TOURIST TRAFFIC.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 125, 29 May 1925, Page 5

TOURIST TRAFFIC.

DOMINION'S EFFORT. MORE STIMULATION WANTED, | I BOOKING AGENTS ABROAD. The returns recently made public by I the Government statistician show that j there arc more trippers from New Zea- j land than to this country, and in particu- | lar that only 4137 tourists came to Xew Zealand from places other than Austra- i lia in 1024, and of this number 2453 : were trippers in the exact sense of the term, writes Mr. T. Walsh, secretary of tho New Zealand Tourist League. That the lisures are disappointing goes without saying, and indicates that our methods of attracting tourists are " falling down " in practice. Tourist travel follows the line of greatest stimulation. No master how many attractions a country possesses a large tourist traffic will not develop unless a major effort is made to attract it, but the experiences of other places show that ' there is no industry in which a comparatively small investment will bring such enormous returns. We undoubtedly of natural scenery," but this is only potential at present, and whether we draw large revenues or small from it depends entirely upon the policy of development. Wo have both to organise and standardise our tourist industry; that is, we must assure the traveller that he will find certain standards of comfort, cleanliness, and refinement wherever he goes. The Tourist Traffic League has suggested that our policy of exploitation should bo along the lines of intensive campaigning in selected partes of the world for v time; that is, we should arrange with booking agents or provide our own agents, ;ind, in commercial parlance, " comb out " particular places for tourists, assisting the agents with special publicity and attractive prices for travel and accommodation. At present our campaign for getting tourists consists in printing leaflets and renting ad. space anywhere, without any effort to convert curiosity about New Zealand into a desire to see it. It is a negation of common sense, and the poor results obtained show that. As an example of what may be done by systematic search for travellers, the following figures will be interesting:—■ In the fiscal year ending March, 1021, the number of foreign visitors to the parks in the Rockies, Canada, was 50,000, and, allowing an average expenditure of 300 dollars, the revenue to the country was 15 million dollars; that is, the parks were worth 300 million dollars, capitalised on a basis of 5 per cent. In addition to the foreign visitors, 24,000 Canadians were classed as tourists. The Canadian Commissioner for Parks, in his 1821 report, states: " I believe the total value of tourist traffic into Canada last year, 1920-21, would not be less than 75 million dollars." The total appropriation for all parks for that year was 720,000 dollars, less than one quarter per cent of the capitalised value of the foreign tourist traffic mentioned above. The Canadian Commissioner for Parks, in his 1919 report, showed that while the wheat export from Canada in 1015 was equal to a revenue of 4.91 dollars per acre, the revenue derived from tourists to the Rocky Mountain Parks was 16 million dollars, earned by an. acreage of 1,152,000 acres, or a per acre value of 13.58 dollars—three times the exportable value of the wheat. Equally interesting figures are available from the returns from tourist traffic to the U.S.A., Switzerland, and similar places, some of which are only side shows compared with what we can offer in New Zealand.