Service seen as a ‘detestable chore’

Press, 22 October 1986, Page 8

Service seen as a ‘detestable chore’

By

TIM DONOGHUE,

NZPA staff correspondent Tokyo The New Zealand tourist industry considered service to be a most detestable chore, according to an article in the fortieth anniversary issue of the respected “Far Eastern Economic Review.” The article, written by the “Review’s” Tokyo correspondent, Bruce Roscoe, singled out the Bank of New Zealand for particular criticism. It was written from the perspective of a Japanese tourist arriving in New Zealand. Mr Roscoe said that when tourist flights from Japan began a few years ago there was much ado. “But official glee at new sources of income and consideration on the part of some businesses is betrayed by a service industry which considers serving a most detestable chore.” Mr Roscoe. said the BNZ was probably the best, and worst, example when it came to service. “Not that other New

Zealand banks are much better. The BNZ simply stands out because of its monopoly airport business," he wrote. “You wait in line for 40 minutes to get served only to be told there is a limit to the amount of New Zealand dollars you can have.” He said Japanese tourists were told they could have no more than $lOOO (yen 75,000). “Like the pub with no beer in that good old Aussie refrain here we have the bank with no beans. And there is no apology either. “ ‘We don’t have any more dollars here,’ the bank teller says after getting the change right the third time,” Mr Roscoe wrote. He said the New Zealand tourist industry had not geared itself properly for Japanese arrivals. The article said Auckland souvenir shops stocked mostly the same boring items. These included machine-manufac-tured Maori canoes with just a trace of actual carving, and a lot of wooden bowls and sheepskin rugs.

“None put up yen-dollar exchange rates. Why would shoppers want to know? He said many Japanese tourists left New Zealand with a surplus of dollars and, understandably, asked for yen at the airport. “Of course the BNZ has run out of yen too. It used up all its yen buying back the surplus dollars of Japanese tourists departing the day before.” Mr Roscoe wrote that a returning expatriate noticed attitudes typically New Zealand in flavour which simply stood oblivious to time and foreign common sense — Western or Asian. “There is a fossil-like resistance to change, especially in attitudes towards business,” he wrote. "A busy New Zealand businessman of course wants to prosper but not at the expense of leisure pursuits.” He said such pursuits were sacrosanct. Customers going into a shop late in the day visibly upset the shopkeeper and his assistants — if they were still there.