Queenstown businesses have until the end of this month to apply for up to $60,000 from the Tourism Communities fund.
A government initiative introduced last year, the package was made available to the Queenstown-Lakes to support businesses and communities impacted by Covid.
Over 1200 businesses in the district have already accessed the funding and the business advisory support programme, run by Regional Business Partners (RBP).
The money can be used for things like marketing, legal, acc unting, wellbeing, training, digital enablement, HR, and sustainability.
RBP head Tara Druce (pictured) says she’s really pleased with how the programme has run so far.
‘‘It’s been a pleasure to roll it out in such a difficult time — it’s been neat to have something tangible and useful for businesses.’’
The programme includes a session with an RDP growth adviser, who helps talk businesses through their wider needs, linking them to funding and other support that might help kickstart operations post-Covid.
While the uptake by local businesses has been fantastic, Druce wants to make sure no eligible business falls through the cracks.
‘‘We just want to make sure that any businesses that are out there that haven’t taken up, that they know about it.’’
Businesses needed to be dependent on tourists for at least 50% of their revenue pre-Covid to be eligible, but Druce says this criteria includes a lot more businesses than just tourism operators.
‘‘We’ve had great uptake from tourism businesses themselves and we just want to make sure that a lot of businesses that are in retail and that supply to the tourism sector, [know they] may also be eligible.
‘‘Those are the two areas that we’re trying to make sure people consider, or at least ask the ques tion, ‘am I eligible?’’’.
Registrations for Tourism Communities Funding close on August 31.
More information can be found at: bit.ly/3oGNszx
