EASTER RUSH BEGINS

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 151, 23 March 1938, Page 10

EASTER RUSH BEGINS

Holiday Accommodation Already Taxed RESORTS FULLY BOOKED / Already bookings for the ESteter vacation are many at all principal Now Zealand holiday resorts and tourist centres and officials of the New Zealand Government Tourist Bureau state that indications are that transport services will be heavily taxed. The Wellington district manager, Mr. R. W. Marshall, said yesterday that shortage of accommodation at rush periods had become the most serious difficulty with which his department was faced. Good Friday falls this year on April 15. The Chateau Tongariro and the Hermitage, Mount Cook, were both heavily booked and to seek holiday accommodation at Rotorua was a hopeless quest, he said. Difficulty was experienced in -booking tourists at almost any of the leading resorts for the Easter holidays. This had been the situation for some weeks. Ferry and railway services were also already heavily booked. Congestion would -be increased by two cruise liners, each bringing some 300 passengers, being due on the coast at Easter. The Empress of Britain would call at Wellington on April 10, and would sail from Auckland on April 15. The Reliance would be at Auckland on April 11, and would depart from Wellington on April 17. On each occasion many tourists would make the tour of the North Island overland. Mr. Marshall said that this had been a particularly good season for tourist traffic. There had been many large parties visiting the country, in addition to more than the usual visitors by the cruise ships from Australia. Even now the “ReSb” party,of more than 60 Australian farmers, industrialists, and business men was in Wellington on a, tour arranged by the departmeht.

“We have reached the stage where our biggest difficulty is that the tourist traffic has outgrown the accommodation available at the principal resorts,” he said.