And if long-term average growth trends continue, spending effects driven by bike tourism could rise to almost $600 million a year within 30 years.
Arrowtown-based regional economist Benje Patterson first examined biking’s contribution to the district’s economy in 2021.
At that time, he found total spend by biking visitors to Queenstown was $157.6m, $101.6m of that from visitors who primarily travelled to the resort to bike.
And he predicted biking could be worth almost $210m to the district’s economy by 2026 — about half the size of the ski visitor economy.
In his new report, released last month, Mr Patterson found that figure had already been exceeded.
In the year to June, visits to the area motivated by biking were estimated to have generated $280m of visitor spend, a 125% increase in the past four years.
And bike visitor spending supported almost 1150 jobs.
Mr Patterson’s report said an estimated 344,500 people biked in the Queenstown Lakes district in the 12 months to June, an increase of almost 90% over the past four years.
Of those, 338,000 were visitors and 6500 were residents who biked regularly for recreation.
In terms of future demand, the report said if long-term average growth trends continued, there would be 100,000 additional bikers in the Queenstown Lakes district each year by 2035.
Within 30 years there could be 400,000 more bikers each year.
Under that scenario, the spending effects driven by bike tourism could rise to $600m within three decades.
Mr Patterson’s first report was commissioned by Queenstown-based tech entrepreneur Rod Drury who, in recent years, has committed more than $4m to biking infrastructure across the Wakatipu.
Last September, he also launched philanthropic non-profit organisation Tahuna Ride and Conservation (Trac) which amplifies strategic projects at the interface of conservation and bike recreation in Queenstown.
Mr Drury said one of the reasons the sector had grown faster than expected was because of the global reputation Queenstown had built as a biking destination.
"What we’ve done is build great infrastructure and then we’ve connected to all the global mountainbikers that are here doing all their video content.
"Really inexpensively, we’ve created Queenstown — quite deliberately — as a fantasy destination."
Mr Drury noted biking infrastructure to date had been created largely by the resident community using local investment.
While reports such as Mr Patterson’s created a better understanding of the importance of bike visitors to the economy, "it kind of feels a little bit like we’re doing it on our own".
He suggested businesses that derived a benefit from biking tourism could commit to donating $10,000 per annum, for example, to the mountainbike club or Queenstown Trails Trust to help maintain the quality of existing assets and help fund future trail developments.
"We can see this is a major contributor for tourism, so it’s good to see — it kind of validates what we’ve all thought, but it’s very grassroots."
