New options for skiers

Press, 1 June 1985, Page 25

New options for skiers

Queenstown correspondent Skiers will have the choice of “driving their bed to Queenstown” from Canterbury ski-fields or flying direct from Ashburton this ski season. Newmans Group has introduced a new mobile ski home rental system, which will begin operation as soon as the ski season gets under way. Newmans Airline has also included a flight between Ashburton and Queenstown to operate throughout the ski season, starting about mid-July. The new service would operate twice a week, coinciding with ski tours and would mainly be aimed at overseas ski-ing visitors, the company’s chief executive, Mr Ken McDonald, said in Queenstown this week. The flight would take about 60 minutes and would leave early in the morning so that skiers arrived in time for a day’s ski-ing, he said.

The company’s new “winterised ski homes” had already proved popular. They were an extension of the Newmans Rental summer touring concept, according to the marketing manager for Newmans Air in Auckland, Mr John Cook. The mobile ski homes were fully heated. They had complete cooking facilities and were designed to alleviate accommodation problems in Queenstown during the ski season, he said.