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Speaker 1: You report out this morning. Show's Business conference has contributed

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Speaker 1: nearly a billion bucks to the Kirby economy last year.

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Speaker 1: That's about one and a half million visitor nights with

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Speaker 1: an average daily spend of six hundred and forty five dollars.

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Speaker 1: Katherin bed Is Business Ends advocacy director, joining us this morning. Katherine,

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Speaker 1: good morning, Good morning. So this is from the ICs,

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Speaker 1: the International Conventions Ender, the newly opened and conjunction with

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Speaker 1: business events industry out here at OH. So is this

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Speaker 1: all just hype or is this real and tangible and

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Speaker 1: a growing industry?

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Speaker 2: Oh? Look, I think it's absolutely real and tangible. And

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Speaker 2: Auckland's been waiting a long time for the convention center,

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Speaker 2: but it's predicted to add another thirty three thousand visitors

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Speaker 2: this year. So I think if you want to attract events,

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Speaker 2: you've got to have good venues, and you've got to

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Speaker 2: have them big enough to take actually quite big conferences.

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Speaker 2: So it's a little bit like stadium shows for big music.

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Speaker 2: If you don't have the events and you can't draw

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Speaker 2: the crowds, then you're going to miss out. So yeah,

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Speaker 2: so it's a good thing. And of course all of

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Speaker 2: that spending flows through to your hotels, your restaurants, your

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Speaker 2: retail and your general tourism. So yeah, really positive. And

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Speaker 2: I think New Zealand's also a bit of a bucket

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Speaker 2: list destination for a lot of people. So if you're

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Speaker 2: traveling around the world and you say where you're from,

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Speaker 2: a lot of people go, look, I'm going to come

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Speaker 2: there one day. So sometimes they just need a good

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Speaker 2: old conference to get.

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Speaker 1: Them here, nothing like whacking it on the company credit card.

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Speaker 1: What's better for a city having tourists who are here

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Speaker 1: for a concerts, say for a weekend, or having a conference.

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Speaker 1: Do people spend more via a conference than they would

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Speaker 1: for a social activity?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Look, this survey indicates conference attendees spend considerably more,

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Speaker 2: just about double in some cases. So I think what

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Speaker 2: you're seeing with a conference attend as you know, conferences

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Speaker 2: can span a few days, and also you know you've

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Speaker 2: got to stay somewhere, right, so you need a hotel,

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Speaker 2: you need to be eating out. I think if you

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Speaker 2: maybe come here on a tourist boat, for example, you've

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Speaker 2: got your a combination and your food. So they, yeah,

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Speaker 2: they do spend very well. Conference attends brilliant.

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Speaker 1: Well, let's look forward to more of that, especially in Auckland.

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Speaker 1: Catherine Cathern Beard, director of Advocacy at Business New Zealand.

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