TOURIST TRAFFIC

Taranaki Daily News, 22 December 1931, Page 2

TOURIST TRAFFIC

AUSTRALIAN BOOKINGS. NO BIG EXODUS LIKELY. (New Zealand Herald Correspondent.) Sydney, Dec. 3. In spite of much publicity and attractive organised return tours to Ireland, costing from £lOO upward, there is little prospect of a big tourist exodus from Australia next year for the Eucharistic Congress, to be held at Dublin in June. Special variations in the route through the Mediterranean to enable passengers to make a trip to Rome, have been arranged on certain ships, but there have been very few bookings up to the present. It is considered that many prospective passengers are waiting for the exchange rate to drop before they make their plans to go abroad next year. Although the forward reservations at this time of the ye-r are not as heavy as they were several seasons ago, they are in excess of those of last year. Many business men who had deferred visiting Europe during the difficult financial period are going away, but many of them are not travelling “de luxe” as they formerly did. There is a marked diminution in first-class traffic, and a distinct increase in the bookings for one-class ships.