Stranger Within Our Gates

NZ Truth, Issue 1176, 14 June 1928, Page 6

Stranger Within Our Gates

* THE Tourist Department is particularly active at the x moment and the anticipated visit to New Zealand of novelist Zane Grey and his party is being heralded with loud cheers. . So far so. good. But the Tourist Department has yet to learn that its business is like any other inasmuch as it depends on high pressure salesmanship on the part of the employees — which in this case is the public — to keep, it on the upward grade. The American is the greatest tourist in the -world. He feels that he must see England or die; ride ddnkeys to the Pyramids of Egypt or forever become ostracised from the polite society of his own home town. New Zealand is a country about which he does not care a goF darn till we push its attractions under his notice. Colored leaflets on the Milford Track distributed in Oskosh, Osh., are all right in their way, but they are apt to be blown to the four winds,, before their message sinks in. The Tourist Department 's method of attack on the U.S.A. should be along the lines of one heavy and continuous barrage of publicity "stunts," while the New Zealand public's part is to see, r that having snared a ' boatload of American visitors, we treat 'em well. The memory of a distinguished party of visitors who complained of our trains, hotel accommodation and travel facilities generally, still lingers with us to the detriment of good business and enhanced popularity with the trade in tourists.