About 100 Australian "schoolies" are expected in Queenstown next month to celebrate graduation, but tour operators are promising nothing like the "drunken yobbos" who have plagued the Gold Coast.
Schoolies is the popular name for both Australian high school graduates celebrating the end of their final exams, and the week-long, 30,000 person party that ensues.
Binge-drinking, drug use, violence and an annual media frenzy are all associated with what is considered a rite of passage for many, with 145 schoolies arrested at last November's Gold Coast celebrations.
However, Cutting Edge Adventures - one of three companies looking to bring schoolies to Queenstown this year - said its trial trip would instead offer an "adventurous" and alternative experience.
"Your perception, and what everyone else perceives schoolies to be, is a whole lot of drunk 16, 17 and 18-year-olds being yobbos," said Cutting Edge Adventures Australia director Tim Jones.
"We are trying to encourage more positive choices for celebrating the end of school ... A healthier option in one of the best parts of the world and where they can hopefully come away after a week of experiences having achieved something. It's a different market."
Between 40 and 48 graduates are booked to fly in on November 26 on the "Queenstown Schoolies" tour.
Staying at Base Backpackers, they choose an adventure tourism activity each day of the seven-night stay, with the rest of the stay as free time.
Mr Jones said that depending on how the trial run went, tours could be held over two or three weeks, catering for "a couple of hundred people" each.
"It has the potential ... but there's a lot of responsibility on us to provide safe travel and to look after Queenstown to ensure that what happens to Queensland doesn't happen here."
The other two tour operators offering trips to Queenstown are I Like To Party - which, along with Cutting Edge, already brings snow tours to the resort - and Sure Thing Schoolies.
Destination Queenstown chief executive Tony Everitt confirmed about 100 schoolies were expected and he had no concerns about any potential growth in schoolies visitors.
"We don't think it would ever resemble what happens in Australia, for a whole lot of reasons. People have to get on a plane and go through a travel agent and lot of the stuff that goes on in Australia is just [caused by] people that cruise in on motorbikes."
He thought it would be "misleading" to label the graduates as schoolies and said they would be an "imperceptible" part of Queenstown's regular flow of youth travellers.
Base Backpackers Queenstown general manager Blair Impey said when contacted he thought an increase in schoolies visits would be positive for the resort.
"In the long run, I think the growth would be a good thing for Queenstown. It's introducing young people to Queenstown and, obviously, we are marketing it as a fun place to be ... Hopefully, they will be well controlled and don't get out of control."
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