Tourists ‘will stay away’

Press, 13 March 1985, Page 30

Tourists ‘will stay away’

Queenstown correspondent The effects of the A.N.Z.U.S. row could be far more serious for New Zealand’s tourist industry than the floating of the dollar, said the president of the National Travel Association, Mr Stuart McLean, in Queenstown. Mr McLean, who is also the president of the Queenstown Promotion Bureau, said New Zealand’s image overseas, especially in the United States, could be greatly harmed by the Government’s ban on nuclear ship visits. People would stay away

from New Zealand, as they would no longer view it as the “friendly nation” .it had always been known as. Although the floating of the dollar on the overseas exchange would not greatly effect the numbers of overseas visitors coming to New Zealand, Mr McLean said it would create difficulties for local traders, sightseeing firms and business owners in resort towns. “They will not know what rate to charge, when they cash foreign currency,” Mr McLean said. He did not want to see a “Dutch auction” type situation oc-

curring. In Queenstown, the Queenstown Promotion Bureau was to offer a service to businesses to keep them up to date with exchange rates. The bureau would do a check each morning and provide businesses with overseas exchange rates. Mr McLean said if businesses took advantage of this service there should not be any great problems. Mr McLean said he hoped the increase in visitors to New Zealand would continue, in spite of the A.N.Z.U.S. row. He did not see the exchange rate as

having contributed to the country’s tourism increase last year. The Minister of Tourism, Mr Moore, was wrong in assuming that more overseas visitors had flocked to New Zealand, since July last year, solely because the New Zealand dollar had been devalued by 20 per cent, Mr McLean said. “I believe devaluation may have contributed a little to the increase, but not to the extent that Mr Moore believes it has,” Mr McLean said. New Zealand had been sold successfully as an “at-

tractive destination,” the big increase in visitors had been “too soon” after the Government’s devaluation for the two to have been greatly connected, Mr McLean said. Mr McLean said more could be done to promote tourism in New Zealand, at little cost to the Government.

The full potential of the industry must be realised by the political parties, he said. New Zealand’s biggest problem was that it needed more tourist beds and more tourist transport. Moteliers had done a great job of catering for the middle scale of the industry, but more “top class” accommodation was urgently needed if the industry was to progress in the right direction.