Accommodation warning

Press, 6 October 1980, Page 10

Accommodation warning

From LES BLOXHAM, in Invercargill The escalating prices of tourist accommodation in New Zealand were causing concern, said the general manager of the Tourist and Publicity Department (Mr N. Plimmer) in Invercargill yesterday. Addressing the travel agents’ convention, Mr Plimmer said that the escalation of some prices, particularly for accommodation, was higher than was necessary to keep pace with inflation. Such prices w’ere not compensated for by New Zealand’s devaluing currency. 1 “People will not come all this wav and then enjoy being taken for a ride while i they are here. They will 'know what thev can get for i their money elsewhere,” he |said. I Price competitiveness, pro■fessional service, and better i marketing overseas were.

needed to sustain growth rates in inbound tourism, Mr Plimmer said. (The markets of North America, Japan and Western Europe are growing at a rate of 20 to 30 per cent, according to the department’s statistics). “We are going to need a lot more professionalism in the tourist industry,” said Mr Plimmer. “Friendly professionalism, certainly, but not- friendly amateur bumbling.” Although Australian and Japanese tour wholesalers liked New- Zealand as a destination, they doubted its capacity to service the substantially growing numbers of visitors with the required professionalism.

Japan’s travel industry believed that New Zealand: would appeal to growing numbers of ‘ Japanese, but: warned that New Zealand' “must do it right,” said Mr: Plimmer. i

“If you make it too difficult to get there, to get bookings in New Zealand, change prices at the last minute, and cannot service the tourists’ needs, then the market will switch off.” Mr Plimmer referred to diffifulties Japanese agents were having in obtaining seats on the direct service from Tokyo to Auckland. “They are already protesting in Tokyo about airline capacity shortage in the months ahead.” The New Zealand' manager of Japan Air Lines, Mr M. Johnson, said his airline 'would replace its DCBs later this month with DClOs for 'several flights, and planned Ito seek approval for the I much bigger Boeing 747 s to tland in New Zealand next i month. Air New Zealand, I suffering from a shortage of equipment, is maintaining a once-a-week DCB service to Tokyo. ,