SUMMER AT ROTORUA.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20004, 22 January 1927, Page 12

SUMMER AT ROTORUA.

EECOED EAINFALL. TRADE SERIOUSLY AFFECTED. (Special ro ’'aily Times.) AUCKLAND, January 21. Many Rotorua business people are disappointed with the outcome of the holiday season, which was marred at Christmas by unprecedented wet weather, iuc cniei sufferers were the tourist motor services, and in a smaller degree the hotels and boarding-houses, but the effect was almost general, and was felt by most of the tradesmen dependent on the tourist and holiday visitor for custom. The fallingoff in business was most noticeable during the fortnight or three weeks following Christmas. The accommodation houses, which had hitherto been full to capacity, then began to lose many boarders, who had become disheartened at the continuance of the wet weather. .Families who had intended stopping over a week gave notice, and packed up their belongings, preferring to shorten their stay rather than pin their faith on a problematic improvement in the weather conditions. Some families, indeed, who set out for the thermal regions bv car, never arrived there, being deterred by the state of the clay roads. ihe number of families who never saw Rotorua f6r this reason is set down variously at 50 to 100. The motor services engaged in tourist sightseeing “did a complete frost” on Christmas Day, and were not much better off on Boxing Day, strong gales, accompanied by heavy downpours, making motoring conditions anything but pleasurable. The streets of Rotorua were flooded on December 25 and 26, and many places of business were inundated. Visitors were thus obliged to remain indoors and put up with makeshift amusements. It is little wonder that the appetite tor “doing the sights” was effectively damped. “Business was a washout at Christmas, declared a loading garage proprietor m Rotorua. “All our service cars were maintained, of course, but the sightseeing care just stood outside the door and waited. No one would be tempted to travel for pleasure in such depressing weather. The result is that our Christmas turnover was the worst tor years, a serious matter when you remember that these services are maintained mainly by revenue derived from holiday traffic. It was most unfortunate for everyone concerned. Some of the service people find solace in the prospects for a good Easter trade, while the coming visit of the Duke and Duchess of York should compensate tor Christmas disappointments.” A party of 40 American tourists is expected to arrive in tho immediate future on a conducted tour through the thermal region. They will be followed by the Royal visitors and afterwards by 400 American passengers by the Cunard liner Franconia. “The American tourists always mean money for Rotorua,” an hotel manager stated. “They have tho cash to spend and scatter it” freely, provided they are pleased with what they see. Most of them only stay a day or two days at most, in Rotorua, but in tliat space of time they spend more than the average Englishmen or New Zealander would spend in a month.” If the long view is taken and the setback at Christmas is not over-emphasised, it is evident that Rotorua will not suffer the black year that was predicted for it by tho pessimists who sprang up like mushrooms over the New Year. The interval to Easter, in fact, should mark tho end of a reasonably profitable summer season.