FIELD NEGLECTED

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 3, 26 August 1931, Page 3

FIELD NEGLECTED

publicity failure

FRANCE AND CONTINENT . KNEW NOTHING OF NEW ZEALAND. FRENCH VISITOR'S IMPRESSIONS

The opimon that New Zealand is neglecting a wide and fruitful field by concentrating its tourist publicity upon Great Britain to the exclusiqn of Franoe and the Continent of Europe was expressed by M. Joseph Major, h ■ French joumalist who is at present visiting Rotorua. In M. Major's opinion, large numbers of French tourists could be drawn to New Zealand if the proper publicity was employed to attract them, and he is strongly of the opinion that the New Zealand publicity authorities are making a mistake by directing their work along one channel instea'd of exploring further fields.

"I have often been asked during my stay in Wellington, what I tbought of New Zealand," said M. Major. "My reply to this conventional question always was, T do not know New Zeaiand; ,1 have been only in Wellington.' I remembered the story of the English lady who, when arriving at Dieppe for the first time, met a red-haired woman and immediately wrote to her husband- inf orming him that all French women had red hair. It is very easy to utter ridiculous statements on the j basis of hasty information, but now that I have seen something of Rotorua, my opinion of New Zealand has risen a great deal." } More Foreign Propaganda. At the same time, M. Major added, "he found it difficult to understand why t was that he had never heard of the wonders of the thttrmal region before arriving in New Zealand. It appeared to him that the bulk of New Zeala-nd's publicity work was. carried out in England — a country which already knew- something of New Zealand as a •part of the British Empire.

"I am of the opinion that more should be dorie in foreign propaganda," he stated. "If you compared the number of New Zealanders going to France with the number of Frenchmen coming to New Zealand, you would he surprised I am sure. This is not because the French are a 'stay-at-home' peo,.io, nor because they bave no money. Under tbe influence of a number of literary mon — of whom Pierre Loti was the first and Allain Gerbault by no means the last— the French public f ollows with eager interest the descriptions of distant voyages.^ Thousands of French people go on round-the-world trips or spend holidays in dif- | ferent of the Pacific islands, but owing to the lack of information and organisation in your publicity, New Zea-

,and is not included m ti-ise tnps, zo the great damage of your tourist traffic throughout New Zealand and last, but not least, in Rotorua.

Not Theory. "I am* not talking on theory, M. Major continued'. "During ten of international journalism, I have had many opportunities of watching the •is/s and fall of tourist tides to places •Ike Nice, B'arritz, Paris-Plage, and the German Spas. I was in close ouch with Amerieans visiting Europe, and I know how crowds of holidaymakers can be dir: cted by clever propaganda Towns like Buda-Pest had ao tourist traffic a few years ago in spite of the fact that Buda-Pest is among the mist beautiful oi the towns *n Europe. During the last ten years, however, a great offort has been made to draw foreign tourists 'to Hungary and to-day, tourists spend millions of pounds in that country. ^ The most important thing was that the natural beauties of the country should justify the propaganda it issued, M. Major added, and when naf ture's beauty and intelligent Pu^^ci y went hand in hand, the success of the country. as a tourist resort was assured. In his opinion, Rotorua had a great future- as a tourist centre and thfe achievement of its full development depended solely upon the efficiency of the publicjty methods which were nsed to advertise it abroad.

Use oi Esperauto. In this connection, he suggested that Esperanto would be very useful for publicity where it was difficult to reach the public by its own nationai tongue. The international language was very widely used in Europe today and particularly among thc smail Continental countries. It was lmp >ss:'blie to issue publicity nmtter m all languages and Esperanto publicaj t'ons, he thought, might be used with advantage in countries _ like JnpSlavia and Gzecho-Slovakia where that language was very generally used. "People on the Continent to-day une becoming fted oi bur mechaiucal Civilisation " M. Major "Ir>n constructions like the Eitte Tower in Paris or the skyscrapers o New York, cqase to interest them. The'r attention is turning to the bea ties of Nature. Rotorua is not a structure built by man, but a collecti m of patterns of geological ag ^ which is without doubt one of tho greatest wonders one could see Low that if I were rch, I should buy land and settle in Rotorua