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Inspiring Regional Development

Staying on the Map

Capitalising on your unique regional advantage

Key Points

• As far as possible, market in conjunction with other local initiatives to maximise your exposure. This requires a collaborative approach at the outset.
• Place a high level of importance on relationship management with other agencies, such as local government, at the outset.
• Capitalise on regional advantages wherever possible, however, you are likely to have to rely on external expertise in some aspects of the venture.
• Where your locality is small, the venture needs to be prepared to invest in infrastructure - ratepayers do not have the capacity to cover all the expenses.
• Communities may have to provide financial or other incentives to attract and retain major events.
• Benefits of major events are often under-estimated and also not fully capitalised on in terms of marketing exposure for New Zealand.
• Global events are rare and will increasingly be beyond our range to service, so we need to focus on growing existing events or developing new ones.
• Clear guidelines on regulation and an understanding of the industry being attracted are vital.
• Use one-off events to build local industry and skills for the future.
• Regions should work with other regions and existing bodies e.g. Film NZ rather than going it alone to attract films.
• A whole-of-government approach and sometimes action at national level is needed e.g. co-ordinated bidding for major events rather than having individual cities trying to outbid each other.
• On-going management is needed to ensure major event visitors have a positive experience. Persistent requests for donations, local greed and poor delivery by local firms can subvert the positive work of the agency that attracted the event.
• Need to have a continuous process of identifying events and promising partnerships as well as capitalising on windfall events as they arise.

|Index|Introduction|Welcome|Programme|Workshop streams|Plenary Speakers|Plenary Speeches|