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Draft Annual Plan, Wellington City Council, PO Box 2199, Wellington.
WELLINGTON CITY COUNCIL DRAFT ANNUAL PLAN 08/09
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT 33
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34 ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
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MEASURING OUR PERFORMANCE
Events and visitor attractions add
to our sense of shared identity,
make the city vibrant, and bring
economic benefits.
Through our involvement in city promotions, events
and attractions, we aim to position Wellington as
an internationally competitive city, attractive to
residents and visitors alike.
In this work, we aim to help the city maintain its
edge as a prime tourist and conference destination,
maximise economic value from promoting
and hosting high-profile events, support the
development of a thriving retail sector, and build on
the city’s strengths – such as its compactness and
its strong sense of identity – to enhance prosperity
and contribute to higher quality of life for all
Wellingtonians.
We support a wide range of events,
attractions, and city promotions.
We:
• provide funding for Positively Wellington Tourism,
the city’s official tourism marketing organisation,
so it can run its highly successful domestic and
international visitor attraction campaigns support
Te Papa – with more than one million visitors each
year, it is one of the city’s major attractions
• provide funding support for the Carter Observatory,
which is being redeveloped into a leading science-
based visitor attraction
• operate an events development fund, which
contributes to the city’s buzz by supporting a
huge range of events – including the World of
WearableArt Awards, Rugby Sevens, Chinese
New Year festivities and more
• manage the Wellington Convention Centre, which
provides venues for arts/entertainment and sports
community events, and attracts out-of-town
visitors to conventions
• help keep the city centre lively over the weekend
by providing free parking
• carry out work to maintain and enhance
Marsden Village in Karori
• promote the city as Creative Wellington –
Innovation Capital.
In 2008/09, we’ll complete the first stage of the
upgrade of the Cable Car precinct – a significant
visitor destination at the top of Wellington Botanical
Gardens and continue with the revitalisation of the
Carter Observatory. We’ll also develop our plans to
promote the city as part of the 2011 Rugby
World Cup.
CITY PROMOTIONS, EVENTS
AND ATTRACTIONS
Our targets for 2008/09 are:
• major events supported by the events
development fund will have an estimated
economic impact of at least $20 million –
a 20:1 return on our investment, and at least
90% of residents surveyed will be satisfied
with Council-supported events (these targets
are unchanged from 2007/08)
• Te Papa will attract at least 1.1 million visitors
(with 35% of adult visitors coming from
outside New Zealand and 35% of adult
domestic visitors coming from outside the
Wellington region)
• the Wellington Convention Centre will hold
more than 855 events (including more than
105 concerts); achieve occupancy rates of 66%
(a 1% increase on our 2007/08 target) for the
Town Hall, 72% (unchanged) for the Michael
Fowler Centre, and 61% (1% increase) for the
Queens Wharf Events Centre; and maintain
its 4-star Qualmark rating and its ISO9001
accreditation (unchanged)
• at least 62% (a 2% increase from our 2007/08
target) of residents surveyed say they’re more
likely to come in to the city at weekends,
for other reasons than work because WCC
on-street parking is free, and the turnover
rate for WCC city car parks will be 4.7 cars per
day at weekends (unchanged) and 7.5 per
day on weekdays (unchanged).
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ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT 35
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WELLINGTON CITY COUNCIL DRAFT ANNUAL PLAN 08/09
MEASURING OUR PERFORMANCE
From 2008/09, we’re proposing to
increase our funding for Positively
Wellington Tourism.
In the last few years, people have become less likely
to select tourism products and services through
books and magazine articles and purchase those
products through travel agents. Instead, they have
embraced research and purchasing of tourism
products and services online.
Positively Wellington Tourism is proposing to create
a fully interactive online experience where users can
research, plan and book their visits to Wellington
and interact with previous visitors via blogs and
forums. We’re budgeting $519,000 in 2008/09 and
more in future years for this proposal.
Wellington has a tight labour market and retaining
skilled and experienced staff is a priority for
Positively Wellington Tourism. We’re proposing
to increase Positively Wellington Tourism’s salary
funding by $81,000 per year and trustee fees by
$24,000 per year.
Funding for Positively Wellington Tourism comes
from the downtown levy, which is paid by central
city businesses – not from general rates.
We will also measure the total number of
events we support. We do not have a target
for total number of events. Instead, we aim
to support as many worthwhile events as
possible that meet our funding criteria,
subject to budget limits.
