Construction underway on Christchurch's half-billion dollar convention centre - 'A 21st century building'

August 16, 2018

The convention centre is the latest project nearing completion - but when will the city start seeing the long-promised financial boost?

It's been mired by delays, but it's hoped Christchurch’s new convention centre could pull in hundreds of millions in revenue in just a few years.

Christchurch was the second-largest convention city before the earthquake but hasn't attracted an international conference since.

Caroline Blanchfield, convention director for tourism body ChristchurchNZ, estimates the city has lost between $90-100 million every year from not having a convention centre.

"Forty-two per cent of all Australian conferences came here, and we had a good market share, so those are chunky numbers," Ms Blanchfield said.

"Post-earthquake we dropped to two per cent, and we had no international or even Australian conferences."

Ms Blanchfield estimates the new convention centre, set to open in 2020, could double or even triple the lost revenue in as little as five years.

The $240 million build is around 20 per cent complete, and project manager Otakaro is confident it can be completed in time.

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