Snow melts and visitors quit resort

Visitors to Queenstown are leaving the resort as fast as the snow is, according to accommodation managers.

Last month, Queenstown's hotel visitors were eight percentage points up on the previous June, but New Zealand Hotel Council Southern Lakes regional chairwoman Penny Clark said it had been "noticeably quieter" since school resumed on Monday.

This coincided in the past week with heavy rain then spring-like weather which reduced snow cover on Queenstown and Wanaka skifields.

Increased occupancy on last year was because of an undisturbed start to the ski season compared with last year's long-awaited snowfall, which came 10 days into July, she said.

"It's been good," she said.

"We've had a very positive start to the season. Whether we can keep that up is another challenge, but we love challenges in this industry."

The difference, she said, was snow.

"We've had snow on the mountains and not on the ground this year. Last year, we waited for this giant snowfall, which kept half the skiers trapped in Queenstown and unable to get up the mountains.""We had ash cloud and everything else. We haven't had all these other things thrown at us this year."

Queenstown Lakes District Council holiday park manager Greg Hartshorne confirmed numbers in his sector were up for June, but he had noticed a quieter start to July.

While "one would expect to be up" on last year, campervan patrons were well down, even taking into account last year's decline after the Canterbury earthquake.

"The campervan market will hopefully return to normal. It will come right."

He said most school holiday visitors to the Queenstown Lakeside, Wanaka Lakeside, Glendhu Bay Camping Ground and Arrowtown Born Of Gold Holiday Park were Australian, but even this solid market would shift if snow did not arrive soon.

"Queenstown is a convenience for Australians, but ... there are a lot of full flights leaving Australia for America. It is easy for them to say, 'Kids there's no snow in New Zealand, let's go to Disneyland instead'."

Mr Hartshorne said the lack of snow meant only those who had prebooked their holidays would arrive in Queenstown this winter.

Base Backpackers Queenstown bookings manager Josh Friendly said his clientele had not dropped any lower than expected and occupancy had been 98% for the month so far - up from June's 96%.

Ms Clark is predicting an "on and off, erratic" season for the hotel industry and while being "quietly confident" she is still relatively nervous about what is to come.

"We all know we need some snow, it is snow dependent," she said.

NZSki chief executive James Coddington agreed the alpine village was in desperate need of snow, but he said conditions were normal and no staff were being laid off.

"It's all pretty normal, and there's nothing much in it. Unfortunately, in this industry, we are at the mercy of the weather."

The automatic snow machines work in a 2degC frost and are keeping the skifields open.

Coronet Peak announced on Thursday it would stop weekend night skiing until conditions allowed.

Mr Coddington said the school holidays were busier than last year for Remarkables and Coronet Peak skifields, but he could not release figures on the numbers they had had to date.

- olivia.caldwell@odt.co.nz

 

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