Venture Taranaki chief executive Justine Gilliland has signalled her disappointment with yesterday’s announcement from Minister Kelvin Davis regarding deployment of Regional Events Funding.
When the Regional Events Funding support was first signalled by Government as part of the Tourism Recovery Fund, Venture Taranaki welcomed the news of upcoming assistance for the critical events sector, which has been hit extremely hard by COVID-19 restrictions. However, today’s announcement is discouraging news for Taranaki.
“The just-announced approach is based on international visitor numbers and a grouping of regions determined by Tourism NZ for international marketing purposes. The result is a huge injection to regions with larger international visitor numbers and pathetically small support for already-strong domestic tourism-centric regions,” says Justine.
“The concern with this approach is that all that will be achieved is that regions like Taranaki, where events play a major role in attracting domestic tourists, will now suffer reduced visitors due to government-funded events in other regions.”
“We cannot express strongly enough our disappointment and concern with this approach, and also the lack of consultation or input on the design of the funding with organisations and regions like ours.”
