SOMETHING DISTINCTIVE

Taranaki Daily News, 28 December 1934, Page 6

SOMETHING DISTINCTIVE

ATTRACTION OF TOURISTS WHAT IS NEEDED IN NEW ZEALAND AMERICAN IDEAS NOT DESIRABLE. ADVICE FROM PROMINENT VISITOR “I sincerely hope New Zealand never becomes Americanised,” declared Dr. A. L. Lewis, Hollywood, who is visiting Stratford in the course of a business tour of the Dominion, to a News reporter. The remark arose from a discussion in which comment was made on the way New Zealand people tended to adopt American phrases and methods. “I believe every country should possess its own nationality and something distinctive about it,” he continued, ‘‘and from my experience of New Zealand to date I believe I have come in contact with a spirit which may be classified as national. Without any desire to flatter I can characterise the New Zealand attitude as an unusually earnest desire to extend a degree of hospitality which will ever be associated with a visit to the country.” Here and there, he said, one saw evidence of a desire on the part of New Zealanders to adopt progressive ideas which had been, developed in England and America. In many instances he believed the country would be better off without such adoption. “Your country is striving to attract tourist traffic,” he said, “and the surest way of doing this is to keep it free from too much ‘improvement.’ If an American tourist, for instance, has the time. and the money required to make a visit to Australia and New Zealand he most certainly does not want to enjoy the same sort of thing he left at home. He is out for foreign travel, and if your hotels, railway and bus services, theatres and so on are all right up to the highest point of development he will feel he may as well have stayed at home. He knew, said Dr. Lewis, of a great many people who would rather make a continental tour than come to New Zealand because there they were visiting countries where the language, fare and costs all differed from what they had been accustomed to and where the service was still’ 18th or 19th century. Disappointment with Rotorua in the same connection was expressed by many tourists, he said. The Government publicity matter distributed in other countries was misleading. He had been led to believe, for instance, that the Maoris were living there in their traditional attire and in their natural environment. “Picture my astonishment to see them in European clothes. You miss a lot that way. Then instead of having a model pa on a doll’s house scale they should have a full scale pa and be living the life of their forebears. It would be a wonderful attraction for tourists. They do that sort of thing in the South Sea islands such as Samoa and Fiji. I do not mean to be critical—only in a constructive way—because I am so thoroughly keen and enthusiastic about your wonderful little country and its people. I am just giving these few hints in the hope that they may be beneficial.”

Chateau Tongariro was an unnecessarily modern and luxurious place, Dr. Lewis said. It took half the enjoyment out of travelling to find a hotel so closely resembling art American one. The service certainly was splendid, and no complaints could be made, but it could all be much more simple.