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The Wonder Country: Making New Zealand Tourism
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The Wonder Country
c
First published Auckland University Press University of Auckland Private Bag Auckland New Zealand www.auckland.ac.nz/aup Published in association with New Zealand Tourism Board and the Ministry for Culture and Heritage © Crown Copyright, This book is copyright. Apart from fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without prior permission of the publisher. Cover design: Christine Hansen Cover illustration: Archives New Zealand, , , Printed by Astra Print Ltd, Wellington
Contents Foreword vii Acknowledgements viii Abbreviations x Introduction Nature’s Marvels, – The Metropolis of Geyserland, – A Spice of Adventure in their Pleasure, – The Romance of Rail, – The Playground of the North, – By the People, For the People, – The Cinderella of Industries, – The Jet Age, – An Island Unto Itself, – Extreme New Zealand, – Notes Bibliography Index
Foreword In the then New Zealand Government had the foresight to create the world’s rst ever national tourism organisation. The formation of the Department of Tourist and Health Resorts was recognition of the untapped potential of tourism to New Zealand, and the need to successfully manage its development. The world of tourism is very different in . It is now one of New Zealand’s highest earning export industries, with international visitors pouring over billion into our economy each year, and one in ten New Zealanders directly employed in the tourism industry. Yet the issues facing the industry and government today are not dissimilar to the challenges that confronted our predecessors. With over million international visitors arriving in New Zealand each year, and strong indications of growth from our main markets, New Zealand remains a unique and popular destination. With visitor numbers increasing, however, issues of management and sustainability become more pertinent. The National Tourism Strategy has charged the industry with addressing the implications of this growth, better targeting the type of visitors who come to this country, and ensuring we have the infrastructure, standards and training in place to continue to develop the quality and capability of our industry. In looking to our future, it is important that we recognise our history, celebrating the achievements and learning from the mistakes. This book is tting testament to the work of New Zealand’s tourism pioneers and to the diverse history of our industry. I hope that you enjoy it.
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Acknowledgements This history of the government’s involvement in tourism was commissioned by Tourism New Zealand and managed by the History Group of the Ministry for Culture and Heritage. Many people helped to make the book a pleasure to research and write. I gained ready help in the Head Office of Tourism New Zealand on many occasions. George Hickton provided keen support throughout the two-year project, while Cas Carter pointed me in valuable directions. I valued the opportunity to share stages of the story with TNZ’s Board and staff, whose responses highlighted parallels between the past and present. Among the staff, Bev Abbott, Tim Hunter and Anthony Sturrock shared their background knowledge of the tourist industry and its ongoing issues. Debby McColl made the library a welcoming base and dealt with a steady stream of requests, and Georgie Bonifant, Nicky Chilton, and Gill Lockhart gave other practical assistance. In the Auckland office, Ian Macfarlane, Rachel Piggott and Caroline Jackson introduced me to recent marketing activities. At the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, Jock Phillips gave warm support as Chief Historian in the early stages of this work. I am especially grateful to Bronwyn Dalley for continuing to supervise the project after she took on the role of Chief Historian; her wise counsel and creative approach to history helped to make my job a stimulating one. Historians Gavin McLean, Megan Hutching, Neill Atkinson and Ian McGibbon were generous with their help. I also valued the companionship of other contract historians within the History Group who shared the stresses of managing short-term commissions: Susan Butterworth, Derek Dow, Malcolm McKinnon, John E. Martin, Ben Schrader, David Young, and Redmer Yska. Fran McGowan sought out hard-to-nd books, and Gwen Calnon, Kelly Young and Claire Taggart eased my travel arrangements. In the Ministry of Tourism, Simon Douglas read the rst draft of the history, challenged my interpretations and pointed out gaps and errors. Bruce Bassett, Steven Ferguson and Mike Chan welcomed the project, claried recent issues, and gave signicant support. Neil Plimmer and Wally Stone gave valuable feedback on individual chapters. I also appreciated the willingness of former Tourist Department staff and people currently in the tourist business to share
