Tourism New Zealand, in partnership with Inland Revenue New Zealand, will hold a series of seminars across Australia next month to help businesses understand the benefits of holding their next event in New Zealand.

The complimentary seminars will be held across Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney (3 – 5 June), offering businesses the opportunity to better understand the recent changes to the New Zealand Goods and Services Tax (GST) Act and how this can benefit their company.

The New Zealand GST Act 1985 was amended on 1 April 2014 to allow non-resident businesses to register for and claim back GST.

Tourism New Zealand International Business Events Manager, Bjoern Spreitzer says the change makes New Zealand even more accessible to Australian businesses and is a good incentive to choose New Zealand as their next business events destination.

“Our key objective through these seminars is to educate businesses about the advantages of conferencing in New Zealand and how they can see direct benefit,” he said.

Presented by Jared Otto, Principal Advisor – GST from Inland Revenue New Zealand the sessions will help attendees to understand the qualifying criteria, what they can claim and the process for registering and claiming GST.

“The target audience for these sessions are professional conference organisers, event management companies, corporations and associations,” Spreitzer said.

He said New Zealand provides an enticing conference proposition for a range of Australian businesses.

“Tourism New Zealand has made significant headway in encouraging Australian companies to bring their conferences to New Zealand where we can show-off our amazing people, stories and culture,” Spreitzer said.

“New Zealand’s conference options are only a three hour flight from the east coast with daily direct flights and this recent change enhances our offering even more.”

Tourism New Zealand will also be attending MEETINGS 2014, a highly regarded annual event held from 18-19 June 2014 in Auckland which brings together buyers and sellers of conference and incentive travel products.