Tourism New Zealand figures show those who come to New Zealand to cycle spend more time here - more than a month compared to 20-29 days - and spend more than other tourists. A fifth of cycling visitors claim to have spent more than $5000 on their holiday.
The Rotorua event will be run with Canadian owners Crankworx Events Incorporated. The local festival operator and organiser will be not-for-profit company Mountain Bike Events Ltd, a public-private joint venture of Rotorua District Council, Skyline Rotorua and the owner of Multi-Day Adventures and Mountain Bike Rotorua, Tak Mutu.
"I think this will build the Rotorua brand even more," Mr Mutu said.
"It will be like the world championships and that pretty much doubled the population of mountain biking in Rotorua. Crankworx will have a similar effect - we'll be known as an international destination. We're not really known in North America, we're known in Europe but with Crankworx everyone will know us now."
He said the event had already created three new fulltime positions, six part-time and 14 casual. The casual jobs will be for the two weeks leading up to the festival and the week of the festival itself.
Skyline Rotorua general manager Bruce Thomasen said he expected to hire 50 extra staff in the weeks leading up to and after Crankworx and the event would also place extra demands on other services, such as accommodation, taxis, rental cars and other tourism businesses.
"I've already had people contacting me asking how they can get tickets," Mr Thomasen said.
"The long-term spin-off is the high-profile nature of the event. This solidifies Rotorua's status as the Southern Hemisphere's leading mountain bike destination and what it can do longer-term. It will be broadcast to more than 4.5 million viewers.
"This flows on to the residents of Rotorua - the bars in town will get more custom, the restaurants, other attractions such as the hot pools. It compounds."
Mr Mutu said track-building company Empire of Dirt, contracted to build the tracks at the new Gravity Park, would likely have to sub-contract due to the amount and style of trails that accompanied the Crankworx competitions.
About 750 riders are expected to take part in the five-day festival, with 80 per cent hailing from overseas. Mr Mutu said these riders would likely stay a bit longer than the five days of the festival.
The Crankworx management team have said the majority of them will spend at least two weeks in the country.
Accommodation providers have already shown their excitement, Mr Mutu said, with many signalling their wish to be involved somehow.
"A couple of motels want to get on board too," he said.
"Most major hotels have mountain biking facilities. They understand the gravity of the event ... the world championships brought in 14,000 people. They had almost 50,000 visitors at Skyline in that time. We expect to match that but hopefully get more.
"The boost financially will be huge and this will be ongoing. We can run it for as long as we want to or for as long as we can keep making it an awesome event. It's not like the world championships, world cups or even the nationals, which we've only got for one more year. Crankworx is ours and it's also got a bigger reach."
Rotorua Mountain Bike Club treasurer Malcolm Thomas said the club was excited at the prospect of Crankworx being held in the city.
"This will give exposure not just to Skyline but those who come here will ride in the Whakarewarewa Forest too. The club thinks it's going to be a great thing for New Zealand."
