Rebecca Ingram: Tourism Industry Aotearoa CEO on the TRENZ tourism business event running this week in Auckland

It's tourism's time to shine this week as TRENZ hits Auckland. 

The country's largest tourism business event runs from today to Thursday at the International Convention Centre. 

More than 12 hundred delegates will attend from key markets like the US and China, and it’s projected to inject more than $3 million into Auckland's economy. 

Tourism Industry Aotearoa CEO Rebecca Ingram told Mike Hosking 16 thousand business meetings will take place. 

She says the benefits are multi-layered as some will boost this summer, but most of it will be focused on the two after that. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Two part story now though on tourism. So the industry
gathers at trends Expo twelve hundred delegates, three hundred and
seventy nine international travel buyers, twenty seven countries. So that's
all good. Rebecca Ingram is the tourist industry boss and
as with us, Rebecca morning, good morning. So the two
parts of the story. Part one is that you're at
the new Convention Center in Auckland, So that means people
are coming to the center. Build it and they will

(00:21):
come and they will spend. So how much are you
going to spend? Because you're all large drinkers, aren't you.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Well, we anticipate we're going to invest about three million
dollars in the Auckland economy over the next couple of days.
But that's just a provisional number. I mean, the event
itself being an Auckland is really consequential. And as you say,
we get to do it at the beautiful new ends
at ICT and showcase all of what Auckland's got to offer.

(00:48):
And we've got all of those buyers that you were
just talking about. They're currently getting ready to go off
on twenty two different experiences around Auckland. This morning and
then they come back and they do start all of
their appointments with all these different tourism businesses. So we're
going to do sixteen thousand business meetings this week. It's
going to be a big one.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
So you're bullish in general in an economy that's war
ravaged and we're all a bit down in the dumps,
you're a sector that's bullish. Is that fair?

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Well, we're certainly a sector that's hustling and got our
eye on making sure that we can do the very
best job we can for New Zealand. So the meetings
that will happen this week between tourism businesses in New
Zealand and these international buyers, some of it will be
about this summer, but most of it is going to
be about the summer after that and the summer after that,
and so the benefit of trends is multi layered and

(01:40):
multi year.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
Fantastic. Well, all I can do is wish you the
very best with that and however goes well. Rebecca Ingram
out of Tourism New Zealand, enz me. This company did
a survey I'm reading yesterday. There are three on tourism.
This three point one two million of us who are tourists,
who have been tourists in the last year three point
one two million. The interesting thing is five point three
million in total per population. That's a tremendous number of

(02:02):
us that are tourists, and we've hooked into tourism seemingly.
We love travel post COVID. It's real. So on one hand,
we'll moan about the cost of petrol and moan about
the cost of butter, but we will travel and we
will pay through the nose for that. So it's an
interesting time, isn't it. For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast,
listen live to news talks it'd be from six am weekdays,

(02:24):
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