Megan Singleton: BloggerAtLarge.com writer on the economic impact of 'tour tourism'

It's been a slow winter for Auckland - but the city's in for an extra boost when Coldplay touches down.

The band's 'Music of the Spheres' tour has caused a significant spike in Australia's hotel and aviation sectors, and it's likely similar growth will happen on this side of the ditch.

BloggerAtLarge.com writer Megan Singleton says last summer's Pink concert generated extra spending across the hospitality and tourism sectors - and there's a case for the Government to lure more big international events over.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudgin
from News Talks.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
AB Megan Singleton joins us now to talk travel. Good morning, good.

Speaker 3 (00:16):
Morning, Yes, good morning, am I.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Welcome, Yes, good to have you with us. Hey, you're
going to talk about tour touring today and the impact
that it can have on a city. I mean, it
can be massive, can't it.

Speaker 3 (00:31):
Yeah, it can, and we're really missing it in New Zealand.
I mean, I don't know if you've been speaking to
various uber vivers or whoever you've had contact with hospitality,
you know, retailers, accommodation operators. We've been really missing tour tourism.
We've had a difficult winter. The last winter, of course,
we had the FIFA Women's World Cup, so that had

(00:52):
a great impact around New Zealand. For all of that.
The uber driver I was speaking to you last night
when I was heading into the Breakers game said it's
been really tough and they're looking forward to like Christmas
office duos and things like that, and so Coldplay will
be a grit injection of goodness into the hospital scene.
I just had a quick look and all through Ekland

(01:12):
dates are sold out, as are all their Australian dates
sold out, and even Travis Scott with his change of
dates got fifty thousand people at e in part. So
I've got some stats from last year's Pink Concert around
what impact that had on the economy, and I just
thought it was really fascinating that over eighty eight thousand

(01:35):
people attended the concerts across two nights, thirty eight percent
of those came from outside of Auckland, with a total
spend of eight point nine million dollars. Now, the government
Central Government, of course, takes fifteen percent in GST. So
I asked chat GPT what that totals, and that it
told me one point three three five million was the

(01:58):
you know GST take of the spend for the Pink concept.
So instead of perhaps the Auckland great payers in other
city and regions around the countries rate payers having to
come up with extra money to lure events into their cities,
I'm thinking maybe central government should be investing a little

(02:18):
bit of that back in to lure some of these
big events that have such positive uplift into across so
many businesses around the country. I'm just posing that to
you Today's.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
Posing that and then maybe a new stadium that's big enough.
Do you know, take a time.

Speaker 3 (02:34):
We want them, No, we want the Mowbrays to build that.
They can build that. And I tell you what, an
Eden Park could be decommissioned into an old people's home
for rugby nuts. How about that?

Speaker 1 (02:44):
It is.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
I think you raise a really good point. I think
it's always been very difficult to measure the impact and
the economic impact of a lot of these events. But
there is absolutely no doubt. You only have to look
at gigs that we see, whether it's Coldplay or Travis
Scott last week. Everybody. A lot of people plan to
travel to these events. They come to the city, they
need somewhere to stay, they need to eat some food.
So you know, it's hard to deny that there isn't

(03:05):
a positive menefit. And also it just makes the city
feel alive, so you know that that, yeah, that's a
good thing as well. Nice to talk to you, Megan.
You can find Megan at bloger at large dot com.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks it B from nine am Sunday,
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