A report showing the value of a popular trail is giving confidence to the Fiordland Trails Trust which plans to make Te Anau a cycling hub, the trust chairman says.
The trust engaged Angus & Associates to produce an impact assessment report to measure the economic impact of the Lake2Lake Trail which runs from Te Anau to Manapouri.
It was estimated the direct economic contribution of it in the year to March 2023 was $3.025 million, with 5148 people visiting it to cycle, walk or just as a tourist attraction.
These visitors collectively stayed more than 10,000 nights in the area and spent more than $1.8m in total, the report stated.
Trust chairman David Boniface said the assessment positively highlighted the value of the asset.
"That value wasn’t known and we, as a trust, knew it had a great value within it.
"We’ve done an internal exercise ourself and came up with a number — but to have an independent expert to complete this analysis and get to where they did, just for a snapshot of the year, we were very pleased."
He said this finding would help them to source funding opportunities as at present they relied on local funders almost exclusively.
"We’ve never attracted a lot of government funding and we’ve now got a snapshot, which indicates its real value.
"Hopefully, that can be of assistance as we go forward."
This would be paramount for the potential expansion of the trail as the report indicated that they did not have enough trail and network to make it an attraction in its own right, he said.
At present the trail — which cost about $1.8m to build — expands for about 33km.
"So we are committed to expanding our network and we are currently expanding to the north towards Te Anau Downs.
"We have a resource consents in place to construct another 11km heading north up the lake ... but our limitation is its funds of course."
While the trust had also limitations around the area of construction, as they could not build trails across the National Park, the trust would like to see an expansion towards Kepler Mire and Whitestone Rivertrail.
Almost three-quarters of trail users expressed support for those projects, he said.
"We’re doing scoping exercises on those currently.
"Our intention is to make Te Anau a cycling hub ... The hub being the centre and trails radiating out. There’s hundreds of kilometres of trails that we could build so we are working hard to make this happen."
