Events strategy reviewed in changed market

Increasing competition and a changing environment mean it is getting harder to capture major events for Rotorua, such as the 2013 World Rafting Championships, but Events & Venues is reviewing its strategy to succeed in this new market.

Addressing the Rotorua Tourism Committee yesterday, events manager Martin Croft said the original strategy was created in 2004 and a number of significant changes meant the time was right for a review.

"We need to make sure it is relevant to what is happening today."

The mission is for Rotorua to be a place where people experience great events and he said "experience" was the key word.

"When people have been to an event, what they remember and talk to people about is the experience they had - including what they did when they were here, as well as the event itself."

Croft said Events & Venues was not an event organiser, but was there to let organisers know what Rotorua had to offer as a venue and to support them, making it easier to pull their events together.

 

His goals are to secure a range of events, to cater to a wide selection of people, and to spread these throughout the year.

Rotorua's event calendar has grown from 50 in 2000 to more than 150 in 2010 and Croft said that total was close to 200 last year. But it is not all about volume. Quality of event is important in ensuring everybody leaves having had a good experience.

"We need to determine which events will work for Rotorua and which have the potential to grow."

It is also important that these fixtures are beneficial for Rotorua - economically and in terms of making a statement about the district and what it stands for.

"We need to understand what these [events] do for Rotorua and work with organisers to make sure Rotorua benefits. Who is coming to them? Where are they spending their money?"

Competition is a significant challenge - in terms of not overloading the calendar and spreading participants too thinly and seeing off challenges from other centres that have recognised the benefits of hosting and are pushing to capture new fixtures and those already happening elsewhere.

This means bidding to host is becoming more challenging and Croft said getting international events to Rotorua was getting harder - and more expensive as organisers also recognised the benefits to the hosts and raised bid values.

Event management is also becoming more regulated and, while he believes that is a good thing, he said it did create more paper work, more pressure and more costs for event organisers.

"That's where our role comes in - we can make it easier for them."

Infrastructure such as the Energy Events Centre and Rotorua International Airport were not in place when the original strategy was written and Croft said these also needed to be reflected in the revised document.

He stressed the role large and prominent events played in showcasing Rotorua and said it was important to involve the whole community - as attendees, as volunteers and as ambassadors in their dealings with visitors.