Despite the ongoing pressures created by Covid-19, WellingtonNZ continued to respond in an agile manner to support the region.
While the closed borders, short-lived Australian bubble, lockdowns, reduced domestic air capacity due to traffic light settings, and Auckland’s longstanding lockdown affected the region’s economy and wellbeing, WellingtonNZ continued to work across storytelling, tourism, venue management, supporting and attracting events, facilitating business growth, attracting students, workforce development, supporting major infrastructure projects and film permitting.
This work reflected the priorities of Destination Pōneke – the destination management plan developed during Covid-19 and launched at the end of 2021.
WellingtonNZ continued to adapt to COVID-19
Wellington’s economy continued to feel the brunt of Covid-19, with New Zealand entering a second level four lockdown in 2021. Auckland continued to do the hard work and remained in lockdown. This meant ongoing challenges concerning the number of events and tourists WellingtonNZ was able to hold and attract. Adapting to the moment, WellingtonNZ helped the region’s businesses through support, advocacy, and helping to access funding from central government and private investors, as well as initiating campaigns and events to bring people back into the central city as and region.
Business Unit Highlights
2,926 Number of different business engagements in WellingtonNZ programmes
WellingtonNZ continued to engage with local businesses and provided access to funds, grants, and loans from central government throughout another lockdown period. The business growth team provided hands-on business innovation and capability support, assisting companies with training and coaching, along with delivering the first Regional Economic Development Plan in over a decade.
This plan outlined the economic framework for making Wellington a thriving region for all and features four key sectors and four enablers:
Key Sectors
Screen, creative and digital
Science, technology, engineering and high value manufacturing (STEM)
Visitor economy
Primary sector, food and fibre
Enablers
Māori economic development
Skills talent and education
Resilient infrastructure
Water accessibility and security
Spotlight on: Research & Development
Litmaps
Litmaps is a Wellington-based software company. It’s founded on an app developed for the world of academia allowing people to visualise research articles by mapping them out with a targeted search engine. Since its inception in 2020, over 40,000 researchers have used the tool to help with breakthroughs and advancement in their research.
The WellingtonNZ R&D team has been supporting Litmaps since it was launched, helping the company grow from a three-person team working out of a living room, to expanding into offices with multiple workstreams beyond the original app. With support from WellingtonNZ, Litmaps secured $1m in seed funding to help extend the platform to host teams of researchers alongside individuals.
Litmaps continues to safely accelerate science and technology, helping people find information and research on topics that would otherwise be hidden.
Business stars incubated and accelerated
Creative HQ continued to accelerate innovation within start-ups, government, and other enterprises. They remain focused on reinforcing their ability and capacity with a strong suite of products to meet the growing demand for capability-building programmes, both in Aotearoa and internationally.
CreativeHQ worked through the alert level changes and lockdown to enable thousands of people to play on the edge of innovation and achieve their ambition within an expediated time frame. They supported Wellington founders to grow scalable and investable companies through the ‘School of Innovation’.
With its work both nationally and internationally, Creative HQ shone a spotlight on Wellington as a city thriving with entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs, and the innovation curious.
$12.7m investment raised by incubated businesses
9 Wellington start-ups on the Creative HQ Platform
37 investable companies created by Creative HQ
Working with over 6,000 leaders and changemakers across 75 individual projects
$13.m investment raised by startups that went through Creative HQ accelerator programmes alone
49 founders supported through 3 startup programmes (2 Climate Response Accelerators, 1 Incubator)
27 events were held, including the Mindset of Design Festival, GovTech Demo Day at the Beehive and the Government Innovation Exchange
106 media stories shared by national and international media, to help us spread the word about the awesome innovation initiatives happening around Wellington.
New talent harnessed for Wellington
While the borders were closed, focus was placed on developing the future workforce. In particular, adding creativity, new thinking, and cultural diversity to the tech sector in the Wellington region. WellingtonNZ worked with students, graduates, Wellington businesses and government agencies to enhance development opportunities.
