Meet face-to-face, businesses urged

Sunday, 28 June 2020

Southland Chamber of Commerce chief executive Sheree Carey.

Online meetings were the rave during Covid-19 but a push has begun to get business people meeting face-to-face again to stimulate Southland's economy.

A new initiative, Meet Face-To-Face, is being launched by the Southland Chamber of Commerce in Invercargill on Thursday, to support regional resilience through the resumption of in-person meetings.

Hundreds of Southland businesses are invited to the launch at Classic Motorcycle Mecca.

Chamber chief executive Sheree Carey said it would be the chamber’s first face-to-face networking event since lockdown.

* Southland businesses seeking help

* Petition launched to save smelter

Part of the region's economic recovery was to encourage corporate travellers and business representatives to resume their normal business travel to Southland.

Meeting in-person was a proven way of developing business relationships and converting leads into activity, she said.

Pre-Covid, Invercargill had many corporate travellers staying in the city's hotels and motels and the city needed them back spending money.

''So we are just encouraging everyone to have a business meeting in a cafe, and also those outside the region to come down here and do business rather than sit in their office and do it on the phone.

''We need that activity to stimulate the economy.''

Invercargill Licensing Trust chief executive Chris Ramsay said the trust's accommodation providers, including hotels, were heavily reliant on corporate travellers to maintain early to midweek occupancy levels.

The trust was 71 per cent down in accommodation revenue for the year to date, he said.

''Our average occupancy across our properties is 40 per cent when this time it's normally north of 80 per cent.''

It would never return to those levels until the international borders reopened, but corporates travelling south were the trust's backbone, he said.

Carey knew of a couple of Southland companies which had suggested to outside suppliers they visit them in Southland, rather than continue doing online meetings, or their business relationships may end.

She did not think that was a bad thing.

''We have to get this region moving and if everyone just sits in Auckland or Christchurch and no-one's flying in, the [Auckland to Invercargill] jet will go and we will end up back to where we were in the 80s.''

She expected hesitancy from some businesses to meet face-to-face, but said the Government and health officials had stated they did not think community transmission was happening undetected.

“It’s not about moving away from digital, it’s about fostering activity that’s going to help our tourism, hospitality and retail sectors to survive.''

Market South creative director Carla Forbes said businesses had adapted well to the increased health and cleaning measures, and together with contact tracing, she felt the time to return to face-to-face meetings was now.

“Working face-to-face is a two-prong approach to recovery because it helps build business relationships, but in reintroducing business travel we’re also adding investment into our hospitality and retail industries, which will be serviced by those travellers.”