Tourism traffic throughout the city and region is picking up as summer finally arrives and follows a solid start to retail spending over Christmas.
Businesses are waiting to cash in at the prospect of more visitors coming into the city for the concert by Canadian rock musician Bryan Adams later in the week.
Another expected crowd puller is the Black Caps’ T20 match versus Pakistan at Hagley Oval on March 16, while the White Ferns meet Sri Lanka in two games over the same month.
Business Canterbury chief executive Leeann Watson said the events would encourage more spending, while economic signals would hopefully drive a stronger year ahead financially for businesses.
She said retailers and hospitality owners could expect a trading lift from the visitor increase with the likes of hotels, motels, bars and restaurants to benefit.
Their suppliers would receive more orders and the flow-on effect would include transport companies taking on more passengers from airport arrivals, she said.
"We have Bryan Adams here on Friday and Saturday and a big concert always helps with retail and hospitality with more people in town and spending more money in bars and restaurants and cafes and hopefully doing a bit of shopping. Those are the sort of events that really help to generate more confidence in those sectors which have done it pretty tough 12 months or so ago."
Ms Watson said more events would come when Christchurch’s new stadium opened to boost the retail and hospitality sectors.
Business Canterbury, rebranding last year from the Canterbury Employers’ Chamber of Commerce, has 2700 exporting, manufacturing, retail and tourism and hospitality members.
About 80% of the membership is small to medium businesses of fewer than 25 staff with larger companies including Anzco, Tait Communications, the Christchurch Casino and Christchurch Airport.
A promising start comes on the back of its survey held last month when businesses indicated strong optimism for the year ahead.
Nearly 60% expected a stronger financial performance in coming months — the highest level since mid-2022 — and about 65% reported feeling positive about the Canterbury economy.
Ms Watson said the survey’s record levels of optimism appeared to be backed up by recent spending activity and business investment.
"People are definitely gearing up for a busier year. We’ve had conversations with some a couple of marketing members just in the last couple of weeks and they are getting lots of inquiries from businesses investing more in their marketing and that’s a really good indication that businesses are planning to be busier this year."
She said Christchurch and Canterbury had the strongest net migration in the nation with more people choosing to live and work than any other major centre.
Record enrolments last year at the University of Canterbury, Lincoln University and the Ara Institute if Canterbury were another promising sign.
While it might be tough in some sectors the region had a diverse economy and other sectors were picking up additional opportunities, she said.
"So the changes in the OCR and the signals of dropping interest rates gave a little more optimism. Obviously the government made a lot of changes last year and some of those quarterly planned actions like 90-day trials reinstated for all businesses and trying to get rid of red tape and compliance costs and some of the changes and proposed changes around the Holidays Act which we know has been a real pain point for business for a long time, as well as health and safety changes, are starting to give businesses a little more confidence that things are going to get easier as we move forward."
She said the business community would move to growth when it began investing in more plant and equipment and hiring new staff.
Last month fewer businesses indicated they were at this stage because they were cautious about overall spending, she said.
"So we are headed in the right direction, but people are still just a little conservative around that slowing consumer demand. That was probably one of the biggest issues last year."
In the survey their top concerns were: consumer confidence and demand; inflationary pressure and interest rates; productivity and growth; compliance costs; and cashflow and money coming in and going out.
Ms Watson said some of the concerns had yet to "bounce back", but banks cutting interest rates further would help smaller businesses due to roll over fixed rates in the coming year.
"That will certainly help with consumer confidence and demand and hopefully people feel they have more money in their pocket and support local businesses a bit more."
She said good signals from the government for economic growth and reduced compliance costs might take longer to show.
Exporters were putting in good planning and looking at diversifying markets in the event of increased tariffs and changes following the United States election, she said.
The next Gross Domestic Product (GDP) update is due in March and follows an economic activity decline by 1% in the three months to September.
