The council-owned holiday parks in Queenstown and Arrowtown are on target to meet their budgets for the 2009-10 financial year.
The Queenstown Lakeview Holiday Park is earning more money than budgeted, whereas the Arrowtown Born of Gold Holiday Park is losing money, but less than expected in the budget.
"The result so far is great news about where we are going. With a surplus in the net operating result, we are tracking ahead of budget and expect to meet the budget for the year," Queenstown Lakes District Council finance manager Stewart Burns said.
The Queenstown park had revenue for the period July 2009 to March 2010 of $2.206 million. This is $40,000 ahead of the budget of $2.166 million for the same period, and the budget for the full 12 months is $2.636 million.
In a report to the council's finance committee, holiday park manager Greg Hartshorne said the revenue was down by about 2% compared to the same period last year, but advance bookings indicated budgets would be met.
Operating costs before interest and depreciation for the first nine months of the financial year were $1.25 million, $17,000 under the budgeted costs. The result is a net operating surplus of $642,000, which is $59,000 ahead of the budget for the period.
In Arrowtown the revenue for the nine months was $441,000 against a budget of $460,000. The operating cost was kept down to $340,000, $51,000 less than the budgeted costs.
The park faces high interest charges which, together with depreciation, resulted in a deficit of $78,000. This was still less than the budgeted loss of $114,000 for the first nine months.
Mr Burns said any operating surplus generated by
