VALUE OF TOURISTS

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31089, 18 June 1966, Page 16

VALUE OF TOURISTS

Public awareness of the value of the tourist industry was greater than it had ever been, the Minister of Tourism (Mr Eyre) told delegates at the opening of the New Zealand Travel and . Holidays Association’s convention in Christchurch yesterday.

At the rate the tourist industry was expanding it would overtake other leaders in the field of foreign-ex-change earners very quickly.

At present it was earning about £l5 million a year, including the earnings of Air New Zealand, and he estimated it would reach £2l million by 1970 and probably about £55 million by the early 1980 s. The work of the Travel and Holidays Association in helping to mould public opinion in favour of the development of the industry had been both valuable and successful.

Estimated visitor expenditure in the year ended March was up 11.5 per cent to a record £11.6 million—a 300 per cent increase in the last 10 years, during which time the industry had earned for New Zealand £69 million in overseas exchange. Since last year visitors had increased in number by 25 per cent. All over New Zealand there had never been such an atmosphere of progress in accommodation as existed at present, both in the hotel and motel fields. For years to come accommodation would remain the greatest single factor demanding attention and investment.

Bigger and faster aircraft, and the supersonic jets, would

present a tremendous challenge to New Zealand’s tourist industry "... and we must get our full share of the cake.” Speaking of the Tourist Hotel Corporation hotels, Mr Eyre said the cost of running such hotels in isolated areas was 30 per cent greater than running them in the city. It was not an economic proposition to run the hotels, but without them he seriously doubted whether the tourist industry would have earned £69 million in the last 10 years.

A lamb carcase was lowered towards the Civic Theatre stage as Mr Eyre spoke. The lamb was worth more sold to tourists in New Zealand than sold overseas, he said. Last year the 98,000 longstay visitors ate about 40,000 carcases of lamb. This consumption would have been worth about £96,000 to New Zealand if the meat had been sent overseas, but by selling it to tourists in New Zealand it earned about £400,000 in overseas currency. The same arithmetic could be done with beef, pork, bacon, butter and cheese.