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A tourist village in China’s Sichuan province has apologised after facing backlash for using cotton wool and soapy water to create fake snow.
The Chengdu Snow Village project, in its defence, said the weather was warm and the snow village did not take shape as anticipated during the Lunar New Year holiday at the end of January.
The newly-opened tourist zone in suburban Chengdu faced flak shortly after opening for the holidays as visitors complained that the snow on top of cottages and scattered on forest paths was cotton.
“I feel cheated. I think my intelligence has been insulted!” one tourist said in a video on Chinese social media.
“In today’s age of well-developed Internet, scenic spots must advertise truthfully and avoid deception or false advertising, otherwise they will only shoot themselves in the foot,” wrote another user.
Photos on WeChat showed large cotton wool sheets strewn about the grounds, only partially covering leafy areas. A thick snow layer appeared to blanket the houses in the zone, which on a closer inspection, turned out to be fake.
A worker at the Snow Village’s management office admitted the fake snow made of cotton was cleaned up following public outrage.
“It snowed every winter in the past. So we upgraded this area to become a tour site and promoted it widely before its opening,” the unnamed worker was quoted by the Shanghai Morning Post as saying.
“We were waiting for the arrival of snow. Unfortunately, the weather did not side with us,” the worker said.
The Chengdu Snow Village in a statement on 8 February said: “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.”
The village said it “deeply apologises” for the changes and that tourists could get a refund. The site has since been closed, Reuters reported.
Last year, a famous waterfall in the Henan province was accused of incorporating pipes to add more water flow during the dry season.