At its meeting today, the Coromandel-Colville Community Board approved a grant of up to $2,000 from its Discretionary Fund to help promote Coromandel Town as a destination for domestic tourism.

The grant will ensure a workshop goes ahead to help local businesses to develop the 'story' of Coromandel Town as a visitor destination and work out steps to promote it nationally.

“COVID-19 and New Zealand’s closed borders have ramped up competition for the domestic tourism market,” Community Board Chair Peter Pritchard says. “In order to compete with areas like Queenstown, Rotorua, Kaikoura and other places, our business community must act with some urgency to market Coromandel Town to the country to bring in visitors whose spending will support our local economy. This workshop will support and enhance the work already planned by Destination Coromandel in the coming months.”

The workshop will be facilitated by Tomahawk NZ, an advertising and marketing agency that specialises in travel and tourism with a division focused on digital marketing.

Te Waka (the Waikato Regional Economic Development Agency) has negotiated a reduction in Tomahawk’s usual rate for a workshop to $6,000 and Te Waka has offered to pay half the cost. The Coromandel Town business community has raised $1,000 so far and at its meeting today, the Community Board voted to guarantee a grant for any shortfall remaining of up to $2,000.

Destination Coromandel has been running a “Winter Wellness” campaign to promote the Coromandel as a winter break destination and a “Where Kiwis Holiday” campaign to more generally promote our region. Destination Coromandel is the tourism marketing organisation for the Coromandel and Hauraki Plains.

The date of the workshop has not been set. There are still spaces available on the workshop, so contact Pamela Grealey on cbapmg@gmail.com to make sure your business shares in the learnings from the workshop and has a voice in the resulting promotional campaign.

Also at today’s Community Board meeting:

See the full Community Board meeting agenda on our website. For other Council meeting agendas and minutes, go to tcdc.govt.nz/meetings.

The Board recommended to Council that it adopt the Coromandel-Colville Community Plan at its next meeting, which will be held on 4 August. See tcdc.govt.nz/communityplans for the draft plan and to see the finalised or draft plans for other parts of the Coromandel.

The Board declined to allocate funding of $1,600 from its Discretionary Fund to pay the rent for the 2020/21 financial year of community groups occupying Council property, as COVID-19 rent relief. The Board concluded that the community groups have other funding streams and that the Board’s Discretionary Fund could be better utilised to community benefit in some other fashion.

In the Public Forum, Gilbert James told the Board he was withdrawing from the Coromandel Marine Gateway project. A resident of Albert Street asked the Board to consider upgrading the bridge on that road to make it capable of handling heavy vehicles, including fire engines. He pointed out there was also a large hole on the approach to the bridge that needed to be filled. Staff said the hole would be looked at and Board Chair Peter Pritchard said funding for a bridge upgrade would be considered as part of the Long Term Plan for 2021-2031, planning for which has just begun.

Coromandel Fire Chief John Walker also supported the repair of the Albert Street Bridge to allow removal of the current weight restriction and then expressed his objection to Council charging community group Coromandel Emergency Services Inc $100/year for the Council land they lease (the standard lease for emergency services operations leasing Council property) when they have a long-term agreement already paid in full to lease the land that pre-dates Council’s leasing policy.

The Coromandel-Colville Community Board’s next meeting is on 18 August at 10am at the Colville Community Hall. Meeting agendas are published at least two working days before the meeting on tcdc.govt.nz/meetings.

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