HUGE TOURIST TRAFFIC

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22082, 3 May 1937, Page 8

HUGE TOURIST TRAFFIC

American Author’s Prediction NEW ZEALANDERS SAID TO BE UNAPPRECIATIVE [THE TRESS Special Service.] AUCKLAND, May 2. Predicting that he would live to see the day when 100,000 tourists came to the Dominion annually, Mr Fitzhugh Green, a distinguished American author, expressed surprise in an interview at the average New Zealander’s lack of appreciation of the beauties of his own country. Mr and Mrs Green have been spending the summer at Taupo and will return to the United States to-morrow. They have built a bungalow near Huka Falls, where they intend to reside for some months each year. “New Zealand is not appreciated by New Zealanders,” he said. Your country and its peoples attl * u “® might be analogous to a very busy man with a beautiful wife; he does not realise how attractive she is until other men begin to admire her. Until visitors convince New Zealanders of the beauty of their country they will not Appreciate it. New Zealand captivated the tourist by its interest, as well as by its beauty, Mr Green said. The United States possessed some wonderful attractions but they were extended over a very wide area, in New Zealand they were, crammed into a very small compass. In three hours’ travelling by motor-car from his bungalow at Huka Falls he could see as much beauty in contrasting scenes of mountains, plains, and rivers as would be viewed in as many or more days in America. It was perhaps strange that half of the world knew nothing Of it.