Auckland parents were prepared to move to Queenstown so their children could attend a multimillion-dollar independent school proposed for the resort, its promoters say.
Interest from Queenstown parents for the years 7 to 13 school was "unbelievable", representative Lisa Guy, of Arrowtown, said.
The school could be open in two years.
Mrs Guy, Wentworth College principal Bruce Tong and Wentworth Property's Stephen Fleming mooted the idea of an independent school - providing another secondary school option in Queenstown - in March.
A public meeting attracted about 50 people, with an online survey finding 80 parents, representing about 130 children in anecdotal support of the school.
Of those, 97.3% supported a private school and 93.3% supported paying secondary school fees of $15,000 a year.
The academic syllabus was the highest scoring requirement for respondents, with 91.1% listing it as their priority.
Mrs Guy said each day she had been adding a parent to the database for the proposed school, with huge interest from Auckland parents prepared to move their family to Queenstown when the school opened.
"I know a lot of people who said the reason they wouldn't come here before was because of a lack of schooling options.
"The groundswell of parents contacting me is unbelievable.
"The locals that have expressed interest are now getting excited because they know it's going to happen ... it's a matter of timing."
The next step was to ascertain the number of parents who were "committed" to send-ing their children - who would be in years 7, 8 or 9 in 2013 or 2014 - to establish the likely number of children enrolled on day one and to determine the "urgency" for the school, Mrs Guy said.
"What we're really wanting to get really specific about is if there was to be a school in 2013 or 2014, how many year 7, 8 and 9 students would we have?
"We've got that in the survey, but we're asking for the information again so we get confirmation of 100 students on day one in 2013 or 2014 across the three years," Mrs Guy said.
Mr Tong told the Otago Daily Times there seemed to be "very good support" for the proposed school but there now needed to be more detailed work done on the prospective pupils to better understand how quickly the school was needed.
"For example, we might have 300 people saying it's a good idea, but they might range in age from a 1-year-old to a 13-year-old."
Initial work had also been done on the school's philosophy, with a decision it would be a co-educational, secular day school, Mrs Guy said.
The day school option had been chosen over boarding because the preference was to cater primarily to resident pupils.
"That's not to say international students and out of town students wouldn't be wanted, but they would probably be in family boarding situations," she said.
"There was also a concern the international to New Zealand ratio would get too skewed [if it was a boarding school].
"Also, children that don't have family support would end up here and we want to ensure the pastoral care elements are met," she said.
The next public meeting would probably be held in July.
