DECRYING SOUTHERN RESORTS

Southland Times, Issue 17655, 12 February 1916, Page 6

DECRYING SOUTHERN RESORTS

INJUSTICE TO COLD LAKES. At. yesterday’s meeting of the Otago Expansion League Mr Bathgate said that the league had information from a Dunedin gentleman who. when in Auckland or Rotorua, ran against a party of Australian ladies. In conversation he asked them if they were going to “do” the Milford track, and they replied that they had been told at the office that it was greatly over-rated. It was learned that the office was Cook’s office, and it was found that the people, not only there, but also in Invercargill, were doing their best to belittle that scenic attraction. The league also had another instance where a party from the Cope were told that Queenstown and Wakatipu were not worth visiting. Further enquiry dieted the suggestion that Cook’s people were paid a commission on tourists booking to Rotorua, but none on these southern ports. The league communicated with the Government and the Tourist Department, suggesting that if there was any difference in the commissions they should be made equal, or the commission altogether abolished. He mentioned this as showing that there were influences at work to hoom Rotorua (which they knew the Government Tourist Department had been prone to do), and to neglect the southern resorts.

Air Mark Cohen said that he could bear out much of what the chairman had said. On the steamer coming from America he had found that there was an undercurrent directed against the South island which he could not understand, and the influence of which was detrimental to the Cold Lakes. It seemed to him that latterly the Tourist Department had got out of It aml completely. There had been happenings which had tilled him with misgivings, and he wondered if the time had not arrived for the abolition of toe department, and the centring oi; its activities in the Railway Department, as was done in Australia. America. and Canada. There the railway systems were "worked in" with the show places, and they engaged Ihe livest men to "boost" their scenic attractions. It was. indeed, their boast that they got thousands of bookings a year ahead to such attractions as the Grand Canon, in Arizona. If we had such a system, such complaints as this would bo impossible, because the servants of the State would have an interest only in attracting visitors to the show places, and no incentives from commissions.