OPINION
The tourism sector’s noisy clamour to remain ratepayer-funded beneficiaries gathers pace by the day. We have experienced a media blizzard of persuasive and well-articulated claims of tourism’s infinite value to the region’s economy.
The public is invited to believe that our future prosperity is underpinned by a handful of well-paid (by ratepayers) tourism sector promoters putting on the annual FAWC event, attending international travel expos and producing promotional brochures.
The sector’s elite are working overtime, dusting off ex-politicians and fellow beneficiaries to fire shots at the regional council for daring to challenge their entitlement. Just goes to show there’s nothing so ex as ex-politicians, forgetful of their previous disdain for corporate welfare.
Included are statements by sector leaders that are knowingly wrong.
It is simply not true to say HB Tourism will have to close its doors immediately. The regional council’s preferred option is for transition funding, enabling the sector to make changes over the next 12 months.
Every three years, key tourism sector players promise sincerely that their businesses will become fully self-funding, no longer relying on the $1.5 million annual ratepayer subsidy. That promise has never been delivered.
This has been the pattern over the past 20 years. In that time, ratepayers have stumped up with around $30m.
Regional councillors are grappling with huge budget demands in every direction.
We also hear the views of other tourism operators who have a different vision of where their sector needs to go. They are telling us that the Hawke’s Bay Tourism model is outdated, locked in a time warp that desperately needs to change.
Future tourism success, they say, is much more sophisticated, driven by online engagement in ways apparently beyond the skill set of our current tourism apparatchiks.
Other important contributors to our regional economy express bemusement at the ratepayer largesse meted out to the tourism sector. Those with memories of pastoral farming subsidies of the last century offer a wry smile at the remonstrations of today’s tourism lobby.
The viewpoints expressed to me are that these old Soviet-styled sector subsidies are a curse. Generosity and kindness with other people’s money they say, creates lethargy, stifles innovation and detaches the industry from its market base.
Most importantly, we need to consider the views of thousands of ratepayers, many on fixed incomes, forced to pay for the marketing costs of these privately owned tourism businesses.
Ratepayers would see it as completely non-sensical, the regional council proposing to put $1.5m annually into the marketing of sheep meat, wool, apples or the wine industry.
Or any other regional enterprise that was loud enough in its plea for ratepayer funding.
Councillors look forward to receiving and considering a wide cross-section of community views so we can arrive at the best and fairest decisions on spending their money.
– Neil Kirton is a Hawke’s Bay regional councillor
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