TOURIST BOOM IN NEW SOUTH WALES

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 137, 27 February 1918, Page 7

TOURIST BOOM IN NEW SOUTH WALES

-9 INFLUX FROM OTHER COUNTRIES Tho perils of the ivar, the limitations on shipping, and tho stoppage of passports have not.only retained at home tourist traffic that lied.to Europe, but have', attracted'"Europeans from all Eastern countries (says the ''Sydney Daily Telegraph"). Officers of tho State Tourist Bureau and Cook's Tourist Agency report that since tho ,war Australia has been invaded by an army of tourists from tho Dutch East India, India, China, and the Pacific Islands. Theso persons usually spent their holidays or leave in Europe, but now feel--no thrill at the prospect of being submarined on their way to the older countries. That stream from countries near, bydias been diverted to Australia, and of all the States New South Wales receives the greatest number of them.

In the Dutch East Indies many of the main residents are given twelve months' vacation everyfew years, and now, under war conditions, that leave is spent by the majority of those to whom it falls due in the Commonwealth. The State Tourist Bureau has arranged for parties of Dutch East Indians to visit Australia, and in return to send parties of Australians to those islands.

There are a great number of persons in Australia who know the world from the Horn to the Straits of Labrador, and from Japan to Lapland, but, strangely enough, have a very hazy notion of what the Jenolan Caves have to offer, exactly where Mount Buffalo is situated, or what can be gained by a.visit to Kosciusko, and for these globe-trotters the tourist bureau has raised the slogan' "Australia First."

One of the staff of the bureau recalls how, when he' himself was"traveiling the world, he met numerous Australians in Norway, Sweden, Holland, France, ■ and Italy-who had never bothered to look' around the Commonwealth, and, with satisfaction, relates that he met a number of these self-same persons during the last two years at the Caves House and at Mount Kosciusko. The truth of the matter is that Australians with mouey. to travel cannot do so on account of the war, and are now compelled to see the beauties of their own country. Figures show that people are travelling in New'. South Wales more than they travelled before the war. The most interesting of these statistics are those applying to Jepolan Caves. In 1914, the "year in which the outbreak of war occurred, 26,389 persons visited the Caves. In 1917 the visitors numbered 29,617. At Kosciusko last winter and this summer record numbers were experienced, and these included many persons who, although travelled,, had never-been there previously.