TOURIST TRAFFIC.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 114, 15 May 1936, Page 5

TOURIST TRAFFIC.

"DEAD IN EUROPE." AUSTRALIAN'S WORLD fOUR. PACIFIC WII.Ii BENEFIT. Passing through Auckland by the Monterey to-day, on his way back to Australia after a world tour, Mr. C. H. Holmes, manager of the Australian National Travel Association, said that present conditions in Europe augured well for a worthwhile increase in the number of tourists visiting New Zealand and Australia. "Owing to political disquiet and the fluctuations of the exchange rate, the tourist business in Europe is dead," he stated. "No better proof of this could be quoted than the great building recently erected in Paris by the French Government to house the Minister of Tourism and his staff. To-day it is closed, and the staff is accommodated in a much smaller building. New Zea- | land, and Australia should therefore I receive a large number of tourists who. [ under happier circumstances, would be | visiting the Continent." I Mr. Holmes said that his association | was spending £25,000 a year on adveri tising the tourist attractions of Ausi tralia, New Zealand and the, South Sea islands. The association realised that a t large proportion of the tourists who j visited the Commonwealth came by way of the Pacific, and therefore advertised New Zealand as much »s Australia. Leading Australian journalists had been appointed by the association as ite representatives in U.S. and Great Britain, and they syndicated articles extolling Australia and New Zealand in the Press of those countries. On their way to England, Mr. and Mrs. Holmes travelled from Australia by the air route of 13.000 miles, breaking their iournev frequently at interesting places. They left the pane a Bagdad and travelled _by_ motor' to Damascus across the ' where they were boggoj / oI «Vr heavv rainstorm and had to sleep icr | two nights in the car.