Emboldened by New Zealand’s expanded infrastructure for large-scale meetings, growing destination awareness among planners around the world, as well as a stunning bid performance in FY2023, Tourism New Zealand has set itself a higher target of 90 fresh international conference bids worth NZ$135 million (US$83.9 million) for the new financial year.
In FY2023, the bureau enjoyed a victory of 84 successful bids that are worth NZ$120 million for New Zealand. The outcomes surpass targets of 70 bids worth NZ$105 million.
According to international bids manager Leonie Ashford, 30 to 40 per cent of these FY2023 bids are for Australia-originated meetings and will be delivered “soon” – within the next 12 to 18 months. The rest, along with earlier successful bids made throughout recent years, including during border closures, will be delivered up till 2028.
Tourism New Zealand chief executive, René de Monchy noted that with the global business events industry in full recovery mode, opportunities to attract quality events to the country are abundant.
He said business events form a “really important part of our FY2024 activities”, as they deliver high-quality visitors across the country and seasons, spend approximately twice as much as leisure travellers, and stay on for a longer period of time.
“Business events attract international experts in their field; the knowledge exchange through the knowledge they bring into New Zealand and the export of our knowledge through events is immense,” de Monchy added.
He acknowledged business events’ ability to “contribute to our country in many ways, both tangible and intangible”, such as by improving social and living conditions, helping secure investments, encouraging innovation, creating jobs, strengthening important economic pillars, and more.
When asked how Tourism New Zealand determined its bid target, de Monchy explained that factors including time and financial commitments were considered.
Tourism New Zealand will be keeping an eye out for Australia-originated meetings, which are traditionally an important segment of inbound meetings to the country, as well as those coming from associations based in Asia-Pacific.
Despite intense competition from other destinations, both de Monchy and Ashford are confident of meeting their targets, as New Zealand is recognised now as a “real option” for meetings.
“Many of the associations we are connecting with are now seeing us for the second time in their bidding process, and they are gaining faith in us, knowing that we are serious. We may not have been successful the first round, but we are finding that we are successful the second time,” Ashford told TTGmice.
She clarified that the 90-bid target will not include repeat attempts, indicating a much broader scope of bidding work undertaken by Tourism New Zealand.
Tourism New Zealand will tap into its Conference Assistance Program to support its bid attempts while working closely with its two new purpose-built convention centres in Christchurch and Wellington as well as the soon-to-come New Zealand International Convention Centre in Auckland (opening 2025), plus various other partners.
“Now with three new world-class pieces of infrastructure under our belt, I certainly hope we will surpass our targets more than we did for FY2023,” remarked de Monchy.
