Updated post
Thu, 20 Aug 2015 at 8:20 p.m.
ODT: Under-fire Cull stands by comments
ODT: Advising against Dunedin ventures
[Perhaps all that untenanted/empty space in the ‘strengthened’ warehouse precinct needs (another) major refit for guest stays….]
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### ODT Online Wed, 19 Aug 2015
Cull to push for more city hotels
By David Loughrey
Dunedin Mayor Dave Cull says the Dunedin City Council will soon begin a major push to attract hotel development to the city. Reports from staff were expected on the issue, and he planned to attempt to attract investment or promote interest in developing hotels.
Read more
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### ODT Online Wed, 19 Aug 2015
Tourism the new star
By David Loughrey
The booming tourism industry, expected to overtake dairy as New Zealand’s biggest export earner this year, means not all is “doom and gloom” in the New Zealand economy. However, there was room for local tourism organisations to work together and collaborate better, Associate Tourism Minister Paula Bennett said yesterday at the Tourism Export Council conference in Dunedin.
Read more
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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr
What if? Dunedin... 
Whether you loved or loathed the potential development of a hotel by Chinese applicants, would you not have managed their application to ensure the hotel you wanted in the area you preferred? The whole problem of such tourism development is the need for complete design and building plans for seeking approval under the RMA. A consultation process aimed at minimising the pre-consent cost whilst ensuring the ongoing financial viability of a project will not suit the following:
Those against any commercial development.
Those against Dunedin as a centre of tourism.
Those representing the consultancy fraternity who since the RMA have been given a licence equal to a casino licence.
If the council is serious about attracting hoteliers or developers to Dunedin, it must assist by getting out of the way of such potential.
‘Nother thing – no faintly sane person will build another hotel because a few people would like posher accommodation. It’s about occupancy rates. The people who know whether we need new/classier accommodation are the people in that business. If it’s a good investment to build, or to upgrade existing premises, someone will do it based on realistic expectation of returns. If not, not. Tough if the mayor and a tour operator would like to see more rich tourists, unless the numbers ready and willing to pay that kind of money, that many night per year, add up to viable business – forget it! Or, the mayor and tour operator(s) could pay with their own (not ratepayers’) money…. yeah like that’s going to happen. Anyone currently holding their breath – don’t.
Surprised? Hell yeah, you could knock me over with a D6.
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/353056/hoteliers-say-mayor-wrong
Dunedin Mayor Dave Cull says the Dunedin City Council will soon begin a major push to attract hotel development to the city. Reports from staff were expected on the issue, and he planned to attempt to attract investment or promote interest in developing hotels.
So ‘End Game’ Cull is on another tack. It was only in June this year that he was pontificating that South Dunedin can’t escape its past as a reclaimed swamp and that South Dunedin is at the ‘crossroads’ and it’s time to start considering the ’end game’.
Is there no end to the tosh this man exudes?
He wants better quality hotel accommodation. What is with this guy? Dunedin is just about to open a 120-room hotel. Hotels are built by the private sector, which makes its decisions on the economic viability of its business, not the pontificating of a politician. He rattles on about ‘big events’ – bloody hell big events – like every 5 years – and then starve in between. Yeah that’s the ticket.
Then he has the gall to say that the ‘city’ had made exhaustive efforts to rescue Ms Song’s project before the consent failed. That project was a bloody dog. Everyone knows it – even Mr Cull might have realized it. You have gotta wonder where this guy sits.
It would be somewhat better for him to concentrate on improving some of the things that might attract a few people to Dunedin that he is responsible for and let the hotel people deal with building its accommodation. Maybe he should get on with sorting South Dunedin’s swamp out as a tourist attraction.
Such a public comment from Mayor Cull has got all the markings of him knowing and planning something members of the public (and possibly many of the councillors) don’t yet know. Quite possibly something to do with Chinese investors who he has made contact with in overseas trips. Investors who I am pretty sure will set their operations up to take all their profits out of the city. He is giving the misleading impression that giving applicants permission to build hotels is a political decision made by elected reps. No, it isn’t. It’s a quasi-legal decision, based on planning law. The same law for New Zealanders and off-shore applicants alike and regardless of their degree of wealth.
We obviously do have good quality accommodation in this city. Not just big hotels. A lot of people who are into upmarket prefer boutique b and b’s. Too much attention is placed on big developments.
