Tourism Minister Kelvin Davis yesterday announced how a $50 million fund for regional events would be allocated across "international marketing alliances", based on each one’s share of international visitor spending pre-Covid-19.
The Southern Lakes, comprising Queenstown, Wanaka, Central Otago and Fiordland, received $8.5 million - the second-largest allocation nationally behind Auckland and Northland, which received $19 million.
"Pure Southern Land" — an alliance between Dunedin, Southland, Waitaki and Clutha - received $1.5 million.
Enterprise Dunedin director John Christie welcomed the funding and said the $1.5 million was a "significant" amount.
There was a bit of work to do to gauge what the funding would mean for organisations and how it would be used, he said.
"We look forward to working on that as a collective group of regional tourism organisations."
Destination Queenstown interim chief executive Ann Lockhart said each regional tourism organisation would be represented within the alliance, and would work with the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment to determine the detail and criteria.
When asked, Ms Lockhart said the funding announcement would "possibly" have a positive impact on the 2021 Queenstown Winter Festival, which, at this stage, is in doubt.
The Winter Festival received a "modest allocation" from the Government’s $10 million domestic events fund — announced last week — but the amount was "confidential", she said.
Further, she understood any events which received funding from either the major events fund or domestic events fund would not be eligible for the first of several rounds of regional events funding.
"But I think it’s fantastic that the Government have given the regions the opportunity to ... either support events or develop new events ... and I think everyone’s very appreciative of the understanding of the place we find ourselves in."
Queenstown Lakes Mayor Jim Boult said he and council staff had spent a "considerable amount of time and energy" lobbying for such an events fund.
"To say that I’m happy would be a massive understatement."
The amount granted to the Southern Lakes was "truly a show of confidence in the ability of our region to recover and once again become a major contributor to GDP".
"During these tough economic times this has come as a much-needed and much-appreciated hand up."
- Additional reporting by Molly Houseman
