OLYMPIC GAMES VISITORS

Press, Volume XCII, Issue 27750, 30 August 1955, Page 8

OLYMPIC GAMES VISITORS

Attraction To N.Z. Advocated EXTRA ACCOMMODATION URGED (New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, August 29. Surprise that New Zealand had made no efforts to have extra accommodation for visitors who would visit the Dominion before or after the Olympic Games next year was expressed by Mr W. J. Mullahey. regional director for Pan American Airways in the central and South Pacific, when he arrived in Auckland tonight. Mr Mullahey. who lives in Hawaii and who helped to build up its travel industry, estimated that there would be about 40,000 overseas visitors, at the Melbourne Games. It had been Pan American's experience, he said, that visitors either arrived in the area before the Olympic Games and had a look around, or they arrived at the time of the Games and went touring the area later.

New Zealand, he said, could get nearly all of Melbourne’s 40,000 visitors if she wanted them, but it was apparent that no-one had thought about getting them. He said that Melbourne was going to great pains to arrange accommodation, including rooms in private homes.

“New Zealand could get all the tourists she wants,” he said. “It’s up to her to decide.” During the interview Mr N. B. Lendrum, the New Zealand traffic and sales manager for Pan American Airways in New Zealand, told Mr Mullahey, that there was a good deal of nublic aoathy about the tourist industry. and that this was the worst barrier.

Mr Mullahey said: “I’ve always believed that the greatest distance in the world to travel is the five inches between the ears.” It had been an effort to make the Hawaiians realise the value of the tourist trade. Now they did. New Zealand had the attractions. It had a great advantage over countries which had built up a tourist industry in snite of the fact that they had to build up the attractions, too, he said.