MORE TOURISTS.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20231, 15 February 1934, Page 9

MORE TOURISTS.

Hopeful Predictions by Visitor. CLAIMS OF THE SOUTH. An increase in tourist traffic in New Zealand and more of the tourists coming to the South Island were two predictions made yesterday by Mr R. J. Anwyl, manager in Australia and New Zealand for Thomas Cook and Son, Ltd., now on a visit to Christchtirch. He said that times were turning, people had more confidence and were going to make up for the holidays they had lost. The short cruises from Australian ports had taught a lot to travel and they want more of it. ‘‘l certainly think Australians are bound to go next door to New Zealand, after doing the rounds of what you might call their own back yards. A Bluff to Melbourne service, or at least a South Island-Australian service would afsist no end. Then I think the South Island would share equally with the North Island the traffic that comes to New Zealand.”

The cruising craze has caught on well in Australia, and short trips of twenty and fifteen days were run out of Australian ports to places such as Noumea and Port Moresby, including the Barrier Reef, and those trips could be had for the cost of the sea journey to New Zealand and back. Six hundred to sixteen hundred people went on the cruises. Those cruises were taking a Tot of people away from New Zealand. “ We realised that this might possibly happen,” said Mr Anwyl. “We put in a special effort to hold it and we have been successful, although the return on the labour has not been satisfactory but relatively encouraging. If that effort had not been made things would have been worse.”