Planned Expansion Of Tourist Trade Urged

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31319, 15 March 1967, Page 1

Planned Expansion Of Tourist Trade Urged

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, March 14. New Zealand’s tourist earnings could be expanded within five years from £l2 million in 1966 to £3O million in 1971, the chairman of the Decimal Currency Board (Mr S. L. Moses) this morning told a Travel and Holidays Association meeting in Lower Hutt.

Mr Moses suggested that lessons from New Zealand’s recent agricultural development could be applied to the tourist industry.

He advocated study of the tourist industry and planned development.

Mr Moses said that as a result of the Agricultural Development Conference and the introduction of indicative planning, targets laid down for increased agricultural output, in the main, had been reached. But for this New Zealand’s overseas earnings today would be very much worse than they were. Hawaiian Example He cited the evpansjoa of Hawaii’s tourist industry bv 30 per cent in 10 years. In 1955 the industry earned 55 million dollars. In 1965 it earned 265 million dollars. Hawaii had achieved this through adoption of a line of indicative planning proposed by a tourist industry study committee. ‘My contention is, and it is supported by many knowledgeable people, about the tourist industry in New Zealand, that the same thing can he done in this country and v that our industry can be

made to earn very much greater overseas funds. “Exclusive of funds earned by Air New Zealand last year, the tourist industry earned approximately £l2 million. A target has been laid for £2O million by 1969. “By intelligent planning, this target can be very greatly exceeded. “To achieve this we have to make the people of New Zealand aware of the very great potential of this country as a tourist resort. Expansion Fsctsra “We have increased our earnings from tourism from £4 million in 1959 to £l2 million in 1966. “There are several factors which wifi generate, if we let them, a marked expansion of tourism in New Zealand between now and say, 1975. “They are air transportation, rising levels of income, more leisure, and the growth of the number of retired persons and their resources.” Mr Moses warned, however, that the growth of New Zealand as a travel resort would depend on the quality and cost of the product. All in

the industry would need to assemble all information available and set targets if the

best were to be obtained from the natural resources available. If the industry exploited what it had at its fingertips, it could really come to the rescue of the economy, he said.