Hon Matt Doocey

Minister for Tourism and Hospitality

A new $5 million regional events promotion fund will help attract more visitors to the regions year-round Tourism and Hospitality Minister Matt Doocey has announced today at the Otago Tourism Policy School.

“The tourism and hospitality sector has an important role to play in growing our economy, particularly in our regions. To do this, we need to focus on increasing visitation across the whole country and throughout the entire year,” Matt Doocey says.

“Events are excellent drawcards to get more visitors to our regions, which is why we’ve announced this new fund today. It was included in our 100-point Economic Plan and it’s great to be able to deliver it for the sector.”

The Regional Events Promotion Fund is available to regional tourism organisations and councils outside of the main centres to help promote events to domestic visitors.

“As a Government we are committed to seeing the economy grow and to do that we need to grow tourism, and enable regional and rural New Zealand to benefit from the economic opportunities of tourism.

“Creating a strong economy is our key focus for the next three years. This new fund will support our regions to maximise the value of tourism, currently our second largest export earner.”

The first round of applications for the Regional Events Promotion Fund will open on 8 April with decisions expected to be made by mid-June.

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