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NZ GOLF OPEN WORTH $20M TO QUEENSTOWN

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February, 2010

Early estimates put the economic benefit to the Queenstown area of last months New Zealand Golf Open at around $20 million, Destination Queenstown general manager marketing Graham Budd said this month.

The resort was already quickly becoming known as a fantastic golf destination, boosted greatly by the huge international exposure of the three Open tournaments and the major investment in into golf courses in the area.

Mr Budd said based on an estimated direct spend of between $7million and $8million from the 25,000 visitors in the Wakatipu for anything from five to seven days, as well as regional day visitors, the economic injection in to the lcoal economy was expected to be about $20 million.

It would be six weeks until the official Queenstown accommodation monitor was released and even more accurate numbers could be calculated. It was also difficult to isolate golf visitors from other high season visitors with Queenstown experiencing a strong summer so far.

It's very hard to calculate the direct benefit, but it's a significant benefit and those figures are not surprising, Mr Budd said.

The first November 2007 tournament attracted 34,000 and a similar economic benefit, but Mr Budd said there were likely to have been a lot more locals attending that year as it was the first time The Hills private course had been opened to the public.

Destination Queenstown estimates have put the direct spend economic benefit to Queenstown and Arrowtown of the three tournaments at about $60 million.

One really good thing about this compared with other events is it's held over a number of days - people have got to really stay 5 days minimum to see it and may add a couple of days holiday if they're in that position.

Destination Queenstown was already capitalising on the captive golf audience and had been at the event distributing some of its 5000 hot-off-the-press Pure Golf' promotional brochures, that would be distributed throughout New Zealand and internationally.

Queenstown was rapidly becoming known as a great golf destination, particularly on the east coast of Australia.

Destination Queenstown planned to work with local golf courses and other operators in the golf market to grow the market and Mr Budd said the resort would be more actively promoted as a golf destination.
"We haven't tapped into its (golf market) full potential."