NZ RIDES INTERNATIONAL WAVE

A REPORT released by New Zealand’s Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) showed a significant increase in int’l convention delegate spend in 2017.

The Convention Delegate Survey (CDS) stated spend was up 17% compared to the 12 months to Dec 2016.

Conventions and Incentives New Zealand (CINZ) chief executive officer Sue Sullivan believes the latest growth figures only tell the beginning of the story.

“This can only grow as our value proposition strengthens and we gear up for major new convention centre and hotel infrastructure which will give us the ability to cater for much larger multi-day conventions,” Sullivan said.

“These figures do not reflect the economic impact these international delegates have after they leave the country like ongoing relationships and knowledge transfers.”

The factors driving the growth in international spend for 2017 included an overall increase in delegate numbers which were up 9% and the duration of stay which improved by 20% to an average of 7.2 nights.

The only cause for concern for NZ was a 10% fall in nightly spend down from 2016 to $299.

Encouragingly, multi-day convention delegates stayed an estimated 1,080,000 visitor nights in New Zealand with around 82% (882,000) of visitor nights spent in the region that hosted the event.

Pictured: Auckland