I can understand why Hagaman and Co would feel insulted by Dave’s comment putting down their quality establishments, but he is also right about these characters wanting to protect their patch by creating a shortage. These are The Old Boy network and we have had a gutsful of them. As well as little madams like Jing Song.
But Peter, “these characters wanting to protect their patch by creating a shortage” isn’t true. Anywhere you go in the world, when there’s a major event there is a shortage of accommodation. If there weren’t it would mean that all the rest of the year when there is only the ordinary range of concerts, plays, sports etc going on, the accommodation providers would be running at a loss. Mega events are by definition out of the ordinary. It’s madness to plan for those few days a year. I’m sure if Mrs Hagaman thought there was enough demand for 5-star accommodation she would already have the builders and decorators in, upgrading to that standard. The Hagamans didn’t succeed in business by ignoring opportunities, and because they have been successful they can afford to go ahead with upgrading – if they think it’s going to be a sound business proposition. There is more to be gained by being first off the barrier and becoming best known ahead of anyone else, than by creating an artificial shortage which would only last until someone else stepped up and grabbed the opportunity.
Agree, Hype. That was one of the flaws in the thinking (or lack of it) about the stadium. You try to attract all these people to Dunedin for events. And then there’s nowhere for them to stay. But an accommodation provider cannot stay afloat financially without business all year round. Ms Song’s ‘hotel’ was going to get that with student apartments. I have always wondered whether she’s playing a long game – trying to make the DCC feel so guilty about (supposedly) so meanly and unfairly turning her down that they will be bending over backwards next time round (even further!). Her public statements generally amount to shaming. But all the council planning commissioners did was follow the law – correctly.
I really think the cold weather makes Dunedin have a very slow winter season for visitors and not much can be done about that.
If Dunedin has any potential in the tourist accommodation area, I think it’s for small scale boutique operations which could help preserve historic homes. But if you remember, the DCC put some of these out of business by charging them commercial rates when they often did not have visitors for the full year.
The saying goes: “You don’t build a cathedral just for Easter”. The other saner question Cull should ask himself is: “Why wouldn’t the industry have already built the top flight establishments if they had discerned the need?” If he had half a brain he would know the answer and even so all he has to do is ask. The man is dangerous.
The local hotel operators have been knifed. Sad.
Fascinating time watching the search engine terms roll in at What if? today. Hotels, Accommodation, Steamer Basin, CPO, anyone ?
ROFL —Comment at ODT Online:
Hotels
Submitted by Barnaby on Thu, 20/08/2015 – 9:52am.
Hoteliers in Dunedin should take notice of Mayor Cull’s wise comments. We have in Mr Cull a man with far ranging expertise and an opinion on everything. He knows about cycleways, camel shackles, maintenance of mud tanks, funding models for stadia, the internet, museums, conference centres, global trade, economics, including subvention payments and interest rate swaps, running businesses, council funded commercial property, including parking buildings and retail, amongst many other things! They could run their hotels along the lines he runs the DCC, only they’d go broke!
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And yes, Diane is right on the COI button. Great.
Comment at ODT Online:
Conflict of interest
Submitted by DianeYeldon on Thu, 20/08/2015 – 7:07am.
I really wonder how Mayor Cull can be the spokesperson for the Dunedin City Council – which is the local consent authority – and at the same time publicly say he is very much in favour of Dunedin getting a new luxury hotel.
I don’t think it is either the proper or legal function of a city council to ‘promote business’ and ‘economic development’, according to what the views of the elected reps at the time happen to be. (Or some of those reps, particularly the mayor who has spokesperson rights. Is he speaking for the whole council here? How would anyone know?)
Part of the reason local government in Dunedin has been so bad in the past is for this very reason – the false idea that using rates money to make the city ‘attractive to business’ can really have any significant economic effect – when economic conditions are determined by world and national factors, way out of the power of a small local council to influence (even if that was properly a local government matter.) These attempts to meddle have always resulted in poor prioritization of rates money, favouritism and conflicts of interest and always will. Stick to your knitting, DCC – dogs and drains and so on.
Cats and Possums, Diane, not dogs, the DCC already has four dog vehicles, far too many for the numbers of unlicenced dogs they find.
