While a Treble Cone Skifield spokesman recently said Chinese skier numbers were very low compared with other markets, Lake Wanaka Tourism general manager James Helmore believed that was about to change.
He had seen over the summer Chinese visitors to New Zealand breaking out of the ''stereotype of shopping-tour-in-a-bus; here-for-a-short-time''.
''We have seen Chinese visitors skydiving, we've seen them jetboating, we've seen them staying in luxury lodges and five-star apartments, and we've seen them out driving camper vans as well.''
Mr Helmore believed the ''free independent traveller'' (FIT) type of Chinese tourist is a perfect fit for Wanaka and, as they arrive in increasing numbers, ''skiing will be part of the equation''.
''The Chinese FIT visitor ... is after something to give them status or brag value, and skiing, and certainly snowboarding in this area, has got quite good brag value.''
Mr Helmore said China had ''amazing'' ski resorts of its own modelled on those in North America, but ''there's nobody there''.
He said that was because skiing was very new to the Chinese although it was ''growing fast''.
Chinese ski teams will be in Wanaka this winter and Mr Helmore said they would be involved with some promotional work for the Wanaka area.
Lake Wanaka Tourism was also about to employ a company to take advantage of Chinese social media avenues to promote Wanaka directly to that market.
Mr Helmore said rather than using Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, the Chinese used ''weybo'' and ''Youku''.
As an indication of how Chinese tourism to Wanaka was growing, Mr Helmore said in February 2008 Chinese-based credit cards were only used 16 times in the town.
In February this year they were used 1200 times, and that was almost twice the number for February 2012.
