OUR INCREASING TOURIST TRAFFIC

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 155, 29 March 1937, Page 8

OUR INCREASING TOURIST TRAFFIC

It seems probable that Easter holiday traffic, by road, rail, sea and air, will be found to be heavier than for many years past, thus duplicating the experience of last Christmas and New Year. For the most part, these returns are evidence of the desire and ability of New Zealanders for travel within their own country: they are part of, but commonly distinguished from, the general tourist industry, which suggests overseas visitors. But these, too, are coming, or showing promise of coining, in greater numbers than ever. Indeed, Mr. Schmitt, general manager of the Tourist Department, speaking in Christchurch last week, expressed a fear that there may be a shortage of hotel accommodation for tourists unless extensions are made to premises. The department’s representatives or agents in Great Britain, Australia, the United States and Canada report the likelihood of heavy bookings next season; and this season, in some parts, accommodation has been taxed to the utmost. No doubt hotel proprietors who are assured of a steady all-the-year-round custom will listen sympathetically to Mr. Schmitt’s appeal for new building, if indeed they have not already taken steps to meet the increasing demand. Resorts at which the demand for accommodation and allied services is wholly seasonal —as at Milford Sound —are as a rule exploited by the Tourist Department itself. Between the two extremes lies a big held in which hotel proprietors may be reluctant to lay out more capital without some positive promise of new business. Perhaps the department could help those, and at the same time help itself, by developing schemes of off-season travel by New Zealanders. Although most people prefer to take their holidays in summer or autumn, there arc many to whom the prime consideration is the length to which their money will go. Given the magnet of reduced rail fares and hotel charges, these might be induced to “see New Zealand” in winter or early spring—to travel farther and learn more than would be possible to them in the crowded holiday seasons. If hotels could rely upon an increased volume of off-season as well as tourist season business,- it might be worth their while to extend accommodation, and to modify tariffs to suit the new class of business.