Midland’s results ahead

Press, 27 October 1977, Page 24

Midland’s results ahead

The downturn in the Australian market has been highlighted out of all proportion by the generally excellent performance of Midland Coachlines, Ltd, the excellent profit result, or to the group’s expectations, according to the chairman (Mr L. K. Laugesen).

“While a downturn in tourist traffic from any one sector of our market is disappointing, both the growth in other sectors and the success of our wide-ranging activities in other areas of ground transportation have more than madeup for it,” Mr Laugesen told the annual meeting.

“Currently we are budgeting for an increased profit next year, and our results to date — although not up to budget — are ahead of last year’s figure for the same period. Mr Laugesen had some strong words to say on the high cost of air travel to New' Zealand.

“If we are to improve our standard of living, and help maintain our present position in the sun, then every effort must be made to attract tourists in volume from new catchment areas. Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore could hardly be called new areas, but for volumen of business they are. The reason we do not enjoy volume business from

these areas is quite plain — the airfares are too high,” he said. “Here we are with our scenic gems to sell, hotel and motel beds available as well as transport, but the connecting link — air transport — is not meeting the challenge. American airlines are determined to offer big reductions from the West Coast of America to the Pacific and all the airlines are offering bargain rates from Australia to Britain and from America to Eruope, yet from the East to Australia and New Zealand all we get is a blind eye. “For the year to March 31. almost 3M Japanese travelled abroad, an increaase of 26 per cent over 1976. Destination emphasis was on Hawaii, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong. If only a small percentage of these torusts could be induced to travel to Australia and New Zealand, then greater use of tourist plant would be achieved.” “The price of package tours from the United States is also high compared with the rates available to these nationals to travel to Europe. To sum up — the market all around us is huge but tourists will not pay 30 per cent more in airfares to come our way compared with what they can buy to go in the other direction.

In this connection the chairman made a strong pie for more international air services to Christchurch.

“The profitability of any company is based on the maximum utilisation of

assets, and South Islanders, because of their geographical nosition, miss out on some of the tourist business which could be diverted with no inconveneincc to the tourist, and little if any loss to North Island undertakings. “At present there is quite an imbalance of tourist arrivals at Auckland as compared wtih Christchurch, and this has the effect of placing heavy demands on beds and wheels in that area. “One move that would greatly improve this problem would be for the Government to insist that if more air services are to be permitted into New Zealand, then they must come through Christchurch. We have all the facilities here and this arrangement would undoubtedly spread the demand on tourist plant throughout the country,” Mr Langesen said.

“By acquiring the langterm Hertz franchise and your company is now in a position to accept bookings from the Hertz worldwide rental system. About 80 per cent of Hertz New Zealand revenue was from overseas and this, combined with our Tasman Rent a Car operations, has not only solidfied our position in the New Zealand market but given us the springboard to positively increase the level of both domestic and overseas business in the rental car market place. “Bookings and vehicle utilisation have already shown a marked improvement,” Mr Laugesen said.

Westralian take-over Westralian Farmers CoOperative, Ltd has made a take-over offer worth sAust6oM for one of Australia’s biggest fertiliser manufacturers, C.S.B.P. and Farmers, Ltd. The Westfarmers offer is S2OM cash each to Cuming, Smith and B.P. for their C.S.B.P. Holdings and 10M 200 c ordinary Westfarmers shares to Westralian Fanners Superphosphate.