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their knowledge and their zest for the topic with a writer new to the eld of tourism. Those I interviewed are listed in the bibliography. Others discussed issues with me more informally: John Adam, Keith Amies, Dave Bamford, Rod Barnett, Michael Bassett, Roger Beaumont, Cas Carter, Ross Corbett, Paul Dingwall, Jennie Gallagher, Kevin Jones, Michael Kelly, Graham Langton, John E. Martin, Dean Maxted, Tony Nightingale, Margaret Parker, Douglas Pearce and Clive Sowry. I am also grateful to people who lent me material: John Adam, Pat Baskett, Richard Bollard, Graham Butterworth, Annabel Elworthy, Shirley Finnell, Peter Gee, Barbara Grigor, Kathy Guy, Peter Haythornthwaite, Phil Johnstone, Michael Kelly, Joan Lawford, Neville Lobb, Claudia Orange, Vaughan Schwass, and Elizabeth Thomson. Staff of the Security Intelligence Service pointed me to papers on one of the Tourist and Publicity Department’s stranger roles. Staff at Archives New Zealand, Auckland City Libraries Special Collections, Auckland University Library, and Rotorua Museum of Art and History assisted me willingly and efficiently. I want to thank in particular Barbara Brownlie and Joan McCracken of the Ephemera and Photographic Collections of the Alexander Turnbull Library for their expertise. Rachael Dalmon and Fiona Morris at the Tourism Industry Association of New Zealand shared the association’s scrapbooks, and Rachael Egerton and Department of Conservation staff at Te Anau helped with last-minute illustrations. Karryn Muschamp helped in the selection of photographs. Andrew Mason and David Green were ne editors. I was glad to work again with Auckland University Press, where the enthusiasm of Elizabeth Caffin, Katrina Duncan, Annie Irving, Christine O’Brien and Rachel Dombroski cheered me as I undertook the nal chores. Friends and family contributed to this project in important ways. Peter Lineham spurred me to undertake a new eld of research. John and Jenny McClure, Mary and Jeff Tallon, and Bill and Trish Frith provided meals and company when I was away from home, and made living in two cities more enjoyable. Thomas and Rebecca Davison took an interest from Ohope, and there’s a sentence in the story for them. At home in Auckland, Chloe, John and Isaac shared the work of a busy household, and provided vital help before the manuscript was sent on its way. My last thanks are to Graham, who has sustained and loved me from one project to the next.
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Abbreviations AA AJHR ANZ APEC APNPB ATL AUP BOAC CPR DNZB DOC FNPB IATA MACI NAC NZH NZJH NZPD NZTB NZTIF ODT OPB OPEC OUP PATA T&HR T&P TAI TEAL THC TIANZ TNPB TNZ UTA
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Automobile Association Appendix to the Journals of the House of Representatives Archives New Zealand Asia-Pacic Economic Co-operation Arthur’s Pass National Park Board Alexander Turnbull Library Auckland University Press British Overseas Airways Corporation Canadian Pacic Railway Dictionary of New Zealand Biography Department of Conservation Fiordland National Park Board International Air Travel Association Maori Arts and Crafts Institute, Rotorua National Airways Corporation New Zealand Herald New Zealand Journal of History New Zealand Parliamentary Debates New Zealand Tourism Board New Zealand Tourist Industry Federation Otago Daily Times Overseas Publicity Board Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries Oxford University Press Pacic Area Travel Association Department of Tourist and Health Resorts Department of Tourist and Publicity Transports Aériens Intercontinentaux Tasman Empire Airways Limited Tourist Hotel Corporation Tourist Industry Association of New Zealand Tongariro National Park Board Tourism New Zealand Union des Transports Aériens
Introduction
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and full moon, William Fox bathed in the thermal waters of Orakei-Korako and felt as if he were in Paradise. The warm water covered his body with ‘an exquisite varnish . . . as smooth as velvet’ and made him feel the most polished person in the world. Fox was an experienced traveller, a politician and former Premier, escaping from a busy parliamentary session to investigate the Hot Lakes district between Taupo and the Pink and White Terraces. Later on his tour he was charmed by the magical beauty of the Terraces and paused to reect on their fate if others followed in his footsteps. He envisaged tourist companies blighting one of the wonders of the world with ostentatious hotels and tea-rooms, and the Terraces cluttered with beer bottle tops, orange peel and walnut shells.
