorama of Hall of Supreme Harmony in the "Empresses in the Palace" with the snow sculptures of eight main characters including Zhenhuan, Emperor, Empress and Nian Shilan showing up, ushering tourists into these household TV dramas.

Apart from popular film and television IP authorization, the Harbin Ice and Snow World has also obtained the copyright authorization of the Perfect World Co.,Ltd. "We have jointly designed the themed snow sculptures on the five main characters of the "Cosmicrew" - Feng Bao, Shan Dian, Cai Hong, Liu Xing and Xiao Yudian. The shapes and details of each character have been carefully sculpted, reenacted to the extreme and perfectly presented, creating a fairy-tale paradise for children in the wonders of ice and snow," the principal stressed proudly.