A WINTER wonderland attraction in China known for its snowy landscapes has found itself on thin ice when visitors discovered the advertised snow was in fact fake.

Misleading social media photos posted by Chengdu Snow Village’s website showed large cotton wool sheets strewn about the grounds and on top of houses in an attempt to deceive the tourists but no such luck.

Many visitors “cottoned on” and furiously took to social media after finding out the promised “snow” turned out to be cotton wool, bed sheets, white sand and soap bubbles.

One user said: “A snow village without snow.

“In today’s age of a well-developed Internet, scenic spots must advertise truthfully and avoid deception or false advertising, otherwise they will only shoot themselves in the foot.”

“I feel cheated. My intelligence has been insulted,” a third disgruntled tourist said, while another complained: “I wanted snow, but you gave me cotton wool.”

In a statement on the Chinese social media app Wechat the village 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.”

Refunds would be provided to unsatisfied visitors, the post added.
The tourist area is believed to have now been cleared of the synthetic snow.

A staff member told the state-run Global Times : “Following the precedents of previous years, we typically have snow in winter.

“So we set up this spot for photo shoot in advance to wait for the snow to come.

“However, this year, the weather didn’t cooperate, and it didn’t snow.”

This isn’t the first time Chinese tourist officials have tried to trick tourists.

Last year, a hiker discovered that the famous Yuntai Mountain Waterfall, touted as China’s tallest uninterrupted waterfall, was water from a house pipe.

Park authorities later said the waterfall had undergone “a tiny improvement during dry season”.

In the same year, a Chinese zoo admitted that its top attraction, two so-called pandas, were in fact just painted dogs.

This is not the first case where Chinese zoo staff have been caught painting animals to change their appearance.

Only last week The Sun reported that the staff at Zibo City amusement park in Shandong province had painted donkeys black and white to look like zebras in another animal fake gaffe.

The zoo apologised and reassured visitors that the dye used was non-toxic and did not harm the animals.