3 October 2017

Media: Rotorua Daily Post

Topic: Destination Rotorua (operating name for Rotorua Economic Development Ltd CCO)

Inquiry

Questions to RLC:

I have some questions in regards to the fact CCO Destination Rotorua (the operating name of the Rotorua Economic Development Ltd) has received $4.235 million for the 2017/18 financial year.

What funding did it receive in 2016/17 and 2015/16? Either as joint identities or separate?

What expectations has Council put against this money and what is CCO Destination Rotorua expected to deliver?

What successful outcomes has it achieved in the past?

When did the Council merge CCO and Destination Rotorua and why?

Questions to Destination Rotorua:

CCO Destination Rotorua has received $4.235 million for the 2017/18 financial year. I have some questions:

How is this money being spent and what are you doing to promote Rotorua?

What new initiatives are you going to kick off this year?

Where does Rotorua sit in regards to other tourist destinations has any research been done to see how popular it is - like is it the most popular place in NZ to visit?

How important is the tourist industry to Rotorua and why and what are your latest figures?

Is there more Rotorua needs to be doing - are we getting a bit old and dated in terms of the older accommodation/attractions - and what can be done about that?

How has Air BnB and the internet affected the landscape - has it been positive or negative and why?

How are you going to deal with all this new technology going forward (Uba/ AirBnB etc) while protecting Rotorua's tourism reputation?

Response

RLC provided the following information (with a note budgets and funding for 2015/16 to come):

• The CCOs report to Council, via the Operations & Monitoring Committee every quarter and the performance reports for the final quarter of the 2016/17 year were presented on 7 September (a representative from the Daily Post was present).
• See pages 19 to 23 of the meeting agenda for the formal report
• A link to the presentation slides to which Michelle Templer referred is HERE
• As with all our council meetings, that meeting was livestreamed and you can view the livestreaming at THIS LINK Michelle's presentation starts 8 minutes into the recording
• CCOs also provide a Statement of Intent for each financial year, setting out their commitments and performance targets. The SOIs for the CCOs for the 2017/18 financial year were reported to the Operations & Monitoring Committee in April 2017. You can find Destination Rotorua's SOI for this financial year HERE on Rotoruanz.com
• Rotorua Economic Development Ltd (operating as Destination Rotorua) was established a year ago, effective 1 July 2016, and brought together Council's destination marketing division (Destination Rotorua Marketing or DRM, which included the iSites) and its economic growth CCO Grow Rotorua.
• The CCO was established to create better alignment between the respective entities involved and achieve collective outcomes for Rotorua, ensuring the district remains competitive and attractive as a place to visit, live, work, invest and do business, and contributing to achievement of the Rotorua 2030 vision.
• For the 2016/17 financial year the CCO received $4.2m in Council funding.

Additional information provided 5 October 2017:

See below financial info for the 2015/16 financial year at which time Grow Rotorua was a CCO and Destination Rotorua Marketing and the iSite were divisions of council so Grow Rotorua's figure is Council funding and the other two are the expenditure for those two divisions for that financial year.

As you know, these three (Grow Rotorua, Destination Rotorua Marketing and the iSites) became a single CCO - Rotorua Economic Growth Ltd (operating as Destination Rotorua), effective at the start of the 2016/17 financial year.

Figures for 2015/16 year are:

• Funding to Grow Rotorua - $700,000
• Destination Rotorua Marketing Expenditure - $3,055,000
• I-site Expenditure - $719,000

Destination Rotorua response:

Rotorua's visitor industry is incredibly important for the region. Visitor expenditure is now over $800 million per year representing an increase of 6.3% over the previous year and up against the national average.

Not only do our visitors contribute financially to our economy, they also impact dramatically on Rotorua's employment landscape. The visitor industry is one of our largest employers accounting for approximately one in five jobs in the region in addition to supporting goods and service providers who also benefit from the visitors coming through Rotorua.

With the launch of the Famously Rotorua domestic marketing campaign Destination Rotorua partnered with Delve Research to monitor its effect on New Zealanders perceptions of Rotorua and whether it has had a significant impact on intent to travel to the region. Between 2015 and 2017 this research showed an increase of loyalists that have visited recently and intend to revisit from 39 - 46%. Over the same period the 'occasionals' that had visited increased from 26 - 34% and the rejecters of the region that have not visited nor intend to decreased from 25 - 14%.

Destination Rotorua is funded to assist in local business development, attract new investment into the region and to market Rotorua as an incredible place to live, learn, work and visit. This also includes operating the Fenton Street iSite, the largest visitor centre in New Zealand, and the iSite at the spectacular Whakarewarewa Forest - both of which welcome and provide services to our visitors seven days a week.

Our activity to promote Rotorua as a visitor destination is multifaceted and aims to grow the value of our visitors over just volume. It includes our partnership with industry to fund and produce the Famously Rotorua domestic marketing campaign, our offshore trade programme which includes significant collaboration with the likes of Tourism New Zealand, Air New Zealand and our industry to promote Rotorua to international markets, and our business event function which promotes Rotorua as the perfect destination to host meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions.

Other functions of Destination Rotorua team include managing the production of key visitor collateral like the Official Visitor Guides and Rotorua's digital presence which includes a facebook following of more than 200,000 and the RotoruaNZ.com website which receives more than one million visits per year.

New initiatives implemented this year include a recent brand refresh that was undertaken with creative partner NZME and we are currently developing a Manaaki Programme that will work to educate our people and improve Rotorua's service quality in hospitality and related sectors.

The rise of the 'Share Economy' and sites like Air BNB and Bookabach has helped to provide additional accommodation options and capacity, particularly during our peak season. Accordingly council has sought to regulate and monitor this new accommodation stock and imposed a threshold where a property rented out for more than 100 nights per year will be charged commercial rates.