Dunedin Airport is planning to extend the capacity of its terminal to cater for increasing numbers from the tourism boom.
Airport chief executive Richard Roberts appeared at the Dunedin City Council annual plan hearings yesterday trumpeting the facility's success at gaining 300,000 extra seats on Air New Zealand, Jetstar and Kiwi Regional Airlines.
He told the council its plans to increase funding for Dunedin's events budget and city marketing were ‘‘crucial''.
He also told the meeting part of the airport's business plan was to expand areas of the terminal to deal with larger aircraft.
After the meeting, he said the airport was hoping to get that approved by its shareholders, a 50-50 partnership between the Government and the council.
The extension would not require extra funding, as the capital expenditure was already covered in the facility's budget.
The issue the airport faced was its departure area, where passengers were processed and waited for boarding.
Passenger feedback showed how ‘‘tight the facility can be''.
The area was designed to cope with busy periods, but that was in 2006.
It was not known whether any extension would mean an expansion of the airport's footprint.
At the meeting, Crs Chris Staynes and Richard Thomson both asked Mr Roberts for data to support his suggestion the city needed to put extra money into marketing.
Cr Hilary Calvert asked what the airport was bringing to the council, considering it was 50% owned by the council.
He told them the extra 300,000 seats, which had been attracted from a marketing budget of about $100,000, was compelling data.
After the meeting, he said he would work with Enterprise Dunedin to provide more data.
‘‘Now we need to continue to fill those extra seats, and once we've done that we're in the market again for more.''
A good connection with Auckland was essential as tourism boomed.
Any regional centre that had that connection, as Dunedin did, could ‘‘get ready for the next five to 10 years''.
Larnach Castle director Norcombe Barker, who also spoke on behalf of tourism group Dunedin Host, said the city could get an ‘‘exponential'' return from council investment in tourism marketing.
In response to questions from Cr Lee Vandervis, he said he had heard of examples from Australia of returns being as high as ‘‘60 to 1'' from such spending.
The spending should be aligned with the nationwide Tourism 2025 plan and focus on shoulder seasons, rather than February when ‘‘pretty much'' every operator in Dunedin was at capacity.
