ROTORUA’S TOURIST HARVEST

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 101, 24 January 1927, Page 10

ROTORUA’S TOURIST HARVEST

POOR DURING CHRISTMAS; BUT MAY RECOVER Dominion Special. Auckland, January 21. Many Rotorua business people are disappointed with the outcome of the holiday season, which was marred at Christmas by unprecedented wet weather. The chief sufferers were the tourist motor services, end, in a smaller degree, the hotels and boardinghouses, but the effect was almost general, and felt by most of the tradesmen dependent on the tourist and the holiday visitors for custom. The falling-olf in business was most noticeable during the fortnight or three weeks following Christmas; the accommodation houses, which had hitherto been full to capacity, then began to lose many boarders, who had become disheartened at the continuance of the wet weather. Families who had intended stopping over a week gave notice and packed up their belongings, preferring to shorten their stay rather than pin their faith on a problematic improvement in conditions. Some of the service car people find solace in the prospects for a good Easter trade, while the coming visit of the Duke and Duchess of York should compensate for Christmas disappointments. A party of forty American tourists is expected to arrive in the immediate future on a conducted tour through the thermal region; they will be followed by the Roval visitors, and afterwards by 400 American passengers on the Cunard liner Franconia.