TOURIST RESORTS

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 25 July 1925, Page 5

TOURIST RESORTS

DEVELOPING ONE AT A TIME. NEW CONCENTRATION POLICY. £45,000 FOR PUBLICITY THIS YEAR FROM OUR, PARLIAMENTARY REPORTER. WELLINGTON, July 24. The co-ordination of effort by the Railways, Publicity and Tourist !>epartments to advertise New Zealand means, according to a statement by the Prime Minister to-day, that £45,000 , will be availab’e for this purpose during the current year. ‘ , . . This, Mr Coates suggested, would be a useful instalment of publicity for New Zealand abroad. He recognised that New Zealand was worthy of advertisement, that it provided unique scenery which was capable of being easily approached, and that publicity would pay. The work was controlled by a board representative of the three interested departments, which thus secured co-ordin-ation, and this board got its policy suggestions from the Ministers of Railways, Tourists and Publicity. If the matters were euergeticady handled, without allowing costs to run away with it, it would be a profitable investment. In addition to sending films and slides abroad, the Minister in Charge of Publicity (Hon. G. J. Anderson) was considering the engagement of a lecturer to explain the scenic films, and carefully compiled lists were being made of people in Australia, America, Canada and England who were likely to travel to New Zealand. They would get a personal letter,' and where possible. the New Zealand agents would intervew them. A continuous series of articles on New Zealand was being sent abroad for publication. . . Mr Coates announced that a policy of concentration had been adopted for the improvement of tourist resorts. It would be better, he remarked, to clean up one place at once than to keep on spending a few hundreds for years. Therefore 'the Tourist Minister and himself had decided that, within the country’s financial. capacity, they would follow this plan of pushing on with the development of one or two resorts, quickly completing the work and making them attractive to tourist's at an early date." This year’s Public Works Estimates would to some extent' reveal the intentions of the Government n that respcft.; -Iq -places like Waitomo, instead of spending £IOOO a jear for perhaps 10 years, they would complete the job, including the provision of electric lighting and good accommodation. This policy would niean an increase in public expenditure for some years, hut the Government realised that there would be an influx of tourists in response to' the publicity it had initiated.