Scoop has an Ethical Paywall
Licence needed for work use find out more
Wellington Scoop
Network

Agency seeks help to attract events to the new Convention Centre

Wellington.Scoop
The Wellington Regional Economic Development Agency, which describes itself as “the agency tasked with making the Wellington region wildly famous,” has been looking for a “seasoned” person to attract new business events.

In its advertisement this week it said:

Our organisation is shamelessly passionate about this wild and wonderful region we call home, and want to contribute to making it one of the most vibrant places to live and visit in Australasia. We’re doing this via marketing Wellington as a destination for visitors, migrants, investors and students; helping businesses grow and innovate; attracting and promoting events; running Wellington’s civic venues and advocating for the big projects that will make Wellington even better.

And here’s the job, for which applications are now being sought:

Join a tight-knit, passionate team working to attract business events to the Wellington region. Position Wellington in the Business Events market as a great location for conferences

Looking for an opportunity to be part of the team responsible for bringing conferences to the Wellington region? We are looking for a seasoned Business Development Manager who can effectively attract and secure business events for the Wellington region – not only for today but in preparation for Tākina, the new Wellington Convention and Exhibition Centre due for completion in 2023.

With a background in sales, you will be making proactive sales calls for new potential conference opportunities and preparing presentations and bids as required. This includes bidding for conferences and contributing to the overall BEW business plan. This role is fixed term, covering parental leave for approximately 12 months.

You will be responsible for:

Identifying, attracting and securing conferences for Wellington, working with local partners and Tourism New Zealand.
Supporting the conference bidding process for Wellington and our partners for conferences with/outside the Conference Assistance Programme.
Carrying out attraction and sales activity in the business events sector that relate to bidding for – and hosting conferences.
Representing the Business Events Wellington team to actively promote Wellington as a business events destination in the New Zealand market, along with participating in tradeshow activities.

Our ideal person will be a team player and have proven experience in business development and strong stakeholder engagement abilities.

The experience and attributes you will bring are:
Proven experience in a business development role, ideally in the business events, conference or convention sector.
Proven record of meeting sales targets and managing a client and events portfolio.
Excellent communication skills and the ability to communicate information clearly to a wide range of stakeholders.
Relationship management skills with a strong customer focus, proactively meeting customer/clients’ needs.

Applications closed yesterday, but WREDA has been promoting the job on twitter today, with the tagline: Job of the day.

7 comments:

  1. TrevorH, 23. January 2021, 7:06

    “Shamelessly passionate”? “Tight knit, passionate team”? What exactly is going on here? As for events, perhaps the new building would make a suitable COVID vaccination centre?

     
  2. Concerned Wellingtonian, 23. January 2021, 12:03

    Why on earth should this outfit be subsidised by the ratepayer?

     
  3. michael, 23. January 2021, 22:35

    “making the Wellington region wildly famous” = They must have already employed the ‘creative storyteller’. Going to need one to spin the value of this white elephant.

     
  4. Kara, 26. January 2021, 9:19

    Doesn’t WREDA recognise that Wellington already has a number of venues that can be used for “big projects”? It would be far cheaper to maintain or upgrade the existing venues.

     
  5. J Chris Horne, 26. January 2021, 10:33

    Well done WREDA! Your advertising blurb has taken hyperbole to new heights of indigestible waffle. Might you consider rewriting the advertisement in plain English? Potential applicants would then have a better chance of understanding it.

    Conferences and conventions are passe. They are victims of ZOOM-type webinars. It is no longer kosher to fly to conferences and conventions. Flying burns jet fuel, adding to the threat of runaway climate catastrophe. Flying wastes people’s time and costs companies and agencies money and loss of staff time.

    It is time to redesign the interior of the Convention Centre to become Aotearoa’s Performing Arts Museum. It would be a national treasure, directly across Cable Street from Te Papa Tongarewa, another national treasure. What a wonderful duo of attractions the capital city would then have!

     
  6. Dave B, 26. January 2021, 20:06

    Meanwhile back in this universe, our priorities are urgently fixing failing infrastructure and urgently re-prioritizing for a climate emergency – not ploughing on with a misguided mistake that nobody in a position to do so has had the guts to pull the plug on.

     
  7. Mr Hanky, 27. January 2021, 7:22

    The first conference should be a wastewater symposium. It would be perfect, the attendees would only need to walk out the door to see real life examples.