ALMOST UNKNOWN

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 126, 24 November 1923, Page 7

ALMOST UNKNOWN

DOMINION WANTS PUBLICITY

SOME 'SPECIFIC INSTANCES.

IST TELEGRAPH.—SPECIAL TO THE POST.)

AUCKLAND, This Day. Some specific instances L demonstrating the need for a more widely-spread advertising campaign in the interests of iv ew Zealand were quoted yesterday by Mr. H. 0. Wiles, of. Auckland, who returned by the Manuka after a four mouths' visit to the United States. He said that as near as Suva the principal hotels had views of the mountains of America, but there -was nothing to show that the Southern Alps were so near at hand. In the United States he found that there was almost entire ignorance of this country, and even the offices of some of the shipping companies were unable to give reliable information. He spoke of one tourist, who eventually came south by the Makura, who went .to a shipping office in Cleveland and asked to be booked to Auckland. He was told that he would have to go to Sydney as the nearest port, and was given a-return ticket by a direct American steamer to Sydney, and at a cost of ,100 dollars more than the trip to New Zealand would cost. This, however, was rectified on tho Pacific Coast. Of two exporters with whom Mr. Wiles conversed, one thought that ISew Zealand was off the coast of Scotland, while the other imagined that it was somewhere near Java. Mr. Wiles alßo had the experience of endeavouring to have a cable message sent to Auckland. The operator insisted that New Zealand was in Australia, and Mr. Wiles was at some pains to explain that Australia was "an island off the coast of New Zealand" before he could convince the operator that tho message should bo ssnt direct. As a small contribution towards the desired propaganda, Mr. Wiles had arranged to havo views of the Southern Alps and other attractions hung at the University of California and Michigan University, Chicago, as well as at a number of prominent hotels in the United States.