Crankworx visitors set to fill Rotorua

Mountain-biking mad riders and spectators are streaming into Rotorua's hotels, motels and campgrounds, with one thing on their minds - Crankworx.

Owner of Rotorua Top 10 Holiday Park and chairwoman of Rotorua Holiday Accommodation Parks New Zealand, Jasmine Adams, said she still had a few rooms available, but was sure they would be full by the time the event started.

Crankworx Rotorua runs from Saturday to April 2 and brought an estimated $8 million to the district last year with about 15,000 people buying tickets to the event.

Mrs Adams said they had just finished building a bike station at the holiday park where cyclists could clean, repair and service their bikes.

"We've been doing a lot of research into it and it's got everything a cyclist would need.

"Talking to other park operators, they have had a lot of people book to stay for the event and it looks like there's a few of them here already."

Mrs Adams said as the event ran for almost two weeks, she expected all of Rotorua's holiday parks to be close to fully booked.

"We are still getting last-minute bookings."

Tourism Industry Aotearoa regional chairman for Rotorua hotels Blair Chalmers said the nature of the event saw most hotels also pick up last-minute bookings when visitors realised everything else was fully booked.

"March overall has been a very strong month and we are looking to be extra busy for the week of Crankworx - basically, town will be humming.

"Because we usually do a lot of wholesale [bookings], we start to take later bookings when the motels and backpackers start filling up and people need accommodation."

But, Neil Macdonald, co-owner Rotorua Central Backpackers, said their bookings were solid, "so we're not chocka over Crankworx week".

"We've had a good season, but it's starting to quieten down now.

Rotorua's Astray Motel owner/manager Tim Gao said Crankworx fans had not started turning up yet, but said he only had three rooms left for this Saturday and six for next Saturday.

"But I think they will be full for both weekends," he said.

Rotorua Association of Motels chairman Mike Gallagher said he believed there was still availability over the next two weekends.

He said a lot of people watched the weather and made their decisions on travel at the last minute.

Once a number of motels filled up others got the overflow so Crankworx was a good event for all accomodation providers, he said.

Crankworx Rotorua
Runs from Saturday to Sunday April 2
Last year attracted about 15,000 people to the event
13,750 international room nights with 1528 international visitors staying for an average of nine nights
4.7 million online viewers for the 2016 event
Injected an estimated $8 million into the Rotorua economy last year