AT dawn, high on the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau, a Buddhist monk in saffron robes chants blessings over limber athletes preparing to run 100 kilometers across sand dunes, rivers and ravines.

The crowd of sporty, middle-class urbanites had spent thousands of yuan to travel to Longyangxia Reservoir in Qinghai Province for an “ultramarathon” — a drastic change from a decade ago, when few Chinese raced even in cities and gear might include jeans and flip-flops.

Governments and companies in such far-flung mountainous regions have high hopes that this relatively small but fast-growing crowd of trail runners can bring big bucks that will boost business prospects.

Longyangxia, a sleepy waterfront town of about 3,000 people, has in the last decade poured more than 1.6 billion yuan (US$233 million), much of it from private investment, into bike tracks, scenic areas and refurbished hotels in an attempt to lure sporty travelers.

The trail race, in its first official year, brought in just over 500 runners, filling the town’s lone hotel for 300 yuan per night, with some guests staying for a few days after the event.

Local media articles have called efforts to use sporting events to attract tourists a success, saying they have brought 10,000 visitors to the lake so far this year, already double the total for 2017.

The National Sports Bureau recognized Longyangxia as a “sports and leisure specialty town” in 2017, Qinghai’s only town on the bureau’s list of 100.

Yu Yanmeng, a race organizer from Beijing-based adventure sport company Xinzhi Exploring Group, said its events rarely make money. But the company hopes that will change as numbers grow.

“These races and sports activities, once they get going, can expand the influence of local tourism and scenery to create a calling card for the city, make them better known and pull up economic growth,” he said.

The growing number of trail races — there were about 250 in the first half of this year, compared with less than 30 in all of 2015 — has also piqued the interest of specialist sports apparel brands that want to tap into the Chinese market.

Net sales at Amer Sports Oyj, which owns the world’s biggest trail-running brand, Salomon, rose 23 percent in the first half this year in China, compared with a gain of 13 percent in 2017.

(SD-Agencies)