TOURIST ORGANISATION

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 254, 23 July 1936, Page 8

TOURIST ORGANISATION

A South Island Travel Association was set up in Christchurch yesterday by a meeting representing local bodies and kindred authorities from Nelson to Stewart Island. Among the speakers was Mr. H. H. Sterling, former chairman of the Railways Board, who has given a good deal of study over the past few years to tourist traffic and its trends. While endorsing the proposal to form the association, Mr, Sterling stressed that its outlook must not be parochial but rather that of a sectional body functioning as part of a national plan. The essence of success in catering for tourists, he said, was organisation. To this might have been added “co-operation.” At any rate cooperation will be essential to the successful working of any scheme of national organisation. Indeed it ought not to stop at national boundaries. Co-operation between Australia and New Zealand to attract visitors from the Old World and the East offers attractive possibilities. But first and foremost let us have co-operation throughout New Zealand. The South Island feels, not without a show of justice at times, that it suffers through being the South Island. Sometimes it hints that the North Island is hostile. The accident of geography is chiefly to blame: ships mostly come to the North Island first, and often tourists are in a hurry. They find much to interest them in the North Island and if they take leisure to enjoy it are left with little time for the equally satisfying attractions of the South. In its endeavour to adjust the balance, the new association will encounter many difficulties; but it can rely on the goodwill, and where possible the active assistance, of the people of the North. Because everything done to improve the tourist facilities of any part of New Zealand is done for New Zealand.