Ohakune worked long and hard' for tourism

Waimarino Bulletin, Volume 6, Issue 259, 18 October 1988, Page 4

Ohakune worked long and hard' for tourism

I refer to Mike Wiggins letter in your last issue. He makes some ridiculous claims that cannot go unanswered. 1. Ohakune is a good place to live. If he believes this, why has he sold his house here and bought a house and a shop in Auckland, as reported by you in a previous issue. Masochism. 2. There is plenty ... to do on closed days. During the day there is almost nothing for visitors in the town except the pub. They go to the Army Museum, the hot pools at Tokaanu, river rafting at Taihape, etc, taking thcmselves and their dollars out of the reach of the town. To N e w Zealand as a whole this may make no difference but to Ohakune businessmen it matters heaps. 3. Closed tourist shops in the town in summer. Today I walked around the town and noted six closed shops and that is in winter when all the visitors are here. I think Mr Wiggins is claiming that this is better than having empty shops in summer when Ohakune reverts to being a countiy town of 1400 persons, when there are no visitors to notice,

and very few locals either. 4. The Junction and the town compliment each other. Get off the grass. Queenstown and Arrowtown compliment each other, but can you seriously imagine tourists coming from Auckland or Wellington just to see the quaint slum that is the Junction? If the Junction is such a great place to do business, why does Mr Wiggins have the 'Sports Country' ski shop in town and a ski and under water shop in Auckland. Could it be that there is: something missing, like customers for example? Tourism was not something that was' foisted on an unsuspecting Ohakune. The Ohakune Mountain Road Association worked long and hard to create a road so that the skifield could develop. Without their tireless voluntary efforts there would be no Turoa and Ohakune would be in a worse situation in the present downturn than Raetihi. Ski Ohakune Promotion, a committee o f the Ohakune Jaycees, went a long way towards establishing the association of Turoa Skifield and Ohakune. Ohakune Skifield De-

velopment Ltd, a group of local people, took over the existing rope tow at the top of the road in 1971 and put much effort into trying to attract a big company into investing, finally realising this goal when Alex Harvey took up the licence in

1977. All of this effort was put in by a large number of local people so that the whole town could benefit from the influx of visitors, not so that some form of monopoly could be created for the Junction to the detriment of the

town. I think that 'Disillusioned' has been rather kind in his/her criticism of the council that allowed that to happen. Ohakune no longer exists in a vacuum, but must compete with every other Tourist Destination in New Zealand and the East Coast of Australia. To do that, it must have a heart, a core of activity

where visitors can be entertained without having to jump off a bridge at the end of a goat track, or half drown in a river. The Junction has been given a monopoly for the past 10 years, in a bold if foolhardy experiment, and has failed. It is time to declare the experiment a failure and find a new direction. The country has had to do so under

deregulation, the National Womens Hospital has had to do s o under a cloud. With a review of the town plan being mooted, now is the time to admit that 'Big Brother' does not know best, and to remove the heavy hand of beauracracy from the future direction of our town. This may be our last chance.

Ian

F.

Heappey