Preperations are heating up as the New Zealand Winter Games draw closer.
The Games, to be held in and around Queenstown, Wanaka and Naseby, run from August 25 to September 9.
One of the world’s top five winter sports events, it is expected to attract about 800 athletes from 40 countries.
Many of the world’s best would be among those 800.The free-ski and snowboard events got many of the Olympic medal contenders, as did the big mountain, curling and alpine events.
Preparations had been going well and several changes from the last Games two years ago had them looking better than ever, Klap said.
They included moving the Games to start in late August, as well as encompassing more skifields than before.
"We’re certainly really excited that both the Remarkables and Treble Cone are now included in the programme," Klap said.
"Both of those fields are fantastic additions to the programme.
"It means that not only ... are all the skifields engaged, but each of those skifields has its own atmosphere, its own imagery and footage that will go out internationally.
"So it’s fantastic promotion for the region because every part of the region is being promoted in the television coverage."
The Games would act as a boost to Queenstown, Wanaka and Naseby, teams being around in some cases for 56 nights from early August until the end of October.
Upwards of 40,000 bed nights were expected to be booked across that time, Klap said.
Alongside that, the venues would be measuring the impact of shifting the games to later in August.
"Certainly, in terms of the venues themselves, the impact, now that we’ve moved it into that spring period, that’s going to be the interesting one.
"We will certainly be measuring the impact we’ve been able to make on the fields with the extra visitation in that September period and the fields will be looking closely at that as well."
He expected a strong New Zealand representation, as the event was an important step towards next year’s Winter Olympics in South Korea, Klap said.
In the snowsports events, New Zealand was looking at taking a team of more than 20 athletes to Pyeongchang, up from the 11 in 2014.
The event, at present held every two years, is looking to become an annual one.
It had not yet locked down all the financial aspects of that, but they were moving well and organisers were optimistic it would happen, Klap said.
