Embargoed until 5.30 pm
Thursday 27 September 2007

Rt Hon Helen Clark
Prime Minister

Address at
Opening of The Westin Lighter Quay Hotel

Viaduct Harbour
Auckland

5.30 pm

Thursday 27 September 2007

Thank you for inviting me here this evening to this formal opening of the Westin Auckland Lighter Quay hotel.

This is no ordinary hotel. It is a stimulating work of architecture, and thus a very good example of quality design. I congratulate Nigel McKenna and his team for coming up with yet another top class facility.

This is the first five-star hotel to open in Auckland in the last six years. It is thus a significant development for our tourism industry.

We need accommodation of this quality to service our high value visitors.

As our economy continues to prosper and as corporate and other visitor numbers grow, there is a need for more five-star hotel accommodation.

Melview Developments Limited has invested $130 million in this project. It is a high quality investment decision which will benefit Auckland.

As we work our way towards hosting the major games for Rugby World Cup in Auckland in 2011, we are all conscious of the need to have critical accommodation and other infrastructure in place.

And, meantime, there are the World Netball Championships 2007 and the World Sailing Regatta 2008 coming up.

Tourism is a crucial industry for New Zealand, directly and indirectly contributing around $12.8 billion per annum to the economy, or around nine per cent, of New Zealand’s total GDP. In the Auckland region, the contribution is around five per cent of GDP and an estimated eight per cent of regional employment.

International tourism expenditure alone now accounts for over nineteen per cent of New Zealand’s export earnings.

It is our international tourism markets which have the highest rates of growth in expenditure forecasts. International visitor expenditure is predicted to grow by 7.4 per cent per year to 2013. It’s important that we are positioned as a premium destination. Having sufficient five star accommodation is critical to that.

Hotel guests have the highest average spend per day of all international visitors, at $232 spend per day, compared with an average overall of $137 per day.

But, on average, international hotel guests stay for only 13 nights on their trip to New Zealand, compared with an overall average for all accommodation types of 21 nights per trip.

I hope superb facilities like the Westin at Lighter Quay, with its luxurious and innovative guest services will encourage our guests to stay even longer !

New Zealand and our tourism attractions are held in high regard by overseas visitors.

So, it’s important that we live up to our visitors’ expectations, and provide them with the high quality experiences they have been looking forward to having.

No doubt many of the guests who stay here will have experienced one of the many Westin hotels dotted across the globe.

I understand that this development is the fourth Westin property in the Pacific region, following others in Melbourne, Sydney, and Fiji.

But soon there will be Westin hotels servicing both the North and South Islands of New Zealand. I very much look forward to the new Westin Queenstown at Kawarau Falls Station opening in June next year.

These two Westin developments alone will then represent almost an eighteen per cent increase in the five-star bedstock of New Zealand hotels. Let’s hope the trend continues that way.

And now, it is my great pleasure to declare The Westin Auckland Lighter Quay officially open.

ENDS

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