Major events coming to Tauranga this year are expected to bring thousands of people to the city, benefiting local businesses and employees.
Tauranga City Council acting manager of strategic and city events Jenna Quay said Tauranga's residents and visitors could look forward to a diverse range of sporting, arts and cultural events coming to the city in the next 12 months.
"The city will host a range of new events from the World Junior Squash Championships in July, an international marathon in October to hydroplanes on the waterfront in March.
"Our local and home-grown events such as the NZCT AIMS Games, Tauranga Arts Festival and the National Jazz Festival Tauranga will be a wonderful complement to the new sporting and cultural events in the city."
Ms Quay said major events played a key role in showcasing the city and hosting these events provided work and money for local businesses.
Tourism Bay of Plenty head of marketing Kathrin Low said the organisation was looking forward to another strong year of tourism.
"The combination of great local events and activities to appeal to visitors, motivated tourism operators who are actively promoting the destination through their marketing activity, continued strength in the cruise sector, previous extensive national and international media interest and coverage... robust trade marketing over the past few years off-shore and great partnership marketing with Air NZ and Tourism New Zealand give us confidence that Tauranga and the Bay of Plenty will continue to perform very well."
Ms Low said Tourism Bay of Plenty would not be taking its foot off the pedal and there were strategies under way to determine how it continued to grow tourism across the region.
An Armageddon spokesman said it had received "the most amazing response" to the event coming to Tauranga.
"This is the first time we've ever done an event in Tauranga and we are so excited to come to the Bay. With over 2500 people from all over New Zealand having already indicated their interest on Facebook, #BAYOFGEDDON looks set to be an epic weekend."
One Love organiser Pato Alvarez expected the festival to sell out by the end of the month. About 20,000 people would be attending.
"We have around 1500 people coming from overseas, heaps from Australia but also USA , Rarotonga, Fiji, Tahiti, Tonga, Samoa and Europe.
"This should generate another huge impact in the local economy."
He said last year many shops sold out of certain goods, and many accommodation providers had been fully booked for months.
"Our recommendation to the local businesses is to stock up and get ready because they are going to get busy."
Ross Candy of Baywatch said despite still having vacancies available, the weekend of One Love was "looking pretty full".
However, he had noticed clients coming to the area were extending their holiday.
"A lot of people stay for longer, and that's good. They're in the area and putting money into the area."
Bethlehem Motor Inn manager Matt Gartshore said they would be full every weekend up until April.
Despite not being as close to event venues, they catered to a lot of clients who were in town for corporate events, weddings and birthdays.
He said numbers had definitely increased in the past few years, even with the number of mid-week clients going up.
Major events coming to Tauranga in 2017
This weekend
- Katikati Avocado Food and Wine Festival
- Colour Splash
- Baypark Speedway New Zealand Saloon Car Grand Prix
- Tauranga A&P Lifestyle Show 2017
- NZ Beach Hockey championships
Coming up
- NZ Medieval Faire 2017 - January
- ANZ International Series - January
- One Love - February
- Nitro Circus - February
- NZ International Tattoo and Art Festival - February
- Paradox: Tauranga Street Art Festival - March
- Acceleration on Water - March
- National Jazz Festival - April
- Armageddon Tauranga - May
- World Junior Squash Championships - July
- Tauranga International Marathon - October
- Tauranga Arts Festival - October