An independently prepared economic impact report says that the 2015 National Fieldays brought $142m in revenue in the Waikato region and $396m in New Zealand.
The Fieldays 2015 Economic Impact Report, independently prepared by the University of Waikato Management School’s Institute for Business Research and Hughes Economics, was released yesterday.
The Report, presented by Dr Warren Hughes, revealed Fieldays impact to the GDP is around $53m (Waikato) and $166m (New Zealand).
“When preparing the impact study, we look at three sources – visitor spending, equipment spending and organisational spending,” says Hughes.
The decrease experienced in both Waikato and New Zealand’s revenue and GDP of 13-14% attributes to the dairy forecast.
“Unfortunately, as we came into Fieldays, we knew there was bad news ahead in the dairy sector and equipment purchase fell directly, and the total overall purchase fell accordingly,” says Hughes.
However, he says, all other sectors – sheep, beef, horticulture, wine – were up, “so there’s a lot of confidence out there”, and this is seen in visitor spending.
“Hospitality spend was significantly up this year. Not only were gate entries up 5% from last year but people were also spending more – $250 per person in 2014 to an estimated $303 in 2015. That’s a significant increase.”
“We’re thrilled with the economic impacts of Fieldays 2015,” says NZ National Fieldays Society CEO Jon Calder.
“The financial contribution that Fieldays makes to the region, and the country overall, is tangible evidence that it is more than just a four-day event in June,” he says.
“We’re proud to have such relationships with our stakeholders and customers to be able to contribute so significantly to New Zealand’s primary sector. The economic impacts reported by the University and Dr Hughes are a result of industry collaboration and cooperation.”
Calder says the economic impacts from Fieldays 2015 shows that collaboration and partnership are what makes Fieldays so successful.
