Tasmania needs more events – now!
Tasmania has proved that events bring business after a massively successful Taste of Tasmania. But tourism operators are pleading the state government for new big-ticket events to keep the state’s hotels full during winter.
Several big events such as the Falls Festival are already struggling to win government support and there are fears any major push for a new winter drawcard could come at the expense of traditionally successful initiatives. While the Festival of the Voices in July and sporting fixtures bring in crowds and some relief from the winter doldrums, the Tourism Industry Council of Tasmania says the government needs to spend big money to keep tourists coming.
Last year’s Festival of the Voices was the most successful in its seven-year history with more than 10,000 people attending and a 54% jump in ticket sales.
“Now that we have that wonderful space on the [Hobart] waterfront, we don’t want to see it used for three months of the year and sit dormant for the rest,” TICT chief executive Luke Martin said. “But that does not mean a winter replica of the taste festival is the answer.
“Now is the opportune time to look at what else could the waterfront space be used for,” he said. “I understand it is a tough call asking for extra funds in this budget climate but the return to the state from a small amount of seed funding can be immense.”
“Every other state is spending money on these big events,” Mr Martin said. “You have to pay for them but they can then pay for themselves.”
The state government must provide more funding for Tourism Tasmania and Events Tasmania and Business Events Tasmania in this year’s budget, says Tasmanian Hospitality Association general manager Steve Old.
Mr Old said it was disappointing in the 2011 calendar year that the average annual hotel occupancy rate dropped by just under 1.5% to 68.80% compared with the previous year.
“Our members’ occupancy figures have been slowly declining for well over 12 months now and it is going to take a change in strategy and funding to see things turn around.”
Mr Old said the government must provide extra funds to Events Tasmania and Business Events Tasmania to inject more life into the event and conference markets. Both had proven extremely successful over the years.
Meanwhile MCI, the world’s largest global meeting and event management agency with 1500 staff in 47 offices in 23 countries recently merged with Tasmanian based Convention Wise in a move that over time should bring significant economic and employment benefit to Tasmania’s meetings and events industry.
Convention Wise owner Phil Holmes is well known as the former Tasmanian chair of Meeting and Events Australia. Merging with Convention Wise allows MCI to support much larger conferences in Tasmania and introduce premium MCI services including corporate special events, incentive travel and destination management.
MCI Australia managing director Ray Shaw said, “We now have the operations talent on the ground to deliver up to 1000 pax meetings to Tasmania — Phil Holmes and the crew now have the support of our 60 plus Australian team and the rest of MCI’s world talents and product practices”.
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