The 2011 Rugby World Cup will offer Queenstown a massive winter tourism opportunity - five weeks of consecutive New Zealand and Australian school holidays, says NZSki CEO James Coddington.
Due to the Government's decision to move New Zealand school holidays back two weeks to allow children to enjoy the world cup, unlike previous years the Australasian school holidays will not coincide.
"Instead of everyone wanting to come over two weeks it's going to be spread over five weeks," said Mr Coddington.
"So there should be more occupancy available and also from a flight point of view, there's going to be more people able to fly directly into Queenstown - there will be more capacity spread over a longer period."
This also means that the school holidays period - traditionally a busy time in Queenstown for winter holiday makers - will overlap with the winter festival.
"Once the winter festival starts, you're going to see a pretty consistent level of visitors all the way through to the start of August, which is great business and great for the community," Mr Coddington said.
Queensland school holidays start on June 25, followed by New South Wales on July 2, Western Australia on July 9, and the New Zealand school holidays on July 16. "The benefit of that is that it spreads out the load and spreads out the peaks.
Last year all the school holidays came at the same time, spread over two weeks, and this year . . . by spreading the load, we are going to be able to deliver the very best product and service to more people."
