$20m benefit estimate for NZ Open

Early estimates put the economic benefits of the New Zealand Open golf tournament to the Queenstown area about $20 million, Destination Queenstown general manager marketing Graham Budd said yesterday.

The resort area was already quickly becoming known as a fantastic golf destination, boosted greatly by the huge international exposure of the three Open tournaments during the past two and a half years and by the major investment in golf courses in the area, he said.

Mr Budd said based on an estimated "direct spend" of between $7m and $8m from the 25,000 visitors in the Wakatipu region for anything from five to seven days, as well as regional day visitors, the economic benefit was expected to be about $20m.

It would be six weeks until the official Queenstown accommodation monitor was released and even more accurate numbers could be calculated. It was also difficult to isolate golf visitors from other high-season visitors, with Queenstown experiencing a strong summer so far.

"It's very hard to calculate the direct benefit, but it's a significant benefit and those figures are not surprising," Mr Budd said.

The first November 2007 tournament attracted 34,000 and a similar $20m economic benefit. However, Mr Budd said there were likely to have been a lot more locals attending that year because it was the first time The Hills private course had been opened to the public.

Destination Queenstown estimates have put the "direct spend" economic benefit to Queenstown and Arrowtown of the three tournaments at about $60m.

"One really good thing about this compared with other events is it's held over a number of days – people have got to really stay five days minimum to see it and may add a couple of days' holiday if they're in that position."

Destination Queenstown was already capitalising on the captive golf audience and had been at the event distributing some of its 5000 hot-off-the-press Pure Golf promotional brochures that would be distributed throughout New Zealand and internationally.

Queenstown was rapidly becoming known as a great golf destination, particularly on the east coast of Australia, he said.

DQ planned to work with local golf courses and other operators in the golf market to grow the market and Mr Budd said the resort would be more actively promoted as a golf destination.

"We haven't tapped into its (golf market) full potential."

- © Fairfax NZ News

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Den   #1   08:39 am Feb 02 2010

Where do they get these figures from? and who gets these "benefits"? Sounds like someone is trying to justify their position to me as the majority of people don't see any of this money coming their way.

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