Waikato Business News April/May 2019

CAMBRIDGE
WAIKATO BUSINESS NEWS April/May 2019
19
Visitors pour
in for events
Cambridge’s resident population is
booming, and so are visitor numbers.
Some are drawn by the
town’s proximity to major
tourism attractions Hobbiton,
Waitomo and Rotorua,
some are drawn by the town’s
intrinsic charms and large numbers
flock in for events.
That keeps the town’s
i-SITE staff busy. They dealt
with 40,000 customer contacts
in the past year, up about seven
percent on the same time a year
earlier.
“We tend to get an older
demographic coming into our
visitor centres,” says Destination
Cambridge chief executive
Miff Macdiarmid, who is based
at i-SITE.
“They've heard about Cambridge,
that it's a nice place
to stop, and has a village feel.
Some people come for certain
things, whether it's antiques or
autumn colours or the blossom
festival. It's also a nice place on
the way down from Auckland if
they're coming straight from the
airport.
“A lot of people are coming
to Cambridge, basing themselves
here and they'll head
off to Hobbiton or Waitomo or
Sanctuary Mountain.”
In summer, a whopping
50 percent of their customers
are international tourists, with
30 percent Cambridge locals
and the remaining 20 percent
domestic tourists.
Events are key, but Mac-
diarmid and her team are also
marketing Cambridge in other
ways. They are working on adding
rural attractions, particularly
for the Chinese market. And
they promote the town’s centrality,
to Auckland and Hamilton
airports as well as to Hamilton
Gardens, and the other
major attractions in the region.
Events can bring huge numbers
to the town and its surrounds,
many of them based
around rowing and cycling.
The Maadi secondary schools
rowing regatta, held at Karapiro
every second year, attracts
10,000. That includes plenty of
spectating grandparents, who
are likely to stay in and around
Cambridge. This year Maadi
coincided with the town’s
Autumn Festival. The annual
waka ama champs also draw
around 10,000, and a remarkably
busy start to 2019 also saw
the week-long New Zealand
Cycle Classic in January, with
riders from around the world
competing in the country’s only
UCI 2.2 event. On top of that,
a week earlier the Avantidrome
hosted a leg of the Track World
Cup series.
Fieldays provides a further
filip in June, but Macdiarmid
and others are also working to
boost events in the town during
traditional downtimes.
Accommodation options
include a range of hotels, from
The annual waka ama champs at Karapiro draw 10,000 people. Photo: Michael Jeans
the Podium Lodge with its
Olympic village vibe, to the
Hamilton Airport hotel, due to
undergo a refurbishment under
its new airport owners, Lakeview
Lodge at Karapiro and, at
the seriously high end, the Henley
Hotel, formerly Sania Park.
Macdiarmid says Hidden
Lake Hotel, under construction
at Lakewood and due to open
next year, will be an important
addition.
Air B&Bs play a crucial
role taking the overflow during
major events, and there is an
increasing number around
Karapiro, Macdiarmid says.
Meanwhile, she says, one
of their biggest opportunities
is making Cambridge a destination
for Auckland visitors,
including families taking a
break “having a few days and
just really enjoying it”.
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