TOURIST BUSINESS

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 264, 4 August 1936, Page 5

TOURIST BUSINESS

What It Means to New Zealand TRAVEL CLUB EFFORTS By Telegraph—Press Association. Christchurch, August 3. Gratification at the formation of a South Island Travel League was expressed by the Minister in charge of the Tourist Department, Hon. F. Langstone, on his arrival at Lyttelton today. He mentioned that such an organisation could succeed only if the Tourist Department were its mainspring. Private enterprise could not conduct tourist publicity as efficiently as the Government. Mr. Langstone said the Tourist Department was at all times willing to assist in any direction to facilitate the tourist traffic, which meant the development of internal and external trade. Tourist expenditure in NewZealand exceeded revenue by about £30,000 a year. It was recognised that the Tourist Department must be primarily a spending department, but that the advent of overseas tourists to New Zealand was a good way of establishing invisible exports and creating credits abroad as well as developing trade in the Dominion. “My problem is to convince the Minister of Finance that our £BO,OOO deficit is made up on the revenue side and that the Tourist Department is not run at a loss,’’ Mr. Langstone said. “That as well as money spent by the Tourist Department a good deal was expended by travel clubs and others interested in developing the tourist traffic. If, by co-ordination such as would result through the formation of the South Island Travel League, it could be possible to estimate the amount spent and to spend it to greater advantage with the Tourist Department as the mainspring of the movement, much good would be accomplished.” -