Queenstown has grown and developed quite quickly in the past few years. Its growth has caused some issues, along with some opportunities. The amount of tourists, traffic and the lack of houses are all issues in Queenstown today.

Vast numbers of tourists visit Queenstown every year as it is the tourist capital. Queenstown is such a small town and can seem overpopulated with so many people. In February last year they recorded 321,734 guest nights in Queenstown. Some people may think there are too many tourists in Queenstown, but we certainly make a lot of money from it. So if more tourists visit each year we still have an opportunity to benefit financially but we need to plan carefully for this growth.

There are also negatives. Traffic in Queenstown is crazy. It takes ages just to get to places. New suburbs have been built as Queenstown is growing very rapidly. Recently there has been new traffic lights and roundabouts built along the highway and in town. This has caused the cars to slow down and the traffic to get worse. There is no solution at the moment and we must wait in the long traffic lines.

It can be a huge struggle to get a house in Queenstown as there aren’t many available and they are expensive. With such a big population and continued growth there is a shortage. But this won't be an issue for too long. There will 800-900 houses built in Shotover Country and there is an upcoming housing project which will have over 2100 houses at affordable prices. So hopefully this means there will be enough houses for everyone in the future.

To conclude there are many issues in Queenstown, some with solutions or opportunities and some without any obvious solutions as yet. We must keep looking for simple solutions to resolve all of these issues and look out for the opportunities for our beautiful area in the future.

By Rei Watanabe - Wakatipu High School Year 10 Student