Matariki Communications Update - Action 7.4

Work Area 7
Enhance visitor satisfaction and increase spend

Action 7.4
Support and resource continued collaboration between organisations responsible for events.

Update - November 2017
Positive progress continues on Action 7.4 with Hawke’s Bay Tourism, Council events staff and event managers from around the region working collaboratively to ensure a vibrant and economically beneficial event schedule is in place.

Annie Dundas, General Manager of Hawke’s Bay Tourism says members of the Event Managers Group meet on a monthly basis in a formal capacity to discuss upcoming events, event support, changes to health and safety as it relates to the event industry, and regional co-ordination of activities around event activations.

In addition to formal meetings, members meet informally to discuss individual events with managers of regionally significant events including Horse of the Year, Triple Peaks, Hawke’s Bay Marathon and The Big Easy.

Ms Dundas says The Big Easy was originally established as a regional initiative to support the extensive network of cycle trails throughout Hawke’s Bay.

“This event has become increasingly popular, and is now in its sixth year. It takes place over Easter each year and sees approximately 2,500 riders partake in a fun easy cycle on the trails across the entire region. Though it started off in Napier and Hastings it has now expanded into Central Hawke’s Bay and Wairoa, making it a truly regional event.”

The Event Management Group also supported the successful bid to host the Air New Zealand Hawke’s Bay International Marathon, an event that takes place in the off-season.

“This was a truly regional initiative with each entity sharing the partnership cost. This event was secured for three years and has brought close to 12,000 people into Hawke’s Bay each May – a month normally outside the visitor season.”

Ms Dundas adds that Summer and Winter FAWC! are now both firmly established as iconic Hawke’s Bay events and are well supported by Napier and Hastings in terms of city and district branding.

“Winter FAWC! in June sells between 3,000-5,000 tickets and Summer FAWC! between 5,000-6,000 tickets. A significant number of ticket sales are to food and wine lovers from outside the region.”

The key areas focused on by the Event Managers Group include:

§ supporting events that fall outside of the peak summer season,
§ working on a balanced event portfolio for Hawke’s Bay across the year
§ enabling the event industry by providing resources and expertise in marketing and compliance
§ providing a marketing platform for event listings
(See https://www.hawkesbaynz.com/whats-on/events/the-whats-on-guide/)

The group has also produced several reports to assess the visitor impact of events such as Art Deco Weekend and Horse of the Year.

In the coming months the Event Managers Group will continue to support and leverage the events the region runs, seek to develop new events that fit with seasonal messaging and build resources for the industry to further enable them to run better, more efficient events.

Long term, the primary goal of Action 7.4 remains the same – to increase visitor spend. The group would also like to ensure existing events continue to thrive, and to see more annual visitor events developed, bringing ongoing economic benefits to Hawke’s Bay.

“Events provide reasons for people to visit Hawke’s Bay. This is new money into our region, money that would not have come into Hawke’s Bay had those events not occurred here.”

ends

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