TOURIST TRADE IN N.Z.

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27011, 10 April 1953, Page 6

TOURIST TRADE IN N.Z.

Earnings Of Foreign Exchange £1,685,000 LAST YEAR (New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON. April 9. Broadly, the cost to the taxpayer of operating the Government Tourist and Publicity Department is between £lOO,OOO and £150,000 a year. Last year this expenditure resulted in overseas tourists spending £1,685,406 worth of foreign exchange in New Zealand. Included in this total was £lOO,OOO worth of dollars. These figures were given by the general manager of the department (Mr R. W. Marshall) when speaking at a meeting of the Advertising and Publicity Club in Wellington today. Figures compiled by the Reserve Bank from foreign exchange, letters of credit, dollars and other instruments of exchange received from tourists, showed that visitors spent £1,685,466 in New Zealand last year, compared with £950,636 in 1949—an increase of nearly £750,000, said Mr Marshall Most of the tourists were drawn from Australia, he said. The number of tourists arriving in New Zealand from Australia, Britain, and the United States last year, with 1949 figures m parenthesis, were:—Australia, 7951 (6010): Britain, 1519 (1323): and America, 1009 (596).

The figures, said Mr Marshall, were exclusive of tourists who arrived in cruise ships or who were transit passengers. They did no* include visiting businessmen who sometimes made use of the department’s facilities.