Christchurch ‘Losing Tourist Business’

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31982, 8 May 1969, Page 16

Christchurch ‘Losing Tourist Business’

Christchurch was seriously losing tourist business because of its poor inner-city hotel facilities, Mr J. Roysmith said at a meeting of the council of the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce last evening. Many tour groups were taking flights which did not involve night stops in Christchurch.

“Christchurch is going to be almost completely bypassed and once this trend starts to develop it will develop rapidly,” he said. “Unless we do something about it a great flow of tourists will come nowhere near the city except for arrivals and departures. “We share with Auckland the importance of being a major tourist gateway. “Interests in Christchurch will say they are building hotels or that they have already built accommodation houses. This is fine and very good, but it has been a wicked waste of money with too much being spent in comparatively small establishments. “Hotel economists agree that if a down-town hotel is to be built it must contain at least 300 bedrooms. “We would lose nothing in Christchurch if we pulled down half a dozen or more of our old brick and stone boarding-houses with licences and replaced them with one good, modern, high-rise hotel,” he said. Mr Hoysmith urged that the South Island Publicity Association, hotel interests and the chamber's tourist committee meet to ascertain what could be done.

Members of the council challenged the wisdom of

building a huge hotel which, they said, might run into the same trouble as the InterContinental Hotel in Auckland. Others said the development of motels in the city was wiser and that better service should be provided at existing hotels. The council agreed that interested parties be called together to discuss the situation.