The New Zealand Hotel Council's Queenstown chairwoman, Penny Clark, also general manager of Goldridge Resort, was asked to comment on the mood of more than a dozen managers who attended the council's monthly meeting.
"All of us are feeling pretty confident by November things will start to turn around and it will get better," Ms Clark said.
"In Queenstown, people used to stay two nights. We think what will now happen is people will stay three nights and the one night out of Christchurch has gone.
"They're re-doing their itineraries, so what will kick on in the summer is we'll get this extra night in Queenstown and there will probably be more flights directly into Queenstown, rather than going into Christchurch."
Ms Clark said, "We are needing some snow and the problem is the Australians have snow, which doesn't help our cause. I'm sure we'll get some, but every day goes by we don't and we have more information about earthquakes and volcanic ash, my concern now is the whole process of travelling to New Zealand might be slightly dented." Queenstown hotels with suites with kitchen facilities seemed to be booming, but standard hotels were not doing so well. This probably indicated top-end family groups were unaffected, but the next tier down were holding on to their money, she said.
Australians interested in using their favourable exchange rate to visit the United States, or travel on cruise ships, instead of going to New Zealand "whenever", along with the impact of Australia's own natural disasters, were factors affecting the number of transtasman visitors coming to Queenstown.
Hotel occupancy in 2011 would be in sharp contrast to the past two bumper years, Ms Clark said. Former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd's economic stimulus payment of $900 per person was spent by many Australians in New Zealand, which coincided with a buoyant ski season last year.
More rooms had become available since last year with the opening of the five-star, 178-room Hilton Queenstown and the four-star 98 single-bedroom apartment-style Kawarau Hotel.
While hotel managers were "as positive as you can be" about the 2011 Rugby World Cup, Queenstown was not directly affected as it was not hosting any matches, Ms Clark said.
