OUR TOURIST TRAFFIC.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5126, 16 May 1927, Page 4

OUR TOURIST TRAFFIC.

STILL IN ITS INFANCY

ROOM FOR ENORMOUS EXPANSION

Possibilities of the tourist traffic in New Zealand were referred to by Mr R. L. Wrigley, managing director, of the Mount Cook Motor Company, when speaking at a function at the Mount Cook Hermitage recently. Switzerland obtained £70,000,000 annually from the tourists. In Switzerland, he understood, the people had no taxes whatever.. Why should they not do the same thing ? In Honolulu the revenue last year from visitors was £28,000,000. In Canada the revenue was £27,000,000, and France received £100,000,000 from her tourists. The speaker quoted other figures to prove the value- of a tourist to a country. The number of people that visited New Zealand last year, up to December was 9509. It was estimated that a tourist coming into the Dominion left £lOO, and the total did not bring them ye-t pp to the million' mark. As against this amount the Government figures estimated that New Zealanders going on holiday tours each took away about £3OO. There was nearly £5,000,000 going out and not £.1,000,000 coming in. There was a loss on these figures of £4,000,000, and probably it was more. A greater tourist traffic would help largely ip solving many of the country’s difficulties.