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Speaker 1: From the old put it on the come file. Events

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Speaker 1: mean money. So between the sixteenth and nineteenth of January,

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Speaker 1: Auckland hosted Luke Combs and Sale GP. What was that worth?

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Speaker 1: Five million is the answer? Extra eight thousand rooms in

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Speaker 1: the hotels over four days. Hotel brought a much general manager,

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Speaker 1: Clinton Farley.

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Speaker 2: But this morning, good morning to you team.

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Speaker 1: So these numbers that we give, can you in the

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Speaker 1: hotel business and the tourism business generally, can you see it?

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Speaker 1: Can you feel? Is it obvious?

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Speaker 2: Yes, Sitney can Obviously. The discussion this morning obviously is

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Speaker 2: about the Sale GP and the comes impact and they

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Speaker 2: were significant demand drugs into the city over the last

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Speaker 2: last few months, kicking off the year really strongly. Obviously,

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Speaker 2: that combined with our usual inbound international demand over that

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Speaker 2: period it was really cracker season.

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Speaker 1: I was going to ask you about that. How much

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Speaker 1: is event driven in tourism or does New Zealand just

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Speaker 1: sell itself?

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Speaker 2: I think obviously New Zealand does sell itself Internet me

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Speaker 2: by the arms of obviously Tourism New Zealand, the regional

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Speaker 2: tourism organizations throughout the country and obviously sharing on on

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Speaker 2: social media channels and word of Mouth, et cetera. But

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Speaker 2: the major events like Luke Holmes and sale GP are

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Speaker 2: really key to assisting the country to have a real

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Speaker 2: year round visitor demand driven model.

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Speaker 1: And do you take a side on this? I note

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Speaker 1: this bid tax debate is back. I mean, Luke Holmes

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Speaker 1: was coming anyway, right, so why would I pay a

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Speaker 1: tax on a bed? But maybe Sale GP wasn't. Do

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Speaker 1: we need a bid tax to pay for stuff to

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Speaker 1: come here?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, the bad takes argument is a really good one, Mike. Obviously,

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Speaker 2: tourism is our number one key GDP driver for the country,

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Speaker 2: And when you think about it like that, there's a

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Speaker 2: huge amount of GST that's taken from visitors to Alta

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Speaker 2: or even visitors traveling Key we's traveling New Zealand. So

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Speaker 2: I guess, first and foremost, the question could be, so

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Speaker 2: why can't tourism be funded via a little percentage of GST,

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Speaker 2: understanding that GST really drives the economy. But then second question,

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Speaker 2: if the government is not willing to kind of spare

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Speaker 2: a little bit of that GST, then the only other

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Speaker 2: option is to really consider some sort of bed levy,

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Speaker 2: where I guess the visitor industry sits in general is

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Speaker 2: that that needs to be some sort of national bet

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Speaker 2: levy because what we don't want happening is international people

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Speaker 2: arriving into New Zealand and they pay one percentage in

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Speaker 2: Auckland and another percentage in rote Rule and another percentage

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Speaker 2: in Queenstown. It's just a messy visitor experience. What we

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Speaker 2: need is something simple that people can understand, and whether

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Speaker 2: it be a bed levey or anything else, it just

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Speaker 2: needs to be something that's unified throughout the country.

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Speaker 1: Just while I've got you, are you talked about a

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Speaker 1: good summer? What's your room right? Has it gone up?

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Speaker 1: And what's your occupancy? And has that gone up?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? Well occupantcy what over the whole city? I believe

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Speaker 2: it was that that is seventeen percent increase over the

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Speaker 2: city over those two key event dates. And yes, of

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Speaker 2: course roommates do go up in higher demand periods. I

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Speaker 2: guess it's the old supply and demand model. But I

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Speaker 2: think what we need to also remember is the winter

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Speaker 2: periods in Auckland as well as New Zealand are very tough.

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Speaker 2: There wasn't there wasn't a lot of hotels that made

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Speaker 2: good money over winter last year. Many some in fact

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Speaker 2: running very close to the line. So yes, they do

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Speaker 2: make money when it's busy and demand strong. However, over

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Speaker 2: those winter months it does become very challenging, and just

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Speaker 2: keeping in mind that we have huge teams of people

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Speaker 2: that we employ that we need to maintain employment throughout

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Speaker 2: the year as well.

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Speaker 1: All right, Clinton, appreciate your time, Clinton Farley, Hotel Britain,

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Speaker 1: General Manager.

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Speaker 2: For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to

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Speaker 2: news talks. It'd be from six am weekdays, or follow

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Speaker 2: the podcast on iHeartRadio.