"Stay within your ability and experience and you can minimise your risks," said Brad Stone, of Southland Hospital.
"There will always be accidents on skifields, but if you are less experienced [and] on the less experienced slope, you are more likely to be around people of similar skill and travelling at similar speed and therefore the risks of collision are reduced."
Research showed the most common factor in snow injuries was the level of experience.
He said there was no evidence to suggest skiers or snowboarders who used the terrain park were at any greater risk of injury, and those who injured themselves were generally people who ventured outside their level of ability.
He said there was a "reasonably strong difference between ski and snowboarding injuries".
Mr Stone said skiing injuries were typically tibial fractures or soft-tissues injuries about the knee, while the snowboard equivalents were distal radius, humerus and carpal bone fractures to the wrist and forearm.
He likened wearing a ski boot to having a "large crescent on the end of your ankle" and injuries often resulted from a twisting action of their ankle inside the boot.
When snowboarders fell, they tended to put their arms out, meaning wrist and forearm injuries.
NZski chief executive James Coddington said slow zones or "courtesy control" areas were actively promoted by NZski staff at the company's three skifields.
Mr Coddington said the areas were "heavily policed" to ensure people were skiing with control and able to stop at a "very safe distance".
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