What you say has some merit, but overall the expectation that they should receive money is greedy. I have no problems making travel, training as professional as possible.
I have a major aversion to where the money is coming from, those machines are like cigarettes.
Hawkes Bay is a pain in the butt to travel too at the best of times, for Dunedin it is the extreme example.
We can go round in circles and it is probably a discussion we should have over a beer watching the Phoenix..