Mrs Kennedy has been appointed chairwoman of a new advisory panel to oversee the development of a Waitaki events strategy and allocation of money from a new events fund for the district.
Last year, the Government established a regional events fund, and gave $50million to nine ‘‘international marketing alliances’’, representing clusters of regional tourism organisations.
Waitaki, Dunedin, Southland and Clutha are part of ‘‘Pure Southern Land’’, which has received $1.5million. Tourism Waitaki has been given $183,000.
The funding will be spread over the next two years, and will go towards supporting new or existing events that meet funding criteria, the administration of funding applications, and professional events assistance.
Mrs Kennedy said the aim of the fund was to support events that attracted visitors from outside the district, and replace some of the spending missing from international tourists.
‘‘I’m really excited by the fact that the Government is putting money into regional events,’’ she said.
‘‘It’s a way of revitalising towns, through events, which I think is just such a worthwhile thing.’’
Tourism New Zealand research has revealed up to one third of domestic travel is primarily driven by people looking to participate in events.
‘‘I know just from talking to businesses in Oamaru, often it’s events that are either happening in this town or in the region that will generate their biggest day of business for the year,’’ Mrs Kennedy said.
Most existing events that attracted visitors to the Waitaki district were organised by volunteers, she said.
‘‘Now, they’re going to have some funding support.’’
Other members of the Waitaki advisory panel are Elly Toft, Malcolm McLauchlan, Tammy Jackman and Tourism Waitaki general manager Margaret Munro.
They got together for the first time last week.
Mrs Kennedy said applications for the first round of funding for new and existing events would open by October, and work on the district’s events strategy and application criteria was under way.
‘‘It’s important we can have a clear strategy to work from to achieve the best outcomes from the funds and support events that deliver on this,’’ she said.
At present, Mrs Kennedy is the manager of Steampunk HQ and chairwoman of the Waitaki Tourism Association.
From 2010 to 2014, she worked for Tourism Waitaki as its events development officer.
She organised the first Oamaru on Fire festival and developed a programme of events as part of the 2011 Rugby World Cup festival. She was also involved in the establishment of the Oamaru Farmers’ Market and Steampunk HQ.
