GIBRALTAR’S TOURISTS

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28620, 24 June 1958, Page 17

GIBRALTAR’S TOURISTS

Changing Role Of Defence Base (By a Reuter Correspondent) GIBRALTAR. Gibraltar is becoming more and more a tourist centre. In this atomic age, when new theories are playing havoc with orthodox methods of warfare, this Rock, rising 425 metres (about 1400 feet) sheer from the sea, whose perpendicular geography has made it a stronghold of the British defence system for nearly two and a half centuries, is today entertaining holiday-makers instead of sailors. Some pessimistic Gibraltarians, instead, think that the Rock’s days as a key strategic point are numbered The . three-year-o.ld weekly, “Gibraltar Post,” for example, ventured to comment recently: “It could be that in a few years Gibraltar will not even be British. The Navy hap pulled out, the Army is pulling out and the Royal Air Force may not be long in pulling out. Gibraltar should get its Casino and other tourist attractions with the least possible delay. Reliance should not be placed on the possibility of future economic aid from Britain.”

The majority of Gibraltarians, however, consider that this view is too gloomy. They believe that military changes may be slower than is sometimes suggested and that Gibraltar will count as a defence base for some time to come.

Nevertheless, Gibraltar is busy at present considering how to attract more tourists to compensate for the disappearance of the good old days when the British Fleet composed of 60 to 80 naval units of various sorts and sizes paid periodical visits and their crews spent tens of thousands of pounds during their stay here. Spain continues to enforce her policy of isolating Gibraltar from the mainland. Since May, 1954, when the Queen paid a visit to this colony, no Spanish nationals, except workers, have been allowed to cross the frontier. The Spanish Consulate-General was removed at that time along with the Spanish Tourist Bureau and both are still closed. Spanish frontier regulations continue to be rigid. Every car, irrespective of its nationality, is searched from bonnet to boot as it goes through the Customs post at the neighbouring town of La Linea. Long queues of cars form outside their Customs post, waiting for long periods on hot days, as on cold or rainy days, for their turn to be examined. But the influx of tourists continues to increase each week. Two new hotels and a gambling casino are being built in this crowded area of two and a half square miles, of which a great part is so precipitous as to be strictly the haunt- of long-range gunners and the famous Rock Apes. Other suggestions for the entertainment of visitors include the construction of a sea-water swimming pool, which would be heated during the spring and autumn months, and a restaurant or cafeteria on top of the Rock, from which tourists could enjoy one of the world’s great views oVer their cross-roads where north meets south and where Europe almost, but not quite, touches Africa.