Tourist and Health Resorts.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 43215, 15 August 1907, Page 3

Tourist and Health Resorts.

SIXTH ANNUAL REPORT,

The year under review shows the greatest increase in oversea traffic yet recorded in any one year. The increase is made up chiefly of visitors from Australia, to which country, on account of its comparatively short dtstance from New Zealat' we must naturally look for the bulk of ovhfsea travellers. The prosperous condition of Australia, coupled with the added attraction of an exhibition in New Zealand; no doubt accounted for a very large portion of the increase recorded on this occasion. New Zealand, by virtue of its olimatic conditions and its varied scenery, so different in character from that of* Australia, must ever continue to attract an increasing number from the Commonwealth. With the advent of larger and faster steamers it may reasonably be expected that the increase will be recorded in thousands annually. I think, ljowever, the cardinal factor in bringing about the increase for the past year is undoubtedly the opening of agencies of the Tourist and Health Resorts Department in Sydney and Melbourne, thereby getting into close touch wi}h the people of the Commonwealth. Since the opening of these agencies -in Jue, 1906, a period of nine and a-half months, the number of inquiries at the agencies in Sydney and Melbourne total 18,500. These figures need no comment. There is an honorary agency at Adelaide, hut no record has been kept of the number of inquiries there. The number of visitors re-

corded from all countries totals 9,684, a against 7,142 for the previous year, givinj an increase of 2,542. Valuing the expendi tore made in the country by these additions visitors at £SO per head, the same founda tion on which the former year’s figures wer based, the increased value of the traffic i shown to be £127,100, or an advance o: slightly over 35£ ‘per cent, on the previous year, and an advance of 85 per cent, in thre< years. The following figures show the estimated value of the tourist traffic from 1903-4 tc 1906-7, from which can he gauged the advance made; 1903-4, £261,000 ; 1904-5. £299,000; 1905-6, £357,000 ; 1906-7, £484,000. A pleasing result of the year’s operations is the -amount of direct revenue collected — viz. £18,202 5s 4d, an increase of £2,381 14s .sd, over the previous year. Under normal conditions this amount would have been very much larger. While the exhibition no doubt helped to add to the number of oversea visitors to the several resorts under the control of the Department, it had the very decidedly opposite effect on the -number of visitors to resorts from within the colony. It is safe to say that several thousands of people this year spent their holidays at the Exhibition who would have otherwise taken the usual course of visiting one or other of the attractive show-places. A notable feature of the traffic to most resorts was the absence of the usual number of New Zealanders. Thus, Hanmer Springs, which draws the greater

number of its visitors from residents in the Wellington, Canterbury and Otago districts, suffered severely in consequence of the exhibition, and tke other places suffered more or less from the same cause, and to a much greater degree than was compensated for by the additional influx of oversea travellers.