Zoe Wallace

A real buzz around town, like this is the one thing on everybody's lips at the moment.

And as you know, the city's been waiting a wee while.

It's been through more than it should have.

So we're certainly ready to open the doors and welcome both our visitors and our locals in.

Yeah, look, I think at the moment we're pretty comfortable.

I think there needs to be future investment in local infrastructure because if we continue this growth, we need to keep up from an infrastructure perspective.

So we've got a great airport, we've got great accommodation now, but we certainly need to continue to keep up and we probably need to get ahead of that.

Well, it might be small on the surface, but the major events has a limited amount of funding and we have to consider each application carefully.

So while we're disappointed that it doesn't look as if we're able to support the 27 event, we're really keen to work with SailGP on 28 and 29.

Well, I don't agree.

I mean, SailGP recognise that New Zealand is their home.

and they talk about how important it is for them to be in front of the home fans.

But look, when we consider applications, we've got to ensure in this instance that it meets the economic impact test and that it does deliver sufficient economic benefit for New Zealand to warrant the level of investment that was asked for.

And in this case, unfortunately, we couldn't get there.

but really sure that we can work together for future years.

Well, you know, clearly when it is being assessed against criteria one, we want economic impact, international visitation, we want direct event expenditure so that it has a positive economic impact on New Zealand.

That's the criteria this event was assessed under.

And as I said, didn't quite get there.

I think for years in future, there are ways that we can look at improving the number of people who attend, improving the number of people who come from overseas.

But unfortunately, with timing, we weren't able to do it this time.