Tourism Industry Council CEO Luke Martin: Strategy and Transparency needed in events funding

Tasmania’s peak tourism industry organisation today (Wed) released its election policy platform on public funding for major funding and events, calling on a more strategic and transparent approach to applying and assessing requests for public funding for major festivals and events in Tasmania.

Tourism Industry Council Tasmania CEO Luke Martin today highlighted the significant public funding committed to the Hobart Baroque Festival as the most recent example of industry and stakeholders uncertainty created by a lack of strategy and transparency in the Tasmanian Government’s funding for major events and festivals.

“This is not a criticism of the Hobart Baroque Festival, but there would be a number of event organisers around Tasmania today scratching their head wondering why reportedly $400,000 has been committed to that niche event when their calls for additional support keep falling on deaf ears,” he said.

“The Tasmanian Government deserves credit for building an outstanding year-round events calendar across Tasmania, but it is difficult to get any clear guidance around the application and assessment process in determining which events are getting funding support and those that are not.”

“From a tourism perspective it is hard to get your head around why another Hobart based event held in late March catering to a very specific and niche market would get such considerable funding support when there are events across regional Tasmania over the quieter times of the year that are struggling, or have the capacity to go to another level with additional public backing.’

Over recent months, Tourism Industry Council Tasmania, has engaged with event organisers and tourism operators in developing its policy position on major funding and events.
The process identified a series of concerns and issues from a tourism perspective about the process for assessing and assessing government support for major festivals and events.

• A lack of strategic process for determining event funding within the Tasmanian Government;
• Lack of any general government events strategy, or consideration of events support within broader State economic strategies and priorities;
• Tourism Tasmania having highly limited capacity to influence and direct events funding for tourism outcome;
• No condition in government funding to events to support marketing activities limiting capacity for events to effectively market themselves and creating a further expectation on Tourism Tasmania;
• Lack of clear criteria and/or transparency around applying and assessing requests for public support for events, creating uncertainty among event organizers;
• Ongoing government financial support for long established events not achieving a sound commercial model – often through separate funding streams – limiting the funding available for securing newer and/or more successful events;
• Significant Government support for existing events with high public support but limited capacity for current events budget to support new events; and
• The existence of number of disparate funding streams for events (including Major Events) outside of the key funding bodies is significant, almost equivalent in total to Events Tasmania’s annual Major Events grant program – limiting the ability of the relevant funding bodies to exercise a comprehensive strategy for the state.

To address these issues TICT is calling for the State to adopt a new process for assessing and accessing public funding for major festivals and events based on successful models in other Australian Cities and States, including the Destination NSW and the Melbourne Events Committee.

1. Return Events Tasmania to be back under the responsibility of Tourism Tasmania within the Tasmanian Government
2. Establish a dedicated Major Events Committee including Government, Industry and Cultural Stakeholders to assess applications for and determine the level of government support for events.
3. Collapse all current Government funding support for major sporting, art, cultural and tourism events into a single, competitive funding pool for major events attraction and retention
4. Strengthen the existing ‘tiered system’ for assessing events applications to incorporate different aims and event products into one system requiring demonstration of broader economic, tourism and cultural benefits for events seeking over $50,000 of Government support.
5. Replace recurrent funding support for events with a cyclical application and assessment process to ensure greater accountability in ongoing government support to established events.
6. Establish a strong, clear criteria for assessing government support for major events with regional dispersal, seasonality and interstate visitation priority criterion.
7. Clearer transparency of government funding support for major events including value of contracts
Tourism Industry Council Tasmania CEO Luke Martin