AN ALPINIST FINDS FAULT

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 156, 20 March 1923, Page 8

AN ALPINIST FINDS FAULT

ADMIRES NEW ZEALAND I'-' • SCENERY i • BUT CONDEMNS THE HOTELS BY Telegraph.—Special Correspondent. !. Christchurch, March 19. ”1 see the Canadian Government has agreed to take a ’ thousand Swiss farmers into its country, but what I should like to see would be the importation of a hundred Swiss hotelkeepers to teach the young New Zealanders the art of hotelkeeping,'’ said Mr. - Julian Grande, the weil- ■ known journalist and Alpinist, **" to an interviewer.

Mr. Grande has been in New Zealand for the‘past two months. For most of this time he hw boen in the South Island. Ho has spent some time (n'the Southern Alps. -Speaking of his trip to the West Coast, Mr. Grande said that there was no scenery in the world, as far as ho had seen —and he had seen much, and knew the Swiss, Italian, and French resorts from end to end—that compared with that in New Zealand. “The Alps in New Zealand,” he said, “are more suited for explorers than amateur climbers. The glaciers of New Zealand are giants compared with ' those of Switzerland. There is no glacier in tho Swiss or the French Alps that compares in size, form, or beauty with the Franz Josef, and there is certainly no glacier in Europe that has a hot spring at the bottom. . The peaks and passes in tho high New Zealand Alps are suitable ■ only for expert climbers with firstclass guides. Tile one thing that is lacking is good hotels. At present there are only two climbing centres from which ascents can be made—one at the Hermitage and the other at the Wailin' Gorge. Mr. Grande noticed several other climbing centres where hotels could very well be put. Referring to the cost of Alpine hotel accommodation, he said that ho did not complain of the price, but 'the * accommodation in Switzerland was 100 per cent, better. The same accommodation would probably cost there about 7s. a day. New Zealand had a great future if it would set about encouraging tourists. Switzerland before the war had 4,000,000 tourists annually, and supposing that fiach spent £2O that mean t £80,000,000 [eft in the country. There were 45,000 people engaged in the hotel bisliucss, . and if the tourists each left £1 in tips • that would mean a further £4,000.000. There were 9000 hotels and pensions in a country about a quarter of the size of Now Zealand.