N.Z. TOURIST PROMOTION

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29766, 8 March 1962, Page 17

N.Z. TOURIST PROMOTION

Publicity In U.S. More active publicity for New Zealand as a place for tourists was needed in the United States, said Mr L. Stevens, an American travel agent, yesterday. Mr Stevens is one of the tour directors of a party of 79 American ranchers at present touring New Zealand. There was plenty of information and very attractive printed matter and information available if a person was prepared to ask for it, Mr Stevens said but in the United States, he felt, an active and personal approach was needed.

Hawaii had probably the most successful tourist industry and tourist promotion system in the world, and some of its methods could be worth copying. At present tourism was Hawaii’s biggest dollar earner. He felt if a Maori concert party were to tour the United States it would do a very great deal in promoting tourism for New Zealand, and it would certainly attract a large audience, Mr Stevens said. Hawaii had tried similar schemes with great success, and it was this type of promotion that appealed to Americans.

“From a travel agents’ point of view we would like to see anything that would eliminate the idea that New Zea-land-Australia was a hyphenated word,” Mr Stevens said. “People sometimes speak of it like that. Some think the two countries have a hyphen between them rather than the Tasman Sea.’’