FARES SAID TO BE TOO HIGH

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21775, 6 May 1936, Page 16

FARES SAID TO BE TOO HIGH

SERVICE ACROSS THE TASMAN

EFFECT ON TOURIST TRAFFIC

[THE PBESS Speeial Service.]

AUCKLAND, May 5,

The opinion that high steamship fares between Australia and New Zealand reduced considerably the potential tourist traffic from one country to another was expressed by Dr. J. I. Robertson, of North Sydney, who passed through Auckland by the Mariposa on Saturday. Dr. Robertson, who has been nominated as governor for 193G-37 of the sixty-fifth Rotary district, comprising Ne,v South Wales and Queensland, is proceeding to Atlantic City, United States, where the annual world Rotary conference will be held in June. "I have travelled all over the world," said Dr. Robertson, "and I do not know a dearer steamship trip than that across the Tasman. To travel in reasonable comfort from Sydney to Auckland and back costs more than £2O, and a single passage from Sydney to London can be obtained for only £35. The high Tasman fares constitute a factor that is keeping the two Dominions apart." Dr. Robertson said many Australians were well aware of the attractions New Zealand had to offer to the tourist, but on account of the cost they had to think twice before making a "rip. Australians were very much interested in the thermal activities and in the bush scenery, an interest that was stimulated by the publicity efforts of the New Zealand Tourist Department Bureau in Sydney. Similarly, he believed that there was much in Australia that would interest New Zealand people, especially as the scenery of the two countries was so very different in character.

Dr. Robertson is accompanied by Mrs Robertson and by Mr Arthur Bolton, of Bendigo, who has been nominated governor of the seventysixth Rotary district, which includes Victoria, South Australia, and Western Australia.