Steve Armitage: Hospitality NZ Chief Executive on Team NZ revealing Auckland will not host the 38th America’s Cup

The boss of Hospitality NZ says the Government's reasons for not backing an Auckland America's Cup bid don't stack up.

Auckland Unlimited has confirmed the denial of funding has put it out of the running for 2027.

The Prime Minister and Finance Minister say there are better uses for the money.

Hospitality NZ Chief Executive Steve Armitage says the money wouldn't go into a black hole. 

"Actually, the Government can help to bolster Government coffers through GST revenue - from the teams being here and established over a period of time. There's investment in technology, boat building, componentry, even before you get to the visitations."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The America's cut not coming home in twenty twenty seven.
Why because the government's not putting any money in. Basically,
the Sports Minister Mark Mitchell said it would have cost us.
This is just the tax payers alone. Would it cost
us seventy five million dollars? I thought it'd be really
good for the country.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
But I fully acknowledge that we're in a tight spot
fasically at the moment and that seventy five million dollars
has better spend in other areas.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
Steve Armitage's the chief executive Hospitality and Z with me tonight.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hi Steve, Hi Ryan, how are you?

Speaker 1 (00:27):
I'm good. I don't imagine this is going to be
a welcome decision for you, But can you understand why
they've made it?

Speaker 2 (00:34):
I can certainly understand it from and I think the
rhetoric that they're playing around it obviously plays well to
the general populace. But I think it's only one side
of the argument. I don't think it's reasonable to say
that this is money that just goes into a black hole. Actually,
the event can help to bolster government coffers through GST
revenue from the teams being here and established over a
period of time investment and technology, both building componentry even

(00:58):
before you get to the visitation. So in my view,
this is one of those instances where you're actually making
an investment to unlock the greater return over time.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
The government says, look, we've got surgeries to fund, we've
got roads to build. All of those things have great
economic outcomes too, And is it thement government's business at
this particular point in time to be picking winners with events.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Well, on the one hand, again you can make that argument,
but also we've heard consistent messages this year around the
need to grow our economy, to lift visited numbers, and
also to move away from a culture of saying no.
So my argument would be that this seems to run
encounter to that. But again, even if we were to
say that hosting the event here would generate half of
the economic benefit that has been reported from Barcelona, which

(01:41):
would be around a billion dollars, the GST take a
loan from that would be around one hundred and fifty million,
So you're doubling your money, and you can invest that
into surgeries and fixing roads and so on. So again,
it just seems like it's been a little bit of
a simplistic assessment. In this instance, it would have been
better to think about the longer term benefits from hosting
the event.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
What was the other problem you've got is the once
bitten twice shy because the COVID one we made a
loss on. Right, So people will probably think, oh, well,
we've heard this before.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
Yeah, But I think also people are smart enough to
realize that we weren't able to deliver the event as
it was intended for all the reasons that people well understand.
And you raise an interesting point because you know there
is investment in infrastructure to host this particular event as
well as other large scale and water events. So we've
invested that time and effort and energy and funding and

(02:31):
to deliver a place that can host successfully in the
America's Cup. We should be utilizing it.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
Steve, really appreciate your time tonight. Steve Armitage, chief executive
at Hospitality and Z's not happy with the decision.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
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