Performance targets for Positively Wellington
Tourism are shown in the council-controlled
organisations section of this annual plan –
see the appendix.
What it will cost
OPERATIONAL SPENDING
CAPITAL SPENDING
Activity
User charges and
other revenue
$000
Net expenditure / rates
funding requirement
$000
Expenditure
2008/09
$000
Expenditure
2008/09
$000
3.1.1 Tourism promotion
–
4,740
4,740
–
3.1.2 Visitor attractions
–
2,300
2,300
1,300
3.1.3 Convention venues
(5,201)
4,355
9,556
895
3.2.1 Suburban and city
centres vitality
–
1,223
1,223
–
3.3.1 Events attraction
and support
–
1,858
1,858
–
3.6.1 Creative workforce
–
1,268
1,268
–
Total for 2008/09
(5,201)
15,744
20,945
2,195
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WELLINGTON CITY COUNCIL DRAFT ANNUAL PLAN 08/09
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We want Wellington to be an
internationally competitive,
prosperous city.
Through our business support work, we aim to
enhance residents’ quality of life by raising overall
levels of prosperity. We aim to encourage innovation
and entrepreneurship, and to enhance Wellington’s
competitiveness as a world-class location for talent,
business/industry and investment.
We also aim to support the city centre’s
development as the region’s premier retail,
knowledge and entertainment district. We also aim
to make the city more ‘connected’, by securing the
communications and transport infrastructure so vital
to business success.
We support a range of projects that
enhance economic development.
We:
• provide grants for one-off projects that bring
economic benefits to the city
• run a move to Wellington campaign aimed at
attracting and retaining skilled, creative people
• are supporting Positively Wellington Tourism and
Wellington International Airport in their bid to
attract at least one daily long-haul air service to
the city from an Asian destination
• are working on a policy that aims to enhance
the city’s communications infrastructure and
build ICT skills
• represent Wellington’s interests to central
government and other agencies, the business
community, and sister cities.
We also advocate for our community’s interests
through Grow Wellington – the new regional
economic development agency.
We’re also working towards our
broadband vision.
Over the last 10 years, the telecommunications
sector has undergone unprecedented change. High
capacity broadband networks are fast becoming a
‘must have’ infrastructure for modern cities.
Businesses, investors and skilled workers expect
cities to provide affordable, very high speed,
universally available broadband. This is happening
in many cities around the world, and Wellington
needs to follow suit to capture the significant
potential economic and social benefits.
Overseas studies show these are in the areas of
increased employment and productivity, greater
economic activity, and ability to innovate. The
impacts on better education and health provision
are also likely to be significant.
The Council’s vision is for Wellington to achieve
this – universal access to high-speed affordable
broadband – by 2012. We’ve asked potential
industry partners for their help in how best to turn
this vision into a reality. Several costing models
are being explored, including private/public
partnerships and user pays. The objective is to
stimulate more investment that will result in better
services – which doesn’t necessarily mean the
Council has to start building its own infrastructure,
although that is an option.
We’ll continue to work with the private sector on
options in the coming year.
BUSINESS SUPPORT
Our targets for 2008/09 are:
• at least one long-haul airline is flying
daily to Wellington (we are reviewing the
performance target for the long-haul project
as the production of the aircraft being
targeted in this initiative, Boeing’s new B787
and Airbus’ A350, were delayed and are
initially being allocated to existing routes)
• positive growth in the number of businesses
and jobs in Wellington’s education, ICT,
professional engineering, creative and film,
manufacturing, and biotechnology sectors,
along with positive growth in Wellington’s
location quotients for each sector
• at least 15 events/activities (unchanged from
our 2007/08 target) held with our formal
international partnership cities
(both in Wellington and overseas).
We record the number of economic grant
applications we receive, the number receiving
grants, and the total budget allocation.
Our target is for all economic grants to
be distributed in accordance with
eligibility criteria.
We will also report on our work with stake-
holders to enhance the city’s information and
communications infrastructure.
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ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT 37
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WELLINGTON CITY COUNCIL DRAFT ANNUAL PLAN 08/09
OPERATIONAL SPENDING
CAPITAL SPENDING
Activity
User charges and
other revenue
$000
Net expenditure / rates
funding requirement
$000
Expenditure
2008/09
$000
Expenditure
2008/09
$000
3.4.2 Transport gateway
connections
–
200
200
–
3.5.2 Economic grants
–
165
165
–
3.7.1 Regional and external
relations
–
269
269
–
Total for 2008/09
–
634
634
–
What it will cost