Snow business humming along
Eighty-five thousand meals with hot chips, 40,000 pies, 50,000 flat whites, and 421,000 cold beverages, many of them beers.
While the erratic and relatively light snowfall made the 2023 winter season operationally challenging for Queenstown Lakes ski resorts, there were still plenty of skiers and snowboarders hitting the slopes and restaurants at The Remarkables and Coronet Peak.
NZSki welcomed just under half a million visitors to its two Queenstown skifields over the winter, 8% down on last year's record 540,000, but above the 10-year average of 434k guests.
The majority were at The Remarks, which enjoyed a record year as it had better snow days than other New Zealand mountains, including Coronet.
"It was really challenging from a snow perspective," NZSki chief executive Paul Anderson says, speaking at the annual ski season business wrap on Thursday.
"Coronet Peak had about 117cm of snow, which is only about half its annual average. Remarkables didn't do too badly, and it built during the year, but it was still below its annual average of between three and three-and-a-half metres."
Last season, Southern Lakes skifields recorded one million skier visits for the first time, but it was down 12% overall this year.
"So, we kind of did disproportionately well on the Queenstown side, with the Wānaka mountains potentially suffering a little bit more because we had the Aussies coming into Queenstown more."
The Australian market was up 3%.
Anderson says despite the headline numbers, the spend in F&B was a little softer than last year, but the spend across core products, including lift passes, rentals and snowsports lessons was strong.
In the summer months to come, Coronet will switch to mountain biking and sightseeing, while over at The Remarks the big Shadow Basin chairlift replacement project is underway.
The $23 million six-seater chairlift will open up 43 hectares of terrain and is the latest in $150m worth of investment in the past 12 years. The Remarks base building and expansion into The Doolans are in the company's longer term plans.
NZSki as a whole cut its emissions by a whopping 52% as it commits to the destination management plan, while it also took over the Tahuna Pod Hostel, to house 80 staff. It is building six two-bed apartments and 18 one-bed for more senior staff.