Tertiary Students
Summer of Tech
306 Students/graduates assisted into internships, work experience or work integrated learning programmes through the Summer of Tech. That was a 43 per cent increase on the previous Summer of Tech programme.
WellingtonNZ supported the Summer of Tech programme to create an Employer Resources Toolkit, which contained six tools, of which garnered 435 downloads.
Work Integrated Learning Opportunities
60 tertiary students worked with businesses on an individual or small group project.
Secondary Students
Young Enterprise
392 students from 21 schools across the Wellington region participated in the Young Enterprise programme. WellingtonNZ hosted and judged a mid-year pitch session for students.
Visits to Tech workplaces
WellingtonNZ worked alongside the Ministry of Education to pilot a programme of workplace visits for year 12 and 13 students. Two places were visited by 44 students.
Spotlight on:
Summer of Tech
Summer of Tech has gone from strength to strength since its inception in 2006 at the Creative HQ incubator. The programme connects employers and students for paid work experience during the tertiary summer break. It won ‘Best Contribution to the Tech Sector’ at the 2022 Hi-Tech Awards and continues to help the future stars of the tech workforce secure work in one of Aotearoa’s most innovative sectors.
Cameras rolling in Wellington
Screen Wellington continues to play a pivotal role in making sure the region’s screen industry is top of mind globally.
The Wellington screen sector is internationally recognised for excellence. That is set to grow with Wellington named a UNESCO City of Film – one of just 18 cities worldwide to hold the honour.
UNESCO City of Film supported internships on local productions for young people in the industry. It also worked alongside the Greater Wellington Regional Council to provide free transport for the Māoriland Film Festival and improved access for other film cultural events, particularly for under-represented communities.
And that's a wrap
Screen Wellington continued to the develop their screen strategy. Filming continued around the region for the Avatar movie sequels, operating around the Covid-19 lockdowns. The Get-Back documentary about The Beatles by Sir Peter Jackson and Wingnut films was made in Wellington, and has since won five Emmy’s. Highlights included Jane Campion starting her partnership with Netflix for a film incubator for emerging artists called ‘A Wave in the Ocean’.
Screen Wellington funded a producer incubator programme, which saw three ideas being picked up. It was dedicated to IP working with an award-winning American producer, who helped develop ideas over ten weeks and pitch to the major streaming platforms.
$1,072m Visitor spend
1,938,100 total visitor nights to the Wellington region
39,534 international visitors
Destination Pōneke -Wellington’s Destination Management Plan
Released in December 2021, this destination management plan will enable WellingtonNZ to actively lead, facilitate and advocate that Wellington city as a destination, is managed in a sustainable way, supporting a vision for Wellington to become a zero-carbon capital famous for transformational experiences.
Spotlight on:
Sustainability
Tourism is contributing to Wellington’s goal of being carbon neutral by 2050 via Wellington’s Destination Management Plan. WellingtonNZ’s approach has been adopted by other regions around the country. It is being used as an example and guide on how to transform the tourism sector to seek out and attract high-value tourists who respect the country and its environment.
i-SITE geared up for success
The i-SITE continued to provide guidance and recommendations for visitors to Wellington, and helped to support the city’s tourism operators. With borders closed, it successfully pivoted to be WellingtonNZ’s key ticket seller for performance venues across the city and supported Wellington’s strong events programme which included:
LAB
Wedding Singer Season
Madagascar The Musical Season
Benee & The NZSO
TEEKS & NZSO
Flying Nun 40th Anniversary show
Orchestra Wellington Season
NZSO Season
Wellington Saints Basketball Season
Wellington Opera
Come Together Concert Series
Synthony
Business Events Wellington is a team of event planning professionals, who have been forging networks ahead of the world-class conference venue Tākina opening in 2023. There has been a focus on further developing domestic relationships while seeking out opportunities internationally as borders open again.
Tākina - a purpose-built Convention Centre
Construction on Tākina, the city’s first purpose-built convention and exhibition centre, has continued, with a first look at the venue for media happening in June. The $189m project will be completed in mid-2023. The Business Events Wellington team promoted Tākina to the local and Australian markets, generating over 80 bookings for post completion.
