Senior lecturer Pete Eley said the polytechnic looked long and hard at the accommodation issue and found it would probably be easier for students to find a room in Wanaka as it had "a larger shared accommodation market with like-minded people than in Cromwell".
Rent prices were starting to go up in Cromwell because of the demand for housing from Queenstown workers, he said.
The decision to move the one-year (level 4) New Zealand certificate in outdoor and adventure education (multi-skilled) to classrooms in Wanaka after only 12 months based at the Central Otago campus was also a response to central government’s decision to merge polytechnics around the country into one national campus next year.
"We had been looking at a three-year consolidation period in Cromwell and then a review, but we thought there may not be a huge amount of movement once the 16 polytechnics had merged, so we just pre-empted that."
Mr Eley said the outdoor and adventure education programme had been running in Dunedin since 2000 but people were doing "a fair chunk of travelling as we were coming up here [to Wanaka] for our whitewater kayaking and rock climbing practicals."
"We already do bits and pieces with some of the adventure providers in Wanaka, so we could see there would be a lot of synergies by being based here.
"Also we know Wanaka is one large outdoor playground and so the ability for students to be immersed in the location and activities will give them more opportunities than Cromwell or Dunedin," he said.
Mr Eley said the polytechnic hoped to expand the range of courses offered at Wanaka as "unashamedly, we know Wanaka has much better marketing appeal than Cromwell does."
The Wanaka building in Cliff Wilson Dr already offers courses in skiing, snowboarding, avalanche programme, midwifery and nursing.
