Marty Toomey: Winter Games CEO on this year's games and the economic impact of the event

The Games are afoot! 

More than 500 athletes from 35 countries are descending on Queenstown from today as the largest snow sports event in the southern hemisphere begins. 

It’s day one of the 2024 Winter Games, and CEO Marty Toomey told Mike Hosking that the event is worth somewhere in the realm of six to ten million dollars, depending on where you start the count.  

He said that many athletes coming in and train for a couple of weeks before and after the event, not just the 3-4 they’re competing, so there’s quite a long tail. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We'll go five hundred old athletes from thirty five countries

(00:02):
in Queenstown for the Winter Games. This is the largest
snowsports event in the Southern Hemisphere. By the way, the
CEO of all of this, mighty to me is with us,
Marty morning to you. What's the weather and track? Is
it snowed enough?

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Ye? Well, yeah, we've got enough snow on the track,
no doubt at all. That's not a problem. We today
was just out of our weather window for our free
ride events, so that means we picked the very best
day in the best conditions and today is not that day,
so we won't be kicking off today, but we're into
it from here right through to the eighth of September.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
Do you have what's the quality of the field? I
mean you've got some serious operators there.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Yeah. Absolutely, we got in the LPINT events in particular.
I mean we've got a whole number of World Cup races,
so you know, for Alice Rompson, our local kind of
hero to be able to go up against it, and
there's plenty in that space. We have a preliminary entry
from Marcel Husho, who's one of the greatest of all
time on the Alpine world so if he starts, that's

(00:57):
a huge coup down the southern hemisphere. And then in
the park and pipe events, we've got two worldcaps which
are actually part of the Milano twenty twenty six Olympic qualification,
so athletes can gain points now to actually try and
you know, earn those spots. So that means the best
to the beast of here. So those feel to absolutely step.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
Correct me if I'm wrong, But our reputation, if not
still growing, is certainly good internationally in terms of people
coming here in the off season. They're off season and
using our facilities. So in other words, we're a good base.
A lot of these people will know us and how
we operate.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
Right, yeah, one hundred percent, you know, and we have
an advance. We have snow when the northern hemisphere doesn't,
so people definitely do come down. And I think we've
also athletes track record now means they want to know
what they're doing where they're training, because you know that
we've now got so many athletes at their world class level.
So we've certainly moved a long way forward.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
That's the truth. The system we've got going in that
part of the world's brilliant. The economic boosts generally, what's
at worth to the region, do you think in the order.

Speaker 2 (01:59):
Of six to ten million? Depends on how you count
you win their economic compect starts. But when athletes come on,
they typically they don't just come on for the three
or four days of their event. They'll come and they'll
train for a couple of weeks before in maybe two
three four weeks afterwards as well, so there's actually quite
a long tail. So it just depends on what you

(02:19):
what you consider to be there and picked off the event.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
Fantastic Muddy go well with the Muddy to mey, who's
the Winter Game CEO on in Central Otaga one of
the I think, to be honest, I think the only
region that's back beyond what COVID was in terms of
tourism already.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
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Speaker 1 (02:38):
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