Better Hotels In South To Serve Tourists Urged

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28765, 10 December 1958, Page 24

Better Hotels In South To Serve Tourists Urged

(New Zealand Pi

ress Association)

GORE, December 8. The resorts at Wanaka, Queenstown and in the Fiordland National Park were the most important in New Zealand, if only for the reason that every overseas tourist that was persuaded to visit the country was worth four or five times as much tn overseas currency as the one that simply visited Rotorua, said the Mayor of Gore (Mr W. C. Campbell). It should be the alm of all New Zealanders to see as many tourists as possible visit the south, for all derived benefit from the increased overseas funds. “It is, however, quite apparent that no great relief for the New Zealand Hotel Corporation or other hotel owners can be expected until we find a Government that is prepared to shoulder a certain amount of criticism and do three things that every soundthinking and sensible New Zealander knows are essential,’’ he said.

Mr Campbell listed these as:— (1) Abolish price control on high-standard hotels or allow them to make at least enough profit on the sale of liquor to offset the loss on accommodation. (2) Rearrange the licensing

laws to allow more reasonable hours of drinking. (3) Rearrange the 40-hour week as it affects staffing of hotels “so that overseas guests can get some semblance of the service on which' hotels in more wide-awake countries base their economy.” To do this, he said, would admittedly need inspired leadership, but if the present Minister of Tourist and Health Resorts (Mr Mathison) wished to retain his title, he wguld have to get a move on. It would seem that many members of the present Parliament were more interested in their own political future than in the future of the country they served.

“I am perfectly in agreement with the plan to provide our own steelworks," he continued. “If they are practical, let us waste no time in getting them. But I would also like to point out that three or lour million pounds spent on providing new hotels, especially in places like Auckland and in developing some of our backward resorts could, within a few years, bring in an extra seven or eight million pounds in overseas exchange. That is not a bad return on any investment and certainly more than cduld be expected from a similar outlay on steelworks.” t