Cheaper fares from Aust.

Press, 3 June 1982, Page 6

Cheaper fares from Aust.

By I

LES BLOXHAM,

travel editor

Australians planning holidays in New Zealand this winter will spon be laughing all the way "to the airport: Air New Zealand and Qantas have agreed to cut the basic fare-content of tour packages to a mere sAustl99 (SNZ2SB) return. New Zealanders, on the other hand, will not be so lucky: they are not to be offered a comparative deal to visit Australia. The scheme, valid from mid-June to early August, has been designed tb bolster New Zealand’s fading image in the Australian marketplace. The airlines are expected to release full details of the "super low” holidays in a joint statement within the next few days. The $199 round-trip fare will enable tour wholesalers to cut more than $lOO off holiday packages, thus,allowing New Zealand to compete on a more equal footing with the wide range of cheap Asian holidays now available in Australia. The fare will have to be

sold in conjuction with a New Zealand tour. • Both Air New Zealand and Qantas have been worried for some months at the falloff in passengers on the Tasman routes. Even the lure of New Zealand’s ski-fields has not been sufficient to pre-fill the seats of the airline’s jumbo jets this ' winter. Now they hope that their new cheap tours will work the trick. The Press Association reports from Wellington that the Minister of Tourism (Mr Talbot) wants to see two-way tourist travel between New Zealand and Australia—in the spirit of : the new closer trading relationship—established. “We have to be a little broad-minded regarding the development of tourism in New Zealand with Australia. It has to be a two-way business,” Mr Talbot said, on the eve of a 10-day promotional trip to Australia,. “If some people want to go to Australia that does not concern me at al[. If we are going to maintain our air services and have the type of air service we should have* we have to have a two-way business."