TOURISTS AND NEW ZEALAND

Greymouth Evening Star, 12 September 1927, Page 10

TOURISTS AND NEW ZEALAND

ACCOMMODATION;. It is pleasing tojind that New Zealand, is popular with.tourists, not only front its sqenic. . advantages, but through the- little courtesies which strangers/appreciate. Mr S. W. M. Stilling, (manager of the Jenolan Caves House "and a member of the New South Wales Government Tourist Bureau), who is spending seven weeks in the Dominion on. his annual* leave, assured a Wellington “Post” reporter that of. W& -£’9,300 tourists "who . pass annually through the Australian wonder caves, a very large proportion have visited New Zealand, and that they all speak appreciatively of the country and Ahe'general courtesy and desire of its inhabitants to make their stay enjoyable. ■ “Good..ipads: and suitable accommodation,” said Mr Stilling, undoubtedly increase tourist traffic, and it is • airly recently that the full benefits of.that traffic have become-, generally .recognised throughout the world. New South’Wales has endeavoured >to’ make its tourist resorts both and .more . comfortable, and The result has been well worth whilb;. Of . all the countries I have hotel is at its -best in. America, where there are hotels ..of. 3000 rooms, each with its bathroom and In New South Wales-degj&lation will be necessary to, allow of anything like that, because at present it-'is: cohipulsory for the main sewage syslem. of a building to b.e carried down through the centre of the hotel.’. Alterations on a sufficient . scale to meet the desire of American tourists,’, who, I am convinced, are •right inf demanding plentiful and modern .sanitary accommodation in their hotels<islmpossible in the older buildings, the remodelling of which would be an expensive process, and even then would not corrie up to their ideas of what' a hotel should be, but in all hotels erected in the future, this feature should, if possible, be included. “I was agreeably surprised and impressed with the quality and extent of your good roads. I spent some time in the Auckland district, doing forty to fifty miles a day, and passed oyer ihjiny miles of excellent roads ■ ...

in eon junction with the motor have there. We have round that good road K wonderfully increased the popularity of our resorts with American and European tourists, and in our experience the cost of the good roads lias been repaid by the attention of wealthy tourists attracted to the country. Money brought by tourists is a cultivable source of income, and if the paths of travel be made easier, visits will be more frequent. “Many of our visitors p:>s Ihrough Jenolan on their way back from New ■Zealand, and the reports of the country and people we get there are most' flattering. After seeing our caves, visitors are generally enthusiastic about the glow-worms at Waitomo, and tell us many wonderful tilings about New Zealand; but what appeals to them most of all, apparently, is the courtesy and desire to satisfy the tourist desire for knowledge. I noticed it myself. Geographically ignorant, like other visitors, 1 asked a tram conductor to tell me which tram I shouldtake for Hamilton, which I imagined to be a suburb of Auckland. Instead of a curt reply, which he would have been justified in making to such a query, he told me 'its distance from the city,, and how to get. there.”