Sir Robert no travel fan

Press, 25 July 1984, Page 8

Sir Robert no travel fan

PA Wellington The outgoing Prime Minister, Sir Robert Muldoon, laid claim yesterday to being one of the country’s most travelled citizens, yet said he found no pleasure in travel. Addressing the annual conference of the Motel Association, he said he did not travel in his leisure time or for pleasure.

“When I have leisure — and it looks as though I will be having more in the next three years than I have been accustomed to — I stop, I stay still,”,he said. “For me travel is not a pleasure.” Sir Robert said that he was obviously an exception, however, as leisure-time travel was a pleasure for a “growing multitude of people throughout the world.” He told the moteliers that tourism was New Zealand’s fastest growing industry. “It is already fifth in our earners of overseas exchange behind meat, dairy products, wool, and manufactured items, although if you separate out the individual manufactured items you could say that tourism is fourth.”