Up to 10 expressions of interest have been received by the council from organisations wanting to enter into a commercial arrangement for private provision of council-owned camping facilities at Queenstown, Wanaka, Arrowtown, and Glendhu Bay.
''I think what it shows is that people see holiday parks and camping as a good business in that district ... and there are people in the private sector who want to run them and we've got to see if we can turn that into a commercial reality,'' Mr Feeley said.
The call for applications, which closed on Friday, followed a review earlier this year into the nature and scale of the council's role in the future operation of its camping grounds. As a result of the report, the council amended its camping ground policy so it could no longer run camping grounds which competed with those operated by the private sector; or which required significant subsidies from ratepayers. The aim was to ensure there were ''traditional Kiwi camping facilities'' in the district to provide affordable accommodation.
Mr Feeley said most applications had come from within the district, although any other details on who had registered their interest remained confidential.
While there had been some concern potential operators might ''try and cherry-pick the better-performing camping grounds'', discussions in the lead-up phase indicated there were people interested in running all four of the council-owned camping grounds, or running either the two in the Wakatipu basin or the two in the Upper Clutha.
''I haven't seen what that's translated to in terms of actual proposals but I think there's going to be a good mix of potential deals,'' Mr Feeley said.
''It's obviously potentially a little complicated in the sense that we have not been prescriptive in what people propose ... there's quite a complicated juggling exercise to go through to ensure that the overall deal on the table is the best possible one.''
The expressions of interest would be evaluated during the next few weeks then a preferred proposal would be taken to the next full council meeting on June 25.
Mr Feeley envisaged a leasing arrangement being finalised by spring so any incoming operators would be in place before the busy summer holiday period.
