Art Deco Festival helps boost Hawke's Bay consumer spending

Napier parties during the Tremains Art Deco Festival. Photo / File

Hawke's Bay retailers and tourism operators are benefiting from a growing international reputation, with overseas tourists so far spending $1.1 million more than last year.

Latest figures from Paymark, which processes about 75 per cent of all credit and debit card transactions, show a 5.2 per cent rise in the number of transactions made in Hawke's Bay last month.

A total of three million transactions were processed across Paymark's network, amounting to $134.1m - $5.5m up on the same month last year.

On top of that, spending with foreign-issued credit cards for the four months to February 2018, rose 5.9 per cent to $19m.

Tourism Hawke's Bay general manager Annie Dundas said events like the Tremains Art Deco Festival in February would have resulted in "another strong result" for the region.

"This is particularly pleasing, as last February we had the added bonus of hosting Te Matatini which added over 30,000 visitors to February.

"The Art Deco Festival in 2018 was the largest we have held and it continues to attract solid numbers of international visitors. It is truly one of the few events in New Zealand that attracts so many visitors from overseas.

"Our tourism operators have had a great month."

Hastings City Business Association general manager Susan McDade said February had provided a "great result for our retailers".

"The Art Deco Festival definitely had a spillover effect for Hastings especially on the Thursday when our events drew thousands. The sudden cold snap mid-month was timed perfectly with fashion change of season and helped encourage sales even with the return to summer temperatures for the last days of the month."

A Paymark spokesman said the spending impact of international tourists was greatest amongst accommodation merchants, where they make up 32.8 per cent of the sector payments through Paymark and 55.3 per cent of their annual payment growth.

"Other merchants having strong links with international tourists include duty free and gift stores within selected retail shops, art galleries, museums and activity operators amongst activities and events and airlines and rental vehicle companies within transport."

Art Deco Trust general manager Shane Gorst said the number of attendees across this year's festival was up on previous years at approximately 45,000.

"Of these, over 5000 were international visitors."

Tremains Art Deco Festival sponsor Simon Tremain said the event would have helped other local economies too.

"One group of visitors to this year's Art Deco Festival not only helped the local economy of Hawke's Bay but certainly many other regions of New Zealand.

"There were eight couples from England who had seven pre-war Bentleys plus a Rolls Royce previously owned by the Queen Mother shipped from the UK to Christchurch. They flew into New Zealand and picked their cars up from Christchurch and had a three-week tour of the South Island before arriving in Hawke's Bay for the Tremains Art Deco Festival.

"On the Monday they can continued their New Zealand roadie with the cars departing Auckland for the trip back to the UK.

"Quite an amazing adventure all because of the Art Deco festival."