The company, which owns the Remarkables, Coronet Peak and Mt Hutt skifields, will also continue looking at options to house staff in the Wakatipu.
At NZSki’s end-of-season wrap, held in conjunction with the Queenstown Chamber of Commerce in Queenstown last night, company chief executive Paul Anderson said there was "no single silver bullet" when it came to the accommodation struggle.
This year about 45% of the company’s 900 Queenstown employees were new to the company and it April issued an SOS call to resort home owners to help find them accommodation.About 100 rooms, some previously being used for Airbnb rentals, were offered to house staff for the season.
"It’s not the silver bullet," Mr Anderson said.
"It’s always going to be part of the solution — we’ll keep on doing that ... while we work with some developers, including our own accommodation."
Mr Anderson said 14% of Queenstown’s visitor accommodation market was now in Airbnb, which had helped the company in terms of visitors, a third of which this year were Australians, up from 30% last year.
"I was really concerned about that.
"The Commercial Accommodation Monitor (Cam) for Queenstown ... was down about 2% year-on-year for the winter.
"This is where Aibrnb has really helped us out ... it’s given those people somewhere to go."
Mr Anderson said snow conditions through July and September meant visitor numbers were good, however, they "flattened off in August".
"The main driver of that was you guys [local residents].
"It was really because we weren’t skiing as much because we’re so choosey about conditions.
"A lot of locals didn’t go up and ski [in August] — we didn’t get the same value out of our season passes."
Overall, however, visits to the skifields had grown by 25% in the past three years.
New this year was the introduction of Wednesday night skiing at Coronet Peak during July — initiated to try to attract Australians to stay in Queenstown longer, but proving a hit with local residents.
Mr Anderson said that would return next year, as would more and bigger night events on the mountain.
"We really need to think about attracting more people to the mountains, particularly in the shoulder season."
Investment in coming months would focus on the learners ski areas at both mountains.
At the Remarkables a new learners area, with a gallery, longer conveyer and more snow making, would be created uphill from the existing area, would double the capacity for learners and improve accessibility.
The Coronet Peak learners area would also be expanded, with a new carpet installed.
Snow making equipment would be updated and added to and at Coronet Peak the ‘Ego Alley’ trail would be reinstated.
About $600,000 would be spent on two new grit trucks to get the roads open earlier and cleared faster, while two new buses would also be added.
A back-up power generator would be permanently installed at the Remarkables over the summer.
That followed three possum incidents, which knocked power for three days this year, affecting up to 15,000 visitors.
Last night guests also got a sneak peak at some of NZSki’s new marketing material for the Remarkables and Coronet Peak.
