Clyde Dam Tours owner Kim Johnstone said the idea of running tours at the dam came after she moved to Central Otago seven years ago.
"The first thing I wanted to be able to do was to go and have a look at the dam and found out that you couldn’t get in the dam, there was no tours, no nothing."
Ms Johnstone’s curiosity lead to her creating a proposal and negotiating with Contact Energy to set things up.
The negotiation process took three years and was largely slowed down by the Covid-19 pandemic.
"Contact Energy owns the site, so I had to go through the process of discussions with them and working out the logistics and making sure that it met health and safety."
Tours were not something Contact Energy had done before or had experience with, so they had to proceed with caution, despite this the company was very supportive of the idea, she said.
The first commercial tour was run on Christmas Eve in 2022 and demand for tours has been steady since.
Tours are available seven days a week, and have hosted a wide variety of domestic and international tourists keen to explore the dam, she said.
"There’s a real variety of people from people with young children right up to very elderly people that want to go, from all walks of life."
Ms Johnstone said American tourists had been particularly interested in tours.
"Hoover Dam is their big famous one and you’re miles away from anywhere from a viewing point of view.
"You do not actually get to go into it per se and they come here and go, we’re just floored they’re thrilled," she said.
