John Waddick, a retired specialist in educational design and adult learning, started studying Mandarin through short courses in 2008 and 2009 as "a tick off the bucket list".
However, he was soon hooked and disappointed to learn there was nowhere he could further his studies in Queenstown.
With help from a former tenant of his, Gina Gao, and Destination Queenstown, he used his expertise to design a course for himself and Queenstown people dealing every day with Chinese.
A year later, 17 people have signed up for the lessons, which are "basically full".
"It's mainly frontline tourism people, but also people wanting to start Chinese businesses and people wanting to learn it, as they are travelling to China and want to enrich their experience by learning a few words."
The not-for-profit classes are being run by Mr Waddick and Ms Gao provides the native Mandarin skills needed.
Mr Waddick said he had seen more Chinese people here during last week's Chinese New Year holiday period, and that, combined with a growing Chinese tourist market, meant having some basic language knowledge was increasingly important.
"It makes such a huge difference to know the language, even a few words. I'm still getting Happy New Year texts from people I met briefly, because of it."
Destination Queenstown chief executive Tony Everitt helped set up last year's first lessons and attended them, along with three other DQ staff.
"It's great that professional people in Queenstown are able to learn Chinese .. because there's no doubt there's been a big increase in Chinese visitors," Mr Everitt said.
"We are starting to grow our share of the Chinese people visiting New Zealand at the same time as the Chinese market visiting New Zealand is growing, so it's definitely significant."
He said the opportunity for people to "arm themselves with a few phrases" would come in handy and made professional visitors such as travel agents and journalists feel welcome.
