Tourist Traffic

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 48, 28 November 1907, Page 22

Tourist Traffic

Johnson did;not tour.till late m life—when.his heart was too crusty amid his mind too hardened by insular notions to learn the tolerance that traver teaches. Arid so to the end of' his days he never overcame his dislike of foreigners, whom he ' catalogued holus^bolusv ,as 1 fools '. The immense facilities of travel nowadays are highly calculated to break' down the race prejudice/thaj •seems to set its strongest grip on-insular peoples. And in the end, the tourist, with- his puttees and his knickerbockers and his slung kodak, may unconsciously be playing a contributing part in the international peace of the future. In the meantime he is, even in New Zealand, an asset that increases .steadily in value year by year. According to Commendatore Bodio, the tourist traffic is worth about £40,000 a day to Italy. Several years ago it was^estimated that the tourists to the Riviera enriched these clfarming Mediterranean winter resorts to the. tune of some .£12,000,000 annually, while some £5,000,000 were 'distributed by. summer visitors among the hotels and- boarding-houses of Switzerland, ' the playground of Europe '. Switzerland had in 1899 (ihe year of the latest available report) 3167 hotels and ! bioardjingy-houses, with an Invested,' capital pL £22,000,000. .And in the same year 2,559,000. arrivals were registered at, the hotels, etc., representing an influx of some 300,000.; to 400,000 individual tourists, of whom 34 per cent, were estimated to be Germans 20 percent. Swiss, 17 per cent. English, 11 per cent. French, and 18 per- cent, of various other nationalities. We in New Zealand are far out on the rim 'of * the world. But the unique character of our scenic attractions, and the. reputation of our .tight little islands as a sportemato's'. paradise, are drawing to our shores en increasing stream of visitors from afar, that bids fair to make.New Zealand the playground of .the Southern Hemisphere, as Switzerland- is of the Northern.