Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: The Michelin Guide is a worthwhile investment

How good is this idea of bringing Michelin to New Zealand in the hope that some of our restaurants will get some stars awarded? 

Now, this is not free. We have to pay for it and we have to pay actually quite a lot of money for it.

It's costing Tourism New Zealand nearly six and a half million dollars, and that's just for the first three years. And I don't know how much you have to pay after that. 

But take a look at what the Aussies did when they looked at this  last year. It was going to cost them $4 million for the first year, $5 million for the second year, $7.5 million for the next year, and then basically for a few years thereafter, something like another three years, it was going to cost them another $7.5 million. 

By my calculations, in the space of five or six years, they were going to have to fork out to Michelin about $40 million. Aussies looked at it, said, nah, but we've said yes, and I reckon we are doing the right thing. 

This is grown-up, first world tourism. 

I think about the trip that I just did last weekend to Melbourne with a couple of girlfriends. Food was a huge part of it. The one of us who was doing the bookings found the good places to eat. They found the places that everybody in Melbourne is talking about, got us into those places, lunch and dinner. 

This is what tourists do. They come to a city for an event, then they tag on great food, find all the great restaurants and go try them out. 

And here in New Zealand, we are really good at food. 

The entire time that I was in Melbourne, I kept thinking that for all the raving that people do about Melbournian eateries, actually in New Zealand, you can get just as good, if not, in my opinion, a whole lot better. 

And actually, paying $6 million for this is not really all that much. 

When you think about what gets spent on tourism campaigns that you can never actually be sure really work. 

Back in April, the government pumped twice as much as this, $13 and a half million into advertising New Zealand to Aussies. What do you get for that? 

I mean, you get maybe a guess that some Aussie tourists came here as a result. 

For this money that we're giving to Michelin, you get actual stars potentially. You get international prestige. You get the sense for tourists that they have landed in a first world city eating international great food. 

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