Business Events Industry Aotearoa (BEIA) has welcomed the New Zealand Government’s offer of support for the business events industry, which has been significantly impacted by ongoing COVID-19 restrictions.
The NZ Government’s Events Transition Support Payment scheme (ETSP) will now include business events of more than 200 attendees for the first time, which BEIA chief executive Lisa Hopkins said recognises the high value of the industry.
“When a business event is held, it not only brings much-needed contribution to the tourism and hospitality sectors, but also impacts positively on the community. It supports a highly skilled and dedicated supply chain, who have really felt the impact of restrictions over the past couple of years,” Hopkins said.
The original ETSP scheme was introduced in November 2021 to give event organisers financial certainty to host large scale events such as festivals, but did not include business events. The development acknowledges the importance of business events and role they play in attracting high spending visitors to New Zealand’s regions and cities, which Hopkins said would also give long-overdue certainty to organisers, venues and clients to help plan ahead.
“We are overjoyed Economic and Regional Development Minister Nash and his team have acknowledged the key role business events will have in New Zealand’s recovery.
“The scheme effectively sees the government underwrite costs so that organisers of an eligible event can claim 90 per cent of unrecoverable costs if it can’t go ahead due to public health measures for events.”
The scheme will be valid for events scheduled from 4 April to 31 January 2023.
Business events must have been publicly announced or have been actively in the market prior to 23 January 2022 for events scheduled to begin before 1 July 2022; or at least four months prior to the event date for events scheduled to begin on or after 1 July 2022.
