The number of skiing and snowboarding injuries at the Queenstown Lakes district's four ski areas this winter was almost identical to last year's, data from St John's Queenstown station shows.
The Frankton-based emergency service responded to injuries to 451 people, compared with 449 last year.
St John Queenstown station manager Craig Downing said the station's accident treatment work between July and September was almost exclusively for skiing and snowboarding injuries.
A ''huge number'' of its patients were from Australia.
''It was a running joke here that the first thing we asked was 'What part of Australia are you from?'''Although the vast majority of tourists had travel insurance, there was a ''big taxpayer dollar that goes into foreign tourists'', Mr Downing said.
It had been a case of ''even stevens'' between the past two seasons' data, with the number of injuries rising at The Remarkables and Coronet Peak, but falling at Cardrona and Treble Cone.
The higher numbers at the two Wakatipu skifields were partly because of new medical teams there that had ''erred on the side of caution'' when assessing injuries, Mr Downing said.
St John staff had formed an ''excellent working relationship'' with those medical teams, and hoped to see the same people return next year.
NZSki chief executive Paul Anderson said the company's own data was ''pretty much in line'' with that of St John, although it included minor injuries St John did not attend.
Injuries at Coronet Peak were at the same level as last year, and ''slightly up'' at The Remarkables, which he attributed to its area of skiable terrain increasing by about a half as a result of the installation of the Curvey Basin chairlift and other changes.
Although the company had yet to confirm the make-up of its medical teams for next season, he acknowledged experience was ''critical'' in those roles, just as it was for other staff whose work helped minimise injuries, such as ski patrollers and its grooming and snowmaking teams.
