Wellington, NZ, is riding a new tide of conference business armed with a brand new centre and a strengthened cohort of ambassadors CVB, Business Events Wellington continues to position the city as New Zealand’s events capital through its three-prong strategy of attraction, retention and growth. These key points are:
- Attraction focuses on securing key domestic, Australian and international association conferences for Wellington. The bureau proactively focuses on international conferences that align strongly with Wellington and New Zealand’s sectors of interest or strengths and works proactively with local universities and national associations (most of which are based in Wellington), on bidding for international conferences.
- Retention proactively engages specific domestic organisations to anchor their conferences in Wellington for multiple years, based on alignment of their subject matter to the city and the region’s strategies.
- Growth sees the bureau working much closer with organisers at the planning stage to support them throughout planning and promotion of their conferences. The bureau also gives additional resources and support to help increase attendance and impact and improve delegate and organiser experiences.
Future work 
“The next few months are instrumental in the capital’s business events story as we welcome our new convention centre, Tãkina, to the city’s event infrastructure. Adding 10,000sqm of conference and event space right in the heart of the city means we can now easily host conferences for up to 1,600 delegates in a dedicated convention centre, something that was previously not possible,” says Irette Ferreira, manager Business Events Wellington. “Shortly after its opening, Wellington and Tãkina will be hosting New Zealand’s largest business event trade show, MEETINGS, for the first time in the show’s 27-year history. “We can’t wait to showcase our city to hundreds of conference and event planners from all around New Zealand, Australia and further afield. It’s an incredible opportunity to build our reputation and conference pipeline.” New numbers With conferences back in full swing post-pandemic, Wellington’s major venues have been consistently busy with 350 conferences taking place between July and December 2022, according to the Business Events Data Programme. Based on the data reported, the city hosted 32.5% of the country’s market share of conferences during that period. Looking forward, the bureau is excited to be welcoming a variety of international conferences to the city in 2023, including the 10th International Crustacean Congress, the Australasian Society for Physical Activity’s Annual Conference and the International Zoo Educators Conference. Case study Wellington hosted BioTech New Zealand’s inaugural Life Sciences Summit in March 2023, part of a multi-year partnership to host the conference in the city. It was an event that will also leave a lasting impact and grow the country’s promising biotech sector. With 400 attendees, 63 speakers, 26 exhibitors, 30 sponsors and 42 sessions over two days, the summit provided a platform for discussion of the challenges New Zealand and the world is facing — from climate emissions, gene editing, scaling New Zealand technology for the world, venture capital funding trends, talent attraction and Aotearoa’s competitive advantages. The organisers certainly seemed happy with the outcome: “Wellington is perfect as a conference destination – the city has all the ingredients, from the diverse groups of people to attend, plus government and it’s just an easy place to move around,” says BioTechNZ executive director Zahra Champion. “With government based in Wellington, alongside other sectors of strength, it was also easy to bring speakers in – Callaghan Innovation and Victoria University of Wellington were fantastic to work with and Malaghan Institute helped create content, pulling a number of their speakers together which added integrity to the content,” Champion added. “We are excited about coming back – Wellington is not only easy to get to, but everything is in walking distance, there are fantastic places to eat and drink, and it’s just a beautiful city.” Held at Shed 6, next year’s summit is destined for Wellington’s new conference and exhibition centre, Tãkina. The venue’s operator Tãkina Events notes that there are more than 100 events on the calendar for the first year, the majority of which are multi-day conferences between 300 and 1,000 delegates. The ground-floor public Exhibition Gallery will open on 3 June with the LEGO® interactive exhibition, Jurassic World by Brickman® on display. And the venue is projecting 500,000 people will visit Tãkina in its first year based on the line-up of conferences and events already in place. 
Advocacy Wellington is continuing to build its advocate programme to support the city in attracting international conferences, with the addition of five new ambassadors in key fields, from health to earth science and design. They join a group of academics and members of national associations across a range of disciplines who bid for and help attract international conferences to New Zealand’s capital city. “The internationally recognised expertise of these thought leaders and their organisations play a major role in attracting international conferences to Wellington and showcasing our research and innovation on the world stage,” says Irette Ferreira. The five new ‘ambassadors’ welcomed by the Wellington Advocate Network are:
- Dr Jessica Mills – president Psychosocial Oncology New Zealand
- Dr Nadia Pantidi – lecturer in interaction design at the School of Design Innovation, Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University (VUW)
- Mark Lawrence – senior geologist GNS Science
- Dr Lee Davidson – associate professor, Museum & Heritage Studies, VUW
- Paul Atkins, CEO of the Royal Society Te Apãrangi.
VUW’s Dr Nadia Pantidi was instrumental in bidding for OzCHI 2023, the International Annual Conference on Computer Human Interaction. She says: “This is an opportunity to bring people over and showcase the excellent and diverse research we do in the area of Human Computer Interaction, as well as what Aotearoa, New Zealand and specifically Wellington has to offer across several industries such as gaming, film, fine arts and tech start-ups.” Dr Lee Davidson bid for and won the Conference of the Association of Critical Heritage Studies (ACHS) in 2026. Ferreira adds: “We’re grateful to our new advocates for their time and support. We also encourage others to join them in bidding for conferences that will bring positive benefits to Wellington’s knowledge sectors, economy and society.” The Wellington Advocate Network was launched by the bureau in 2022 to connect Wellington’s industry leaders and top academics, and to help attract international business events to the capital.
