T.H.C. to spend big money on southern projects

Press, 22 July 1986, Page 32

T.H.C. to spend big money on southern projects

A massive $3B million will be spent by the Tourist Hotel Corporation on its properties in the Southern Lakes region over the next 18 months.

The capital investment programme includes the hotel the corporation is to build at Queenstown and a new launch for Milford Sound. Building at Queenstown will start in September and the corporation’s chief executive, Mr Mike Hoy, expects the hotel to be operational by December, 1987. A new Milford launch has been commissioned and should be on the water by the middle of next year; It will cost $1.6 million and will be similar in design to the corporation’s Mitre Peak II which operates at Milford. Mr Hoy predicted the corporation would add another 40 rooms to the Te Anau hotel within the next two years and a half. The corporation’s total capital investment programme throughout New Zealand for the next 18 months was about $45 million, he said. Upgrading visitor faculties at Milford Sound is a national priority, according to Mr Hoy.

He visited MUford with the chairman of the corporation’s board of directors, Mr Bob Stannard, the Mayor of Queenstown, Mr John Davies, and the general manager of the Te Anau hotel, Mr Bill NeUsen, last month.

MUford could hardly cope now, Mr Hoy said. Improving facilities was a high priority as Te Anau and Milford would experience an increased flow of traffic when extra hotel beds at Queenstown were completed. “As far as I am concerned and as far as the tourist industry is concerned, if Milford was not to be developed it would impact very severely upon the tourist infrastructure of the whole of New Zealand.” Mr Hoy said the Milford Sound development plan was near completion but_

Queenstown offers its visitors a wide choice of attractive routes leading to neighbouring towns and districts.

One of the most enjoyable drives in my view is the “back” road from Queenstown to Arrowtown via Arthur’s Point and the Edith Cavel Bridge over the Shotover River.

The round-trip, returning via Lake Hayes, can be covered comfortably in less than an hour.

For those with more time to spare, the drive through the Kawarau Gorge to Cromwell is recommended; Old CromweU is being demolished and the site wUi soon disappear forever beneath the rising waters of a new hydro lake.

A new town with an exceUent shopping mall

funding the necessary improvements was beyond the scope of the corporation and the local community. Milford must be looked at in the wider sense of being essential to the tourist industry and that funding be found by whatever means possible, he said.