New Zealand has set its sights on South-east Asia as one of its key growth markets for the country’s business events industry.
“Conferencing until now has been predominantly focused on Australia but we’ve been exploring opportunities for South-east Asia, with new infrastructure coming onstream in Auckland in 2019 and Christchurch in 2020”, said René de Monchy, director trade, PR and major events for Tourism New Zealand, in an interview with TTGmice at CINZ MEETINGS 2017 which started yesterday.
New Zealand is celebrating NZ$311 million (US$219.8 million) in economic impact from wins in conference and incentive bids over the past four years, a handsome return on investment from the New Zealand government’s NZD$23 million made in 2013 to attract business events to the country.
Convention arrivals are also on the rise for New Zealand, hitting 66,000 at year ending March 2017, a four per cent increase from the year before.
“Success breeds more success. Next year’s KPIs will be higher than last year’s. It is important that when we go with the industry and bid for conferences (and) attain a high win rate which we have so far. We’re at a win rate of about 75 per cent,” said de Monchy.
Amway China, which is bringing 10,000 delegates to Queenstown next year in waves of 600 people at a time, will generate NZ$50 million worth of economic impact for the destination. The event is by far the biggest incentive business New Zealand has ever won and it helps New Zealand’s position as an incentive and business conference destination.
