Fruitbowl - Fresh Ideas from Hawke's Bay

On Friday we held our first Australia and New Zealand Xero Partners Conference in the Bay. The event was targetted at our top partners and we brought in around 50 accountants and their partners from Auckland, Wellington Taupo, Christchurch, Tasmania, Sydney, Melbourne and the Gold Coast. We held the formal part of the program at the Crown Hotel and finished off with a great night at Te Awa.

We’ve spent a lot of time over the past couple of years doing partner events in each city so our first conference was a good test to see if we had created enough interest to attract our partners to a paid for conference they would travel too. We did.

Talking to attendees, they loved the excuse to visit the Hawkes Bay. People from Auckland especially don’t get much of an opportunity to head down our way.  There is no doubt the lifestyle brand of Hawkes Bay and the excellent wine, food and weather makes the Bay a place that people want to come too. A couple event said they wanted to retire early down here but they hadn’t yet been.  The Australians as well also thought it was  a great place with plenty to do.

We made sure we made our event spouse friendly and put on a program of pampering or golf while we did the day sessions.  Picking a Friday meant that many stayed down for the weekend.

Accommodation at the Crown was excellent. The presentation room is a bit small. Fine for <50 but we wouldn’t be able to use that again next year. Probably the wall memorial for 150-200.  Any other suggestions for Napier? Arranging accommodation was hard though as many weekends are booked out for big events.

Te Awa was excellent as usual.  Great food and service from the staff. Even though they had a flood in the afternoon, no one would have known.

Using your connections to pull events into the Bay is a very tangible way to help the local community.  Even better people love an excuse to come here and you just know that once they have the Bay experience they’ll be back.