‘Big opportunity’ to boost Hamilton’s tourist attractions

Tuesday, 31 March 2026

The Fijian Flying Circus entertained a big crowd on the Hamilton Gardens' Rhododdendron Lawn during the city’s recent arts festival. The enclosed gardens charge for tourists could make even more money for the city.

After netting over $4million from its visitor attractions this summer, Hamilton City Council is eyeing hiking the entrance fee for its top-earner, Hamilton Gardens.

In the last six months Hamilton Gardens was the stand-out in city-owned attractions, raking in $2.59m.

It comes off the back of a $20 admission fee for non-Hamiltonians to the enclosed gardens first introduced in September 2024.

But council documents say the city could be getting more from what has turned out to be a money tree at the gardens.

Charges to visit the enclosed gardens were introduced in September 2024.

Benchmarking shows entry to the enclosed gardens remains one of the lowest priced major visitor destinations in New Zealand.

Councillors will meet on Thursday to decide on a proposal to raise the single adult entry fee to $27.50 from October 1.

Free entry for Hamilton residents and ratepayers and all under-16s will remain unchanged.

Hamilton Gardens’ enclosed gardens could have their new visitor fee increased.

Speaking to the Waikato Times, HCC deputy chief executive Sean Murray said the proposed $27.50 fee is specifically set to match the adult paid entry for Hamilton Zoo and intended to ease the introduction of joint visitor passes in the future.

The introduction of an entrance fee last summer had not impacted visitor numbers, with the resulting marketing push to make people aware of the change having a knock-on effect of increasing awareness about the gardens.

That year the attraction brought in $2.33m.

“Essentially, it's gone very well,’’ Murray said.

“When we introduced the visitor charge, we had very, very little negative response. In fact, if anything, we had people saying, how come you've never charged for it before?’’

This summer visitor numbers and income were “pretty good’’ but there was ”potential to do much better’’, he said.

Council estimates the increase in entry fee would result in $550,000 to $900,000 more revenue per year.

Murray was also pleased with the performance of the other two HCC attractions.

Hamilton Zoo brought in $1.4m, ($1.54m in 24/25) and although free to enter, Te Whare Taonga o Waikato Museum still brought in $243,000 ($80,000 in 24/25) through fees for select exhibitions and activities.

Te Whare Taonga o Waikato Museum and Gallery director Upoko Whare Taonga me ngaa Toi Rachael Davies.

Taken together, the three attractions bettered the previous summer’s income of $3.95m by $29,000.

Compared with the the previous summer, Hamilton Gardens saw an increase of 1748 visitors (177,210 in total), while visitor numbers at the museum were up by 20,397, (52,005 visitors in total).

That big jump was mostly because the museum was closed for two months during the summer period covered (five-month period in total between July and December 2024) for refurbishment. Hamilton Zoo numbers slightly decreased, with 2094 fewer visitors this summer (96,290 in total).

‘Bumper’ month for museum

The wet summer weather is thought to be behind the slight drop in zoo numbers but a boost in numbers at the museum.

Following completion of a $7m refurbishment, which included improving the entrance, floor, and HVAC system, creating better visibility and visitor experience, Museum director Rachael Davies said this summer had produced a “bumper January’’ for the museum.

“I think it was actually to do with the weather, but also I think people were just looking for something fun and cost-effective and you know, really good for families.

‘’We have really good feedback in terms of levels of satisfaction,’’ Davies said.

“Lots of young families using the space, and lots of people commenting more about in general about the overall presentation of the visitor experience.’’

While there is limited scope to get more in the way of financial income from the museum, Murray says the council is keen to see a broader marketing push to boost the city’s visitor attractions and bring in more visitors to the city in general.

“Our ongoing promotion of these destinations seeks to tap into the Auckland market and international travellers while reinforcing opportunities to build repeat and off-peak visitation,’’ he said

“Ongoing investment in exhibitions, events, and programmes remains key to engaging local and regional audiences and sustaining visitation year-round.

“We acknowledge a further lift in our promotional efforts is required to lift visitation to a higher level.

“The gardens, of the three destinations, is the one where we have significant opportunity for increasing the visitation to Hamilton through the existence of the gardens. That's quite exciting for us.

“There any plans in place at the moment to try and push that. We're working on our budgets at the moment to see if there's a way that we can direct some more money into marketing so we can lift utilisation.

“I think there's big opportunity for Hamilton to lift our visitor numbers but we, we need to invest in it to get that result. So we, we are looking at ways we can better promote the city and better promote our attractions.’’