Tauranga City Council will be a ‘good host' for the Rugby World Cup, but councillors do not know what that means for the city financially.

'We are definitely going to support being a good host and we are going to enter into discussions with Rugby World Cup on how we are going to facilitate that from a contractual point of view,” says Mayor Stuart Crosby.

'We are still waiting for information from them too about levels of service.

'Obviously we have got a role to play; the gist is we are going down the strategy of being a good host, which is the definition they use.”

City councillors have discovered the council has been signed up for as yet undetermined commitments for the Rugby World Cup.

Stuart yesterday said it was a management issue and councillor Murray Guy blames former CEO Stephen Town.

'Elected members were somewhat surprised at the failure of the former CEO to follow through in an open and transparent manner with elected members, resulting in the situation we find ourselves in,” says Murray.

The issue was discussed in confidential at an extraordinary council meeting yesterday, with a press release made this morning.

The outcome of the meeting is a decision by councillors for council staff to conclude negotiations with RWC as soon as possible and once this has occurred the budget information will be made public.

Before going into closed session, councillors were softened up with a presentation on RWC preparations from Tourism BOP, the Chamber of Commerce, New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, Sport BOP, event organisers and Bay of Plenty Rugby – all part of a Regional Coordination Group which is assisting with planning for the city's involvement.

The coordination group includes ongoing involvement by council funded Tourism BOP and Sport BOP.

Tauranga will be hosting three RWC teams in September: the Fijians, Russians and Tongans.

Tourism BOP manager Glenn Ormsby says there will be seven cruise ships calling at the Port of Tauranga during the Rugby World Cup bringing a total of 13,000 passengers ashore. About 5000 of them will stay overnight.

The Chamber of Commerce and Trade NZ interest is in the business contacts.

RWC visitors are staying in the country much longer than typical tourists and arrangements are being made for business related events and get-togethers.

'It's definitely an evolutionary process,” says Stuart.

'As information comes forward people do things, and as money comes forward it gives people an opportunity to do things.”

Three Tauranga events obtained lottery grant funding: $25,000 for the Tauranga Arts Festival, $57,000 for the REAL Tauranga Festival and $6900 for the Mills Reef Tarnished Frocks and Divas.

They succeeded out of 478 applicants seeking a total of $86 million from a $9.1 million fund, says chamber of commerce representative Anne Pankhurst.

The REAL Tauranga Festival intends occupying a portion of The Strand car park and running large screen displays and a variety of supporting activities.

One thing that did come out of the meeting was an acknowledgement of Tauranga's ability to be an excellent host, following the recent Ten Days in Tauranga event organised for Christchurch residents.

'They all agreed that it didn't necessarily cost a fortune to secure a positive outcome for visitors,” says Murray Guy.