Hot spring and spa development will be at the forefront of Rotorua mayor Steve Chadwick’s agenda when she visits the New Zealand city’s sister city of Beppu in Japan later this week.

Rotorua will be looking to emulate Beppu, which is celebrating its 90th year as a city and the 100th anniversary of its hot springs festival.

Beppu – a Japanese city with a population of 125,000 – is one of the world’s leading destinations for highly-developed geothermal attractions and hot springs and generates significant tourism revenue through its wellness offerings.

"Beppu’s anniversary celebrations provides a timely opportunity to investigate hot springs and geothermal opportunities for our city,” said Chadwick speaking to Voxy.

"Our council wants to see the unique natural geothermal attributes of our own Kuirau Park substantially developed in the future so the park can become a focal point of Rotorua’s geothermal experience. At present Kuirau Park is not realising its potential. It’s under-developed, under-utilised and falls short as a quality international visitor attraction; so this is a chance to look at ideas for transforming Kuirau Park into something special."

Kuirau Park currently offers geothermal experiences limited to a foot bath in the waters, which are too hot for bathing in, though the mayor wants to utilise the waters to better offer spa and wellness experiences in an effort to drive tourism for the area.

Thermal tourism is becoming a hot commodity in New Zealand with recent plans in the works for a NZ$25m (£12.6m, US$20.6m, €15m) hot pools and spa complex in Queenstown.

Chadwick campaigned on the issue during last year’s mayoral election, highlighting geothermal opportunities and calling for Rotorua to build a reputation as the South Pacific’s spa capital.