A winter festival left visitors wanting their money back after the advertised snow turned out to be sparse blobs of cotton.
The Chengdu Snow Village project recently issued an apology to guests on Wechat (a Chinese messaging service) on Feb. 8, according to Reuters.
The message read: “In order to create a ‘snowy’ atmosphere the tourist village purchased cotton for the snow…but it did not achieve the expected effect, leaving a very bad impression on tourists who came to visit.”
Visitors shared photos online of balls of cotton scattered over the bare ground and what appeared to be bedsheets intended to look like snow drifts on the rooftops, according to CNN.
The attraction, which was open to celebrate the Lunar New Year holiday, has since shut down and is being investigated by Chengdu’s culture and tourism bureau on suspicion of false advertising.
Event organizers said unusually warm weather at the site in China’s southwestern Sichuan province was the cause for the absence of actual snow.
“Following the precedents of previous years, we typically have snow in winter. So we set up this spot for photoshoots in advance to wait for the snow to come,” a staff member reportedly told the state-run Global Times, per CNN.
“However, this year, the weather didn’t cooperate, and it didn’t snow,” the employee added.
In a statement issued on Feb. 11, the culture and tourism bureau noted that “During the Spring Festival, we received feedback from tourists that ‘there is no snow in the Chengdu Snow Village in Nanbaoshan Tourist Area, Qionglai City,’ and immediately transferred the matter to Qionglai City for disposal.”
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Following an investigation, the bureau determined that “the situation was true, and the owner was immediately ordered to dismantle the fake snow scene in the Snow Village project and do a good job of refunding tourists.”
Chengdu’s culture and tourism bureau added that they will use the situation as a learning experience in order to “further strengthen supervision and guidance of the city’s tourist attractions, tourist resorts and emerging cultural and tourism venues, and urge them to standardize management and operate with integrity.”
The disappointing appearance of the village has drawn comparisons to the failed Fyre Festival luxury music festival that was meant to take place in the Bahamas in 2017, as well as a Willy Wonka interactive experience in Glasgow, Scotland, in Feb. 2024 that left children in tears.
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