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95% Of skier questions answered instantly by AI |
6 in 10 Conversations outside guest services hours |
Almost 700 hours Of staff time saved in one season |
Few guests ask more questions than skiers or riders. Is the mountain open? Which pass do I need? Can I change my lesson date? Where do I catch the shuttle? For NZSki, which operates Coronet Peak, The Remarkables and Mt Hutt, those questions arrive by the thousand every winter, often before the lifts start turning.
In 2026, NZSki launched a Yonder AI chatbot on the website of each of its three mountains. Over the season, the chatbots handled more than 18,000 guest conversations and answered 95% of them without any help from staff.
Running a ski resort means answering questions that change every single day. Lift status, road access, weather holds and snow conditions all shift overnight, and guests want the latest answer the moment they wake up.
On top of that, ski products are complex. Lift passes, season passes, multi-day options, lessons, programmes, rentals, shuttles and packages all come with their own terms of use. Guests need help choosing, and they need it while they’re on the website deciding.
For NZSki, that challenge was multiplied across three mountains, each with its own range of experiences, access roads and conditions. Every question answered by phone or email during peak weeks was time the guest services team couldn’t spend on the guests who truly needed them.
Each NZSki mountain got its own Yonder AI chatbot, trained on a combination of that resort’s knowledge base, website and bespoke information: passes, lessons, rentals, opening hours, road access, shuttle timetables and booking policies.
The rollout was staggered across the 2026 season. Mt Hutt went live well ahead of opening day to catch pre-season planning questions. Coronet Peak followed mid-season, and The Remarkables launched in the final weeks of winter. Each chatbot was answering guests confidently from its first week, showing that a resort doesn’t need to wait for the off-season to launch.
When a guest asks for a person, the chatbot hands the conversation to NZSki’s team in the same Yonder inbox so nothing falls through the cracks.
Launching mid-season meant changes and requests had to be turned around fast, with the team on hand in NZ hours.
“The support is world class. Ask for a report late in the afternoon and it’s in your inbox first thing next morning. Need a hand late in the day? There’s always someone to reach out to in NZ hours, whether it’s the Yonder team here at home in NZ or the TOMIS crew in the USA.”
Fiona Boyer, GM Customer, NZ Ski
Across the three mountains, the chatbots resolved 95% of guest conversations on their own. Only a small share needed a member of the team.
The questions were exactly the ones that used to fill phone lines and inboxes:
Every answer comes from NZSki’s own information database, written in a friendly, warm NZSki tone and concise so guests are linked straight to the right page to book or learn more.
“From day 1, Yonder leaned right into our tone of voice and brand guidelines, creating chatbots with their own characters and personalities unique to each maunga. Lambo at Hutt, Ru at Coronet and Kev at Remarks have chatted with thousands of guests this season, giving clear and on-point answers that sound just like us.”
Fiona Boyer, GM Customer, NZ Ski
Skiers don’t keep office hours. Chats started climbing from 6am as guests checked conditions before the drive up, peaked around 8am and stayed busy well into the evening as people planned their next days on the mountains.
Around six in every ten conversations happened outside guest services hours, or during peak rush hour where many guests were wanting to talk to NZSki’s Reservations or Guest Services teams. Without a chatbot, those guests would have been left waiting for a reply, or worse, deciding not to come. With Yonder, each one received a response to help guide them, within seconds.
The busiest pages for chat were the snow and weather reports, the homepage and the shop, lift pass and checkout pages. These are the moments when a guest is deciding whether to head up the mountain and which pass or products to book.
An instant, accurate answer at that point removes the doubt that may halt a purchase. Instead of leaving the checkout page to send an email and wait on a response, guests get their question answered and carry on booking.
By answering repetitive questions automatically, the chatbots saved NZSki’s team almost 700 hours over the season. The biggest savings landed during the busiest weeks of winter, exactly when guest services was stretched thinnest and seasonal staff were still finding their feet.
That time went back into the conversations that need a human touch: the guests whose situations genuinely needed a person.
NZSki operates three of New Zealand’s best-known ski areas: Coronet Peak and The Remarkables near Queenstown and Mt Hutt in Canterbury. Together they welcome skiers and snowboarders of all abilities from first-timers through to experts and world-class athletes, with programmes, lessons, rentals, ski transport, night skiing, a full range of lift passes and a shared season pass across all three mountains.
To learn more about NZSki, visit coronetpeak.co.nz, theremarkables.co.nz and mthutt.co.nz.