Motor-Coach Touring Is Profitable

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 278, 14 February 1928, Page 6

Motor-Coach Touring Is Profitable

Hotels are Benefited Says English Visitor WHY NOT A NEW ZEALANDER? A visitor from Great Britain says that motor-coach touring is only in its infancy in this country. In Britain, during the last two years, there has been an extraordinary development m this form of road traffic. Besides bringing thousands or people to know the joys of the open road, country hotels and boardinghouses have benefited to a marvellous extent. Old country inns, which had fallen almost into disuse, are no\y enjoying a new era of prosperity, and one of the great features of the year in England has been the restoration of numberless inns, which are to-day crowded with motor-conveyed tourists. Many old inns have been reconstructed without damaging their original characteristics. The improved hotel accommodation on sight-seeing, routes has created further zest to road travelling. , It is worthy of note that in Sydney the Government Tourist Bureau • collaborates with operators of motor vehicles. The head of the Tourist' Bureau there says that every tourist is an asset to the State, and motor travelling, therefore, receives the greatest possible encouragement. The head of a motor-touring concern in Victoria says that in one week he conveyed 160 motor tourists to a resort i called Buffalo, and his inclusive fare provided for the payment of £2 daily per head while at the Chalet, Buffalo. On three occasions in the last three months the Chalet, Buffalo, was, without his passengers, almost empty, and his payment alone amounted to more than £320 for the accommodation of the tourists conveyed on his inclusive fare basis. Motor touring should be encouraged. The tourist traffic in France is now so great that it was recntly pointed out that the amount of foreign money broqght to France by tourists offsets her adverse balance of trade. Now that the beauties of England have been opened up by regular tourist routes the increase of oversea travellers, principally from America to Great Britain, is reported to be remarkable. There are thousands in New Zealand who do not own motor-vehicles, and many of them can be induced to visit the country districts by well-appointed public motor-vehicles. The encouragement of this form of traffic could eagjjy take from the metropolitan areas nearly £1,000,000 yearly into the country districts. Other overseas visitors have said that to develop our country tourist traffic many o'f our country hotels should be reorganised, tl is a noticeable feature in overseas countries that hotel reconstruction work follows increase in motor traffic. Road touring is, therefore, a subject of great importance, and instead of being retarded by unnecessary legislation every encouragement should be given to those ready to provide facilities for taking the city folk and their cash into country districts at weekends and holidays.

SIXTH TYRE PLANT OPENED

AUSTRALIA AND ENGLAND The first Goodyear tyre to be built in England was produced in the new factory of the Goodyear Tyre and Rubber Company at Wolverhampton on December 15. This new factory, when in proper working order, will provide work for quite a number of the unemployed men in England. The newest Goodyear tyre plant was started on July 25, 1927, and on its completion will have a capacity of 2,000 tyres daily. The Wolverhampton plant of Goodyear is the sixth tyre-producing unit of the company, which has also a plant in Canada and another near Sydney, Australia. The Australian plant built its first tyre on October 5, 1927, less than nine months after ground was broken for the building there. This factory is now manufacturing 300 tyres daily, and will be in maximum production by April 1. Many a car is fool-proof until the driving seat is occupied. * * * Cars run into staggering figures sometimes —particularly irj this thirsty weather.