While he enjoyed his seclusion and mused on the nature of tourism, Fox realised the wealth that could be earned from the construction of a sanatorium in the region and the crowds who could be lured there. Torn between the potential earnings and the risks of exploiting nature, he returned home and urged the government to take on the roles of developer and protector of this landscape. His report to Parliament can be seen as the founding document for the place of the government in the New Zealand tourist industry. Sweeping aside the role of Maori in this district, he challenged the government to act.¹ This book, commissioned by Tourism New Zealand, describes the events that led the New Zealand government to follow Fox’s advice, take up the challenge of pioneering the country for pleasure-seekers, and establish in the rst Department of Tourist and Health Resorts in the world. Through several changes of name over the next years it would most often be called simply the Tourist Department. ‘Our business is selling pleasure’, one of the Department’s staff observed later – an unusual role for the government to claim. The Liberal government at the end of the nineteenth century, however, saw an industry with potential and argued that the Tourist Department was ‘the instrument to bring us much wealth and high renown in the near future’, adding condently: ‘we must make the most of our priceless assets – our scenery, our spas, our climate. They are our richest gold-mine.’² This account traces the challenges that New Zealand governments faced through the twentieth century as they attempted to lure travellers to a distant point on the globe. It also follows the changing fortunes of the tourist industry and the shifting styles of tourism – from ‘taking the waters’ at Rotorua to skiing at the Chateau and bungy jumping almost anywhere. The Department of Tourist and Health Resorts soon discovered the diverse, fragmented nature of the tourist industry as it took on a range of activities from employing masseurs to running steamers and importing deer. Its major focus, however, was nearly always on international tourists and their foreign currency, and on the few resorts they favoured. These special places dominated the government’s energy and spending, and provide the framework for this history. Each chapter singles out an iconic resort to highlight the issues of the era and provide a glimpse of tourist trends at the grass-roots level. The story begins with the Pink and White Terraces, the world of nineteenth-century tourism and the government’s rst forays into the
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business. When the Tourist and Health Resorts Department was founded, its main drive was directed at Rotorua and the construction of the ‘metropolis of Geyserland’ as both a European-style spa and a Maori cultural centre. From the story shifts from the warm sensuality of Rotorua to the more rigorous pleasures of Mt Cook and the Hermitage, where the government’s cautious approach to development clashed with appeals to let in private enterprise. In the s travel was democratised as the Railways Department popularised Sunday excursions that took factory and office workers rst to Arthur’s Pass and then all over the country. The construction of the Chateau in Tongariro National Park in was a return to luxury, and highlighted conicts over whether national parks should be playgrounds for city dwellers or sanctuaries for the protection of nature. Sophisticated images of urban New Zealand were produced for the Centennial celebrations in Wellington in –, while in the years that followed international tourists dwindled to a handful and publicity activities focused on the war. The destruction of the Franz Josef hotel by re in symbolised the melancholy years of the s when Treasury, investors and the public remained indifferent to the urgent need for investment in the industry. The advent of long-range jets in brought a world-wide resurgence of interest in the South Pacic, and the government resolve to restore Rotorua as a showpiece of Maori culture. As wide-bodied jets dramatically increased the number of tourist arrivals, Milford Sound became the rst government resort to reach saturation point and require co-ordinated planning. By the end of the s the government’s domain at Milford had been opened to private competition and most of the Department’s functions had been transferred to private enterprise. In the last decade of the century the new Tourism Board took over the job of marketing New Zealand, while the country led the world in new styles of tourism, with the splendid landscapes of Kaikoura and Queenstown becoming the backdrop for adrenaline thrills. Many characteristics of New Zealand’s tourist industry have persisted through the century. The Department of Tourist and Health Resorts began its job in condently taking on everything within its sights. Its verve reected the energy of its Superintendent, Thomas Donne, and the philosophy – strong among politicians – that government could do things best. In the subsequent decades, the Department’s entrepreneurial spirit diminished, and progress was hindered by depression and
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war. Although private enterprise was often critical of the government’s role in tourism, without government assistance developers were unable to sustain a seasonal industry far from the world’s travel routes, or raise the prole of New Zealand above the clamour of other countries competing for tourists. The Department’s input enabled the industry to survive and succeed against the odds. Despite the restructuring of the Department in recent years, the government’s goals have remained similar: to promote New Zealand to the world, to assist the tourism industry to ourish, and to oversee the impact of tourism on New Zealanders and the landscape. From the beginnings of tourism in New Zealand, Maori culture has been one of the greatest attractions, but the question of who should control its presentation has been bitterly contested. Maori themselves were more often expected