CARGO CULLT [sic]
Been watching site views prior to and following the most recent Cull “hotel” story…. —due to the number of tags I place at What if? we (admin and moderators) get to witness all sorts of things: view patterns and the full complement of targeted and seemingly innocuous searches by active ‘externals’ including the usual assortment of ‘sloughs’ and ‘slews’.
QUESTION
Has Mayor Cull – with his frigging dough boys, Christie, “Roy” Rodgers (Cull’s personal solicitor), Glenstersuckerupper and the ‘CargoCullt’ like – been making squalid inroads to ‘tenant’ [aka play Monopoly Fantasia with] the former ORC headquarters site at harbourside, 41 Wharf Street, Town Hall car park, Dowling Street car park, et al…. stamped by China-fied lilywhite visions put up by Architecture Van Brandenburg (the acontextual paradise)? Dunno. Maybe.
Let’s see private operators industry-experienced Hagaman and McLachlan slap their collective stupid faces – (pause) can I suggest knuckledusters.
Or just hock the mayor off to deepest darkest brokest China, make him slave for his keep on a daily grain of rice spurred by repeat canings and whippings.
As a colleague asked today, what happened to….
[post 41 Wharf St, the hollow promise]
5.2.14 ‘Hotel’ Hucksters wanna spend $60M at Dunedin
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Home to this:
39 Dunedin News are trying to make Cull into ‘developer’ bait for a HOTEL – via the Nightly Interview – silly. Dunedin about to be hit by “a tsunami of demand”, Cull says. BS link to come.
How to fill the freakin’ stadium HAHAHA —Cull through a hole in his turkey neck, says BUILD MORE ACCOMMODATION AND THEY WILL COME
[btw where has DVML’s Terry Davies hived off to, gone silent]
Mayor Cull would have massive conflicts of interest if the red carpet were to work.
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### dunedintv.co.nz Wed, 26 Aug 2015
Nightly interview: Dave Cull
Dunedin Mayor Dave Cull is calling for more visitor accommodation to be established in the city. He’s just been involved in two large tourism conferences held locally, and his comments have attracted both criticism and support.
Ch39 Link
39 Dunedin News Published on Aug 26, 2015
Nightly interview: Dave Cull
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### dunedintv.co.nz Wed, 26 Aug 2015
Your word on visitor accommodation
There are renewed calls for more visitor accommodation to be established in Dunedin. Civic leaders say it’s desperately needed, but that’s disputed by some within the industry.
Ch39 Link
39 Dunedin Television Published on Aug 26, 2015
Your word on visitor accommodation
ODT 27.8.15 (page 12)
Dave can’t get it right all the time (I mean, hardly ever).
Woops (above), he forgot to mention Bluestone on George, the then forthcoming opening of Distinction Dunedin, and Victoria Hotel’s addition of rooms…. before he pulled the rug on everyone in the Dunedin hotel industry. What sort of “city mayor” talks down local city business – the one we need to VOTE OUT in October 2016.
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### dunedintelevision.co.nz Thu, 5 Nov 2015
Dunedin hotels rate highly
Local hotels are among the best in the country, as shown in the results of an industry survey.
Ch39 Link
39 Dunedin Television Published on Nov 4, 2015
Dunedin hotels rate highly
via colliers.co.nz
No possible mention of Dunedin as a force outside the Golden Triangle
October 2015 Hotel Market Snapshot Final
SUPERDUPER YAWN
If you’re not going to use the site as a public or leased carpark – sell the site to developers. STAY OUT of Business YOU Don’t Know.
STOP THIS COUNCIL competing directly with private HOTELS and ACCOMMODATION PROVIDERS
Hangover from Xmas. Fruitcakes should not be served out of season by international laundry money.
CARGO CUL_TISM is unacceptable. Watch ratepayers’ money erode further.
Mr. UNPOPULAR
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### ODT Online Tue, 5 Jan 2016
DCC in new hotel talks
By Chris Morris
The Dunedin City Council is in talks to secure a multimillion-dollar five-star hotel, potentially financed from China, ahead of an expected surge in visitors from the world’s most populous nation. Dunedin Mayor Dave Cull said talks with the so-far unnamed party were focused on the council-owned Filleul St car park, opposite the town hall.
Read more
Precisely, Elizabeth! How much have they lost on Wall Street, so far?
Where have all the brain cells gone?……….When will they ever learn?