Clinton Farley: Hotel Britomart General Manager on the financial impact of major events in Auckland

The benefits of major events is on full display in the city of sails. 

Auckland hotels saw a $5 million boost in January, largely thanks to SailGP and country musician Luke Combs' Eden Park concerts. 

An extra 8,000 hotel rooms were booked over the four days, both events were on. 

Hotel Britomart General Manager Clinton Farley told Mike Hosking the events helped make a strong start to 2025. 

He says that, combined with the usual inbound tourism, helped make it a cracker summer season. 

Farley backs ideas for a bed-tax to pay for these money-making events, but says it needs to be nationwide. 

He says they don't want to create a messy visitor experience for tourists, where they pay different prices in different centres. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
From the old put it on the come file. Events
mean money. So between the sixteenth and nineteenth of January,
Auckland hosted Luke Combs and Sale GP. What was that worth?
Five million is the answer? Extra eight thousand rooms in
the hotels over four days. Hotel brought a much general manager,
Clinton Farley.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
But this morning, good morning to you team.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
So these numbers that we give, can you in the
hotel business and the tourism business generally, can you see it?
Can you feel? Is it obvious?

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Yes, Sitney can Obviously. The discussion this morning obviously is
about the Sale GP and the comes impact and they
were significant demand drugs into the city over the last
last few months, kicking off the year really strongly. Obviously,
that combined with our usual inbound international demand over that
period it was really cracker season.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
I was going to ask you about that. How much
is event driven in tourism or does New Zealand just
sell itself?

Speaker 2 (00:57):
I think obviously New Zealand does sell itself Internet me
by the arms of obviously Tourism New Zealand, the regional
tourism organizations throughout the country and obviously sharing on on
social media channels and word of Mouth, et cetera. But
the major events like Luke Holmes and sale GP are
really key to assisting the country to have a real

(01:20):
year round visitor demand driven model.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
And do you take a side on this? I note
this bid tax debate is back. I mean, Luke Holmes
was coming anyway, right, so why would I pay a
tax on a bed? But maybe Sale GP wasn't. Do
we need a bid tax to pay for stuff to
come here?

Speaker 2 (01:37):
Yeah, the bad takes argument is a really good one, Mike. Obviously,
tourism is our number one key GDP driver for the country,
And when you think about it like that, there's a
huge amount of GST that's taken from visitors to Alta
or even visitors traveling Key we's traveling New Zealand. So

(01:58):
I guess, first and foremost, the question could be, so
why can't tourism be funded via a little percentage of GST,
understanding that GST really drives the economy. But then second question,
if the government is not willing to kind of spare
a little bit of that GST, then the only other
option is to really consider some sort of bed levy,

(02:20):
where I guess the visitor industry sits in general is
that that needs to be some sort of national bet
levy because what we don't want happening is international people
arriving into New Zealand and they pay one percentage in
Auckland and another percentage in rote Rule and another percentage
in Queenstown. It's just a messy visitor experience. What we

(02:41):
need is something simple that people can understand, and whether
it be a bed levey or anything else, it just
needs to be something that's unified throughout the country.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
Just while I've got you, are you talked about a
good summer? What's your room right? Has it gone up?
And what's your occupancy? And has that gone up?

Speaker 2 (02:58):
Yeah? Well occupantcy what over the whole city? I believe
it was that that is seventeen percent increase over the
city over those two key event dates. And yes, of
course roommates do go up in higher demand periods. I
guess it's the old supply and demand model. But I
think what we need to also remember is the winter
periods in Auckland as well as New Zealand are very tough.

(03:23):
There wasn't there wasn't a lot of hotels that made
good money over winter last year. Many some in fact
running very close to the line. So yes, they do
make money when it's busy and demand strong. However, over
those winter months it does become very challenging, and just
keeping in mind that we have huge teams of people
that we employ that we need to maintain employment throughout

(03:44):
the year as well.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
All right, Clinton, appreciate your time, Clinton Farley, Hotel Britain,
General Manager.

Speaker 2 (03:50):
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