OUR SCENIC HERITAGE

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 88, 10 January 1923, Page 4

OUR SCENIC HERITAGE

HUNDREDS OF AMERICANS COMING

ON PERSONALLY CONDUCTED TOUR

Now Zealand, probably early next year, Is to have Its first personally-conducted tour cf several hundred Americans, who will be collected by Captain M. B. MacDonald,, M.C., of the White Star Tourist Association, towards the end of tho present year, chiefly from California, but also from other parts of the United States, if necessary a steamer will be chartered for the purpose.

New Zealand’s splendid heritage of scenio glories—crag and 1 fam, forest, stream, and ice-clad peak and glacier, linked by gently-swelling pastoral (voids and the peaceful vales of agricultural prosperity that form a neverending source of varied interest to the tourist, the whole girdled by a chain of sparkling beaches that gem one of the most beautiful coast lines in tho ivor’d —have stirred tho emotions of world-weary visitors repeatedly, and yet the fact that tho Dominion is not adequately advertised is frequently commented on within itself. Thanks to a confused babel of parochial claims, New Zealand is well enough known, but it is not the New Zealander, however freely he may circulate a portion of his salary in seeing his country, ivho is to be looked to to render liquid the latent scenic wealth we possess, but the great body of world travellers. To the latter a passing mention of Mount Cook means little, the tact that Rotorua has hot springs less. The prospect of scant days spent in widelyseparated and nebulously described wonderlands does not attract them. But did they know that months of delicious lazing await them in these islands, any portion of which constitutes & delight to outsiders, and that barely half of our scenic treasures and natural phenomena have yet achieved even local popularity, New Zealand would commence to experience the stream of prosperity such a realisation would induce. A Californian gentleman whose curiosity was piqued concerning a motor drive in tho South Island by an advertisement sent out through the White Star Tourist Association, came expressly to test the truth of the statement that it was tho finest and cheapest in tho world. Himself a world traveller, and coming from a land of Yore beauty, his enthusiasm ’with the result was such, and his assertions that hundreds of Americans were only awaiting the discovery of such a holiday resort so positive, that Captain M. C. MacDonald, M.C., of the White Star Association, is now making arrangements to visit America towards tho end of the year, with tho object of bringing a large number of American visitors on a personally-conducted tour of New Zeauand. If the number aimed nt —two hundred —is eecured, concessions in rates will be possible in every phase of tho trip, and a longer sojourn in tho Dominion than is usual, giving the visitors a general idea or the country as a whole, will be tho endeavour of the promoter. While touring the scenio beauties will no doubt attract the majority of the big party, individual predilections in the sporte of fishing (whether for trout, king- and sword fish), mountaineering, ete., will be catered for in specially-conducted parties of suitable dimensions.