UNADVERTISED BRITAIN.

Waikato Times, Volume 102, Issue 17218, 29 September 1927, Page 5

UNADVERTISED BRITAIN.

LACK OF FUNDS. While we are anxious to send the United States tourists to Britain, we are unable to do so to any great extent because we have scarcely any literature about this country to show them." This statement was made to a London reporter by Mr A. W. Price, secretary of the Association of American Banks Travel Bureaux, who is on a tour of Europe. He said:— "An American can go to his bank> and select his holiday in any part of the world with the assistance of a travel expert employed by the bank. His photograph is taken there and his passport with all the necessary visas obtained for him, also his railway and steamship tickets. Hotels are arranged, and he is given a letter of credit. All the bank itself gets out of this is 5 per cent, from the steamship companies. It is done for the convenience of clients. More than 990 per cent, cf Americans abroad want to go to England, but while we have stacks of literature from Holland, Germany, Italy, Sweden and other countries to give them, we have scarcely anything which shows the beauties and attractions of Britain. At the First National Bank of Chicago, of which I am manager, I have only three pieces of literature about England—a book describing the Wye Valley, another about the Lake district, and an L.M.S. timetable." In reply to this statement Sir Francis Towle, the director of the "Come to Britain" movement, said: "Sending literature to the United States and to other countries would be one of the functions of this movement, but we are unable to exercise it because we have not the available funds, and no money is being subscribed for this purpose."