RIVALS FOR TOURIST TRADE

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 50, 22 November 1937, Page 6

RIVALS FOR TOURIST TRADE

"Hawke's Bay Is Being Favoured" TARANAKI COMPLAINT Last year complaints were made by Chambers of Commerce and other organisations in the Hawke's Bay and East Cohit distriets, that tourist itine-* raries prepared for visitors to New Zealand left the Eastern tour off the routes arranged. Now conies a complaint from Taranaki that the Eact ' Coast is being favoured by both the Tourist and Railvvay Departments, to the detriment of the western province. A New Plymouth man stated that. tourists who arrived in New Zealand at Auckland were advised to take the East Coast route, in preference to passing through Taranaki 011 their way south. He eonsidered that the prominenee into which the 1931 earthquake had brought Hastings, Napier and to a lesser degree tlie remainder of Hawke's Bay, was now being exploited to a degree that- was unwarranted. Publicity was concentrated on the rebuiiding in modern form of the damaged cities, with glowing accounts of their beauty and the surrounding scenic attractions.

Rotorua also came in for its share of criticism. Tbe Taranaki resident recounted that an agriculturalist from Kingston, Jamaica, travelling through the North Island told him that his route would not inelude Taranaki. He^ had been advised by the Tourist Department to take the route from Auckland* to Rotorua, Taupo, Waikaremoana, Napier, Hastings, and on to Wellington, and had been told nothing of the attractions of Taranaki. He ventured the opinion that Rotorua and the other resorts concentrated solely on the exploitation of the tourists, that the Maoris there "made rather a nuisanee of themselves," and that tourist literature abroad led people to expect thermal activity 09. a much greater scale.

Criticism was also levelled at the carriages used on tlie New PlymouthWellington express. On comparison with the carriages of the Napier-Wel-lington express, for example, a most striking difference was noted. The Napier train's first-class carriages were extraordinarily comfortable and those of the second-class were equal in comfort to first-class on the New Plymouth train. The carriages were all-steel and thoroughly up-to-date. There were numerous improvements and considerations for the passenger's comfort. Carriages used on the New Plymouth run were still of the old wooden or wpod and steel combination types, which he eonsidered veritable death trops in case of aecident. "The reply of the Railway Department to previous critiAsm of the carriages used on the New Plymouth-Wel-lington and Auckland-New Plymouth runs has been always that as yet there are not . suflicient carriages built to meet the demand of all the Dominion services, that the revision of rolling stock must be gradual," said the New Plymouth recident. "Yet the faet remains that while both the Auckland-Rotorua and NapierWellington trains have comparatively luxurious, up-to-date, all-steel Carriages, travellers on the New Plymouth-Wel-lington and Auckland New Plymouth routes must be content with obsolete, badly-appointed 'death-trap' carriages. Why haVe Taranaki trains had to take a 'back seat?' Is the pplicy of the Tourist Department to the attractions of Taranaki to tourists expressed in the appareht apathy of the Railways Department towards the New PlymouthWellington and Auckland-New Plymouth runs?"