Business Events Wellington highlights
Key events secured in the past financial year:
New Zealand Game Developers Association Conference – 700 delegates in 2022 with the aim to increase to 1,200 by 2024. The event, will be anchored in Wellington for a minimum of three years
BioTech NZ’s Life Sciences Summit – 400 delegates in 2023 with the aim to increase to 700 delegates by 2025.It will be anchored in Wellington for a minimum of three years.
Australasian Society for Infectious Diseases Annual Scientific Meeting – 450 delegates for 2024.
International Conference on Digital Preservation (iPRES) – 250 delegates for 2025.
The Royal Australian & New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists Annual Scientific Meeting – 800 delegates for 2024.
Congress of the International Association of Sedimentologists – 800 delegates for 2026.
Spotlight on:
Women in Medicine
New Zealand Women in Medicine started as a private Facebook group in 2018, quickly amassing 5000 members. A group of 300 was able to come together in Wellington in May 2022 for the inaugural conference. Chairperson Orna McGinn noted the value of holding the event in Wellington, as they were able to tap into central government agencies for high-profile local- speakers, including Dr Ashley Bloomfield and Associate Minister of Health Dr Ayesha Verall. Wellington is being touted the repeat location in May 2024.
WellingtonNZ’s marketing team continued to pivot as new challenges were posed. The team laid out the ‘Welcome Mat’, ‘Turned Up the Volume’ of the noise coming back to the capital, and encouraged people to come back into the central city to support the retail and hospitality communities.
Advent Calendar
WellingtonNZ has been producing the hugely popular Wellington Advent Calendar since 2010. Each day between 1-24 December a highly guarded secret deal is revealed for either shopping, dining, or an experience. Local artist Mary Guo was commissioned to illustrate each day’s deal, skillfully and beautifully showcasing the participating businesses. The calendar continued to drive economic benefits to local businesses and was an important element in building vibrancy in the city. 2021 saw the most engaged Advent Calendar to date with record users, vouchers downloaded, and economic benefit.
WELL_NGTON sign
A 2.3m high colourful sign was set on the waterfront as a storytelling moment and tourist attraction. Designed to be interactive, the sign allows people to be the ‘i’ in Wellington, and snap a photo. It has become a popular attraction on the waterfront, and will continue to play a part in the Wellington story.
Imagine This
WellingtonNZ produced its first podcast, ‘Imagine This’. Made up of 14 episodes across two seasons, the series was hosted by leading Kiwi journalist, and Wellingtonian, Jehan Casinader. Each episode explored Pōneke’s business landscape, talking to industry leaders, innovators, and change-makers.
‘Imagine This’ climbed to number one on the Apple Entrepreneurship podcast chart and peaked at number three on the Business list. Over 289,800 minutes of audio was consumed across the globe. Audiences actively engaged in the content across Australia, the UK, and the USA.
Media Coverage
$27.9m Equivalent Advertising Value (EAV) from media activity
Wellington has stories to tell and WellingtonNZ has made this a core part of its marketing. WellingtonNZ worked hard to deliver a PR and media famil programme across domestic and international media ensuring the city was a key destination for New Zealanders and Australians as restrictions eased.
778,597 Number of Wellington region residents that attended events
$41m Value of expenditure generated from business, performance and major events
Major & Regional Events included:
ICC WWC Cricket
Blossom Valley
Greytown Festival of Christmas
Aotearoa NZ Festival of the Arts
Eat Drink Play
Hilma Af Klint
Visa Wellington on a Plate
Beervana
The Surrealists
A place for all with Venues Wellington
While the Wellington Town Hall remain closed, the Opera House became Wellington’s go-to venue to host a wide range of performance events. In June the St James Theatre reopened following significant upgrades and earthquake strengthening, bringing performance back to Courtenay Place in one of New Zealand’s most iconic and prestigious venues.