Ski season off to good strong start

By Chris Hutching

Friday 21st June 2002

Atrocious weather this week had most New Zealanders reaching for their winter woollies and a warm place to hide but skifield operators were rubbing their hands in anticipation of opening this weekend.

South Island fields Coronet Peak and Mt Hutt began operating last weekend and some of the smaller ones will open at different times over the next fortnight but most of the big ones are warming up for their first big day tomorrow.

The New Zealand ski industry provides more than $56 million in annual turnover from 28 ski areas that last season catered for about 1.25 million skier visits.

The industry generates downstream benefits, particularly from overseas visitors (mostly Australians) who make up about 30% of the skier numbers.

This year has also seen a new website to rival established snow.co called snowreports.co.nz whose founder is Peter Foote of Mount Dobson Ski Area in Fairlie. He said the advantage of his web site for some other users seeking links was that it was "clean," meaning it contained only snow report information whereas snow.co had a range of other information. Most of the ski fields also have their own websites with links to snow.co and snowreports.com.

In the North Island Ruapehu Alpine Lifts took over the Turoa skifield in 2000 and markets it in conjunction with the Whakapapa field and the club field of Tukino. A $3.5 million upgrade promises improved facilities at Turoa. Mt Taranaki operates the club field of Manganui.

The opening of this year's ski season had special significance for Duncan Smith, one of the consortium of investors who recently bought the three South Island ski fields that comprise nzski.com from Air New Zealand for $27 million. The company operates Coronet Peak, The Remarkables and Mt Hutt ski areas.

The deal was backed by the majority shareholder and owner of several other tourism operations, John Davies. He holds nearly two-thirds of the interest in the purchasing company, Southern Alpine Resort Recreation, with the balance held through other companies by nzski.com general manager Mr Smith and Queenstown businessman Graham Smolenski, a former manager at Millbrook Resort.

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