The Tourist Pound

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30956, 12 January 1966, Page 10

The Tourist Pound

Mr Eric Baume has said more Australians would come to New Zealand if they received 20s in the Dominion for their Australian pound. He is right. But the number of Australian tourists would have to increase by 25 per cent—as it might—before New Zealand’s overseas currency chests were one penny fuller; or those that already come to visit us would have to spend more. “ The Australian now gets 15s “ in New Zealand for his quid ”, said Mr Baume, and a great many Australian tourists stay at home “ rather than lose on the deal ”. In fact, a person arriving in New Zealand gets 16s in New Zealand currency for an Australian pound and, because of the over-all difference in prices, he is still almost certainly better off. A recent study by two economists of the cost of living in Australia and New Zealand showed that, after adjustment for the ’xchange rate, an average over a range of prices for goods and services in Sydney exceeded an average for the same range in Wellington by nearly 5 per cent. So some Australians, at least, would be better off if they moved to New Zealand under the present rate of exchange. Brisbane and Adelaide citizens might be slightly worse off if they moved to Wellington or Auckland, but they would get better value in most other places in New Zealand. A more specific check would be needed to establish how the advantage lies over a range of goods and services of interest to Australian tourists. Such a survey might well produce results which would show Australians that they can already “ make on the deal ”. It might show that if either country should introduce a “ tourist quid ” it ought to be Australia, where, after the New Zealand touris‘ is initially delighted at receiving 25s for his New Zealand pound, he faces higher prices. New Zealand wants Mr Baume and a lot of Australians to visit New Zealand and it is to be hoped that they get good value for their money. If, at present prices and at the present exchange rate, they can gain even a small advantage over spending their holiday money .'t home they should know what that advantage is. Then the illusion of the lost deal would be dispelled. Not too many of New Zealand’s 27,000 Australian tourists in 1962-63. apparently, felt that they had lost on the deal: two years later their numbers had built up to 40.400—without the extra inducement of a tourist pound.