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“It will be a very important part of the recovery strategy, and events in general – not just business ones but sporting events, music events and regional events.”

The business events sector will play an important role in the tourism sector’s post-Covid-19 recovery, says Tourism New Zealand. Speaking yesterday on an industry webinar alongside tourism minister Kelvin Davis and Air New Zealand chief revenue officer Cam Wallace, TNZ chief executive Stephen England-Hall said there was “plenty” of opportunity from the domestic market for conventions, conferences and business events.

“Business events being largely business travel will be a very important segment to ensure is back up and running. They do move reasonable volumes of people, high-value people, to different places,” England-Hall said.

“And of course we can do that in a more controlled way because we can set in place certain hygiene or movement standards and other things because it is group travel. It will be a very important part of the recovery strategy, and events in general – not just business ones but sporting events, music events and regional events – will become part of the recovery story of many parts of New Zealand.”

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“We see business events as a segment that we will probably need to spend a lot more time, energy and focus on.”

Air New Zealand chief revenue officer Cam Wallace said the airline would need to put a stronger lens on the business events sector.

“We are going to be participating, marketing and selling in an environment that is more competitive than it has probably ever been, with a lot of airlines with a lot of capacity. We see business events as a segment that we will probably need to spend a lot more time, energy and focus on because some organisations will do better than others out of this and they will have the capacity to travel.”

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Conventions & Incentives New Zealand chief executive Lisa Hopkins said the country’s events sector “might be a comparatively small industry, but we pack a mighty punch. The flow-on effect of business events, culturally, socially, economically, supports the measurement of successful tourism and the objective to enrich the country. Working with Tourism New Zealand on this new framework will provide an opportunity to stimulate all regions, not just the major cities, initially with domestic events.”

Hopkins added that before Covid-19, 70% of all meetings of under 100 people were domestic, which showed there was strength in the segment.

“Our interest will, of course, be on international, ideally Australia and then beyond, which of course has a number of dependencies associated with it. This may work well for us, given the unusually long lead times involved with some of the larger events, which will still play an important role in our overall recovery.”

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