Skifields suffer from mild winter

The mild winter has hurt the South Island ski industry - but a late dump of snow meant North Island operators escaped the worst.

Despite a slow start to the ski season, operators on Mt Ruapehu say visitor figures were similar to last year.

Whakapapa and Turoa ski area spokesman Mike Smith said the ski base was below average but it looked as if the season could come out as the second best in five years.

"It's been a tough season to manage. We didn't have a good start. July was patchy. But then we had record numbers of fine days."

But in the South Island, cold snaps came too late for the ski fields.

Mt Hutt ski area manager David Wilson said the warm winter was "tough" and had affected both local and international numbers.

"I would say this has been, from a numbers point of view, the lowest Mt Hutt has had for a number of years."

Mr Wilson said the field got just a quarter of its average snowfall. Last year there was three times more snow.

But he added: "We're happy with the result given the snow conditions we received."

Les Troupes Apartments manager Kevin Kerr in Akaroa said the seaside town three hours from Mt Hutt had seen a drop.

"We've definitely noticed a huge downturn of skiing visitors from Australia. We've had half a dozen, tops - normally you'd get that many in one week." Brinkley Village Resort owner David Deboer of Methven said the shortage of visitors from overseas and the North Island had hurt businesses in the area. He said it was so bad that the United States ski team had cancelled one month of accommodation at his resort.

Coronet Peak mountain manager Russell Hall said visitor numbers were good but had fallen out towards the end of the season when the mountain was forced to close three weeks early because of warm weather.

According to principal scientist Jim Salinger at Niwa Science, New Zealand winters have been steadily getting warmer and this will continue.

Since 1998 the country has experienced five of the warmest winters on record.

Mr Salinger said global warming caused the climate change.

- NZPA