Wanaka's skifields have united in a crackdown on season-pass fraud and will impose a two-year ban on any person found skiing without a pass or with a false pass, and will report every suspected case to police.
Wanaka police will also be watching town noticeboards, online sites or newspapers, for the illegal sale of passes.
Skifield operators confirmed yesterday the trespass ban would apply across all four skifields, regardless of the mountain on which the offence was committed.
Wanaka's four skifields are owned by different companies but are co-operating because they want offenders dealt with consistently.
Const Mike Johnston has worked with the skifields to ensure staff were trained to use the same reporting system.
Last year, Wanaka police processed 13 people for skifield fraud offences.
"That's a reasonable number but I believe it is only scraping the surface."
The Wanaka ski industry wanted to send a message nationally and internationally that skifield fraud would not be tolerated, Const Johnston said.
"The other thing we want to drive home is people [who] are selling their ski passes to other people to use are also committing an offence as a party [to fraud]. They will face the same consequences as the person using the pass ... From our point of view, this is the warning.
"So when people do get stopped, don't act surprised, don't get upset. Face the consequences," Const Johnston said.
Treble Cone operations manager Rosco Davies said scanning systems had been upgraded to include the Saddle Basin chairlift.
"It is like shoplifting. If that's 5% of the business, that's more costs on people who do pay," Mr Davies said.
The hardline approach would hopefully make skiers reconsider the risks and save the company in costs, he said.
Cardrona Alpine Ski Resort field manager Gary Husband said the scanning system quickly picked up anyone not ticketed correctly, but about 10 people had still been investigated last year.
"Sometimes it is a genuine mistake but I think a good percentage have been caught out and were quite surprised by the consequences," Mr Husband said.
Snow Park operations manager Sam Lee supported the new approach because of the costs it imposed on the company and regular pass-holders.
Most people caught for fraud last year had committed the offence late in the season, just before leaving the area.
But skiing without passes was a problem throughout the entire season and a scanning system had been introduced this year, Mr Lee said.
"With just one lift, it is a bit of an inconvenience for the honest people ...
"We want the support of our regular pass-holders to deter this action."
• Earlier this month, nzski.com announced life-time bans for fraud detected on any its ski mountains in Queenstown or Canterbury.
