China's annual Ice and Snow Festival, with its fairy-tale ice sculptures, opened on Friday attracting throngs of tourists who shuffled carefully over the slippy ice and snow and dragged their children in sledges around the park.
This year the ice park spans 810,000 sq metres with 250,000 cubic metres of sculptured ice, harvested from the nearby frozen Songhua River, and lit up at night with colourful lights.
The sculptures, some a few-storeys-high, featured Chinese-style buildings and bridges, fairy-tale castles, towers and one fashioned after Beijing's Temple of Heaven. Several ice slides were built for children and adults around the park.
The festival's marketing vice director Sun Zemin told Reuters the average amount of people visiting the park daily has increased significantly to around 30,000 this year, and hotel rooms in the city booked out past Spring Festival in February.
"In 2018, the average number of people attending the park per day was around 18,500... So the overall number of people has close to doubled compared to previous years," he said.
Harbin is the capital city of China's most northern province Heilongjiang, which shares a border with Russia 3,000 kms (1,864 miles) long.
Over the New Year holidays, the festival park received over five times more visitors than a year ago at 163,200 people and generated 46.18 million yuan ($6.45 million) in income, nearly six times higher than a year ago, the provincial Heilongjiang TV station said.
That helped draw some 3.05 million tourists to the city during the same period, and Heilongjiang's culture and tourism department dubbed the tourist boom an "ice and snow miracle" in Harbin this winter.This year's winter has proven an important season for Harbin, as interest in the icy destination soared after social media posts showed many citizens from the warmer south flocking to the snowy city, seen as key in jumpstarting the "ice and snow" economy there.
The southern patrons, bundled up tightly to brave the sub-zero chill and many donning cute furry eared-hats, won themselves an endearing nickname from the locals, "Southern Little Potatoes".
Harbin has become an internet hit after "Southern Little Potatoes" turned into a trending topic on domestic social media, state media Xinhua said, citing Harbin's tourism bureau director Wang Hongxin.
"This is the first winter holiday since the pandemic restrictions were lifted, and everyone can't hold back," Long Ping, a 19-year-old college student said.
中国每年一度的冰雪节于星期五开幕，吸引了大批游客。游客们小心翼翼地在滑溜的冰雪上走动，拉着孩子坐雪橇游览公园。
今年的冰雪公园占地810,000平方米，有25万立方米的冰雕，从附近的松花江冰冻的河水中采集而来，并在夜晚点缀着五光十色的灯光。
这些冰雕有的高达数层楼，包括中国风格的建筑和桥梁、童话般的城堡、塔楼，还有一个仿照北京天坛建造的。公园内还建有几个供儿童和成人玩耍的冰滑梯。
冰雪节的市场营销副总监孙泽民告诉路透社，今年参观公园的人数每天都显著增加，达到了大约30,000人，城市中的酒店房间也在春节过后都被预订一空。
"2018年，每天参加公园活动的人数约为18,500人...与往年相比，整体人数几乎翻了一番，" 他说。
哈尔滨是中国最北部的黑龙江省省会，与俄罗斯接壤，边境线长达3,000公里（1,864英里）。
在新年假期期间，冰雪节公园的游客人数比一年前增加了五倍，达到了163,200人，收入为4618万元人民币（645万美元），几乎是一年前的六倍，省级黑龙江电视台报道。
这有助于在同一时期吸引了305万游客到该市，黑龙江省文化和旅游部门将这一游客激增称为哈尔滨今年冬季的 "冰雪奇迹"。
在社交媒体上出现的许多南方市民涌向这个雪城的帖子后，哈尔滨成为了互联网的热门话题，被认为是推动该地 "冰雪" 经济复苏的关键。
南方游客们穿着严实，冒着零下的寒冷，许多戴着可爱的毛耳帽，赢得了当地人的亲切昵称 "南方小土豆"。
哈尔滨的旅游局长王红鑫表示："这是自疫情限制解除以来的第一个冬季假期，大家都按耐不住了。"
