TOURIST TRAFFIC.

Taranaki Daily News, 30 December 1915, Page 6

TOURIST TRAFFIC.

MANY VISITORS TO NEW PLYMOUTH. UNSATISFIED DBMAND FOR SEASIDE COTTAGES, INFLUX OF AUSTRALIANS. There are present visitors in New Plymouth from all parts of New Zealand. The visitors to Mount Egmont for Christmas and the week or two preceding the holidays were not so numerous as alst year, but from now until the end of January the accommodation at the mountain will be fully taxed, the holiday rush for this pleasant resort having commenced in earnest this week. Mr. W. A. Collis (secretary of the Tourist and Expansion League) stated yesterday that he thought the falling off in the number of Christmas visitors to the mountain was due to the unsettled weather and the increased railway fares, but now a steady stream of visitors had set in. indicating that the season generally would be quite as brisk as last year. The principal feature of this season was the great demand for accommodation near the seaside, the number of intending visitors eclipsing that of any previous year. The applications for cottages or furnished roo,ms came from all 'parts of Taranaki, and from as distant as Hawke's" Bay and Wellington. Mr. Collis said it was impossible to satisfy the demand, and he could have filled considerably more accommodation than was available. The booklet issued by fhe League setting out the attractions in and around New Ptymouth and motor drives in the district has proved immensely popular, and during the past few days numbers of visitors have enquired for booklets and have expressed pleasure at being able to procure such an excellent guide. Motorists especially appreciate this information, but the absence of convenient road maps has been felt. There has been much enquiry for maps, and the League should remember this when making arrangements for future holiday seasons.

Some idea of the unsatisfactory way in which the attractions of New Zealand are kept before the people of Australia was provided yesterday, when a Taranaki gentleman who has recently been in Australia told Mr. Collis about his interview with a New Zealand tourist official in Sydney. He said that he asked the Sydney agent—who, by the way, was a New Zealand—tfhat there was to be seen in Australia. "Oh, you need not worry much about Taranaki, for there's not much to see there," was the reply. "There is a mountain there that a few people go to, but the conditions for visiting it arc very crude. There is a bit of a cottage on the mountain, and you will have to take "your own blankets and food." The Taranaki man let the agent finish, and then told him who he was, and'that the occommodation provided at Mt. Egmont was just as good as that available at the Blue Mountains. This incident affords a striking example of misrepresentation by a New Zealander who ia paid by the New Zealand Government to tell Australians about the holiday resorts of the Dominion.

The opinion that the New Zealand tourist and health resorts will be very liberally patronised this season by Australian tourists was expressed by the Hon. W. H. Edgar, late Minister in charge of the Victorian Tourist and Health Resorts Department, who arrived in Auckland by the Niagara this week. "This, of course, will be due In some degree to the fact that the Continental resorts are closed for the time being," said Mr. Edgar, "but it is also owing to the rapidly increasing popularity among Australians, of the fine New Zealand tourist resorts of which I have heard so much but not yet seen. There is no more popular country for tourists than New Zealand, with the people of Victoria, at any rate, and your Dominion was constantly held up to me by returned travellers when I was Ministers as an example to be followed. Although I had not the opportunity to visit New Zealand, I made myself conversant with the work of the New Zealand Tourist -and Health Resorts Department, and during my term as Minister I always had in view the splendid aeliieveents of the New Zealand Government in opening up the many scenic beauties of the country. In my efforts to effect improvements at the tourist resorts in Victoria, I must say that I always got my inspiration from New Zealand. I here wish to express the debt I owe to the New Zealand Government tourist agent in Victoria, Mr. IT. J. Hanson, who by means of lectures and in other ways is doing a valuable work in spreading abroad a knowledge of the scenic wonders of New Zealand. To show the great advantage of such agencies, I may say that I had the whole of my intended trip through New Zealand mapped out for me at the New Zealand Government Tourist Bureau in Melbourne, and I even obtamcd my permit to leave the State from the bureau office."

In reply to a question, Mr. Edgar stated that lie thought that the diverting of the touris raffic from Europe o Australia and New Zealand during the war would be of permanent benefit to resorts in these latter countries. Speaking of Victoria in particular, he stated that it was rather remarkable that the receipts from the tourist traffic at the Government bureau in Melbourne for November showed an increase of £2OOO when compared with the figures for the same month last year.