to be gures in a landscape than entrepreneurial participants in the business of tourism. The charms of the picturesque were often superimposed on a harsher reality of poverty and the tensions of history concealed beneath a patina of glamour. The spectacular landscapes of New Zealand have been its major drawcard. From the Pink and White Terraces to the lming of The Lord of the Rings, nature has been ‘the lead character’ in the story of tourism. The wild charms that drew tourists were also the bane of developers. The destruction of the Pink and White Terraces in was a warning of the unpredictability of nature and of difficulties to follow – from the corrosive steam at Rotorua to alpine storms that battered the Hermitage, oods at Waitomo, avalanches on the road to Milford, and eruptions above the Chateau. And although nature was all-important to tourism, general complacency about the beauty of the country meant that government and private enterprise were slow to provide comfort and service in the style to which overseas tourists were accustomed, or entertainment for travellers who became sated with looking. New Zealanders were often reluctant to share their country with tourists. There have been ongoing debates over who should use New Zealand’s outdoor areas: ordinary New Zealanders who earned their access to nature the hard way, or wealthy outsiders who yearned for civilised pleasures. In an egalitarian society like New Zealand’s where visible wealth was rare, ‘the gilded tourist’ was the antithesis of the pioneer and settler, and even at mid-century an American study could claim that New Zealanders regarded tourism as ‘close to being immoral’. After the government’s early condence in tourism’s potential, the
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industry rarely held a high prole among politicians or the public. For decades it was ‘the Cinderella industry’ or, more kindly, ‘the darling industry’, a frivolous, inconsequential business on the edges of economic life, irting in the wings while the real work of agriculture took centre stage. Throughout most of the century New Zealand’s situation ‘at the wrong end of the world’ inhibited large numbers of tourists from venturing so far. The most dramatic change in the history of tourism was caused by the development of jet air travel, which diminished New Zealand’s isolation. The arrival of two million visitors in was part of a trend that has made tourism a vital force in New Zealand’s economy and throughout the world.
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Otukapuarangi, the Pink Terraces. , , , -
Nature’s Marvels
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Zealand’s difference lay in its landscapes. The country had no history or culture of the European kind and nothing like the marvel of St Mark’s in Venice, the castles on the Rhine or the boulevards of the Bay of Naples. What it offered, claimed an early guidebook, was a land ‘fresh from the hand of its Maker, formed in all the wild prodigality of natural beauty’. Here was a country of magnicent alps, noble forests, charming lakes and startling volcanic formations – scenery as romantic as anywhere else in the world. The contrasting regions of the North Island, with its exotic geysers, and the South Island’s glaciers and snow meant that New Zealand could easily be called ‘the wonder-country’.¹ Ranked above all these marvels were the Pink and White Terraces, the high point of a trip to the Antipodes. Travellers and guidebooks
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strove for words to describe the place – it was like fairyland, the Arabian Nights, a throne for the gods to recline on, a miracle.² On one side of Lake Rotomahana was Te Tarata, the White Terraces, spread feet wide and feet high in the shape of a fan. At the top a boiling lake overowed and lled layer upon layer of shell-like pools with brilliant turquoise water. These pools were made of silica but felt as smooth as alabaster, ringed with fretwork which glittered as the water ran over the surfaces.³ On the other side of the lake were Otukapuarangi, the Pink Terraces, which visitors preferred for bathing. Tourists undressed in the bracken and took a few quick steps into one of the warm pools – men to one side, women to the other. The novelist Anthony Trollope called this a place of ‘intense sensual enjoyment’, and another writer described how he lost the sense of having a body and felt weightless like a child – ‘a luxury . . . surely not available anywhere else in the world’. A day like this ended with a canoe ride home, the oarsmen’s or women’s plaintive singing, steam rising from the river banks and birds whirling overhead.⁴ It was into this exotic region that the government would rst extend its tentacles, beginning a process that would enable it to own, control and develop the landscape for the future of tourism – a process that would culminate in the founding of the rst government tourist department in the world. The s had brought the beginnings of a tourist industry to New Zealand, and the rst speculations about what tourism could mean for the country. Before few people had visited New Zealand purely for pleasure. Explorers and scientists had mapped and catalogued many of the features of the landscape, but during the wars of the s travel in the North Island had become dangerous and British soldiers were almost the only visitors. Prince Alfred’s visit to the Pink and White Terraces in marked a new era; Maori resistance had been subdued and tourists followed in the wake of British imperialism to gaze on the Empire’s wonders. Famous writers included New Zealand on their world route and drew attention to its attractions, from Anthony Trollope in the s to the essayist James Froude and journalists George Sala and Lady Gordon Cumming in the s and Mark Twain in the s. A steady stream of travellers’ diaries and accounts was published and turned travel into an alluring pastime.⁵ Artists reinforced the appeal of New Zealand’s remote, haunting beauty, while the postcard industry popularised images of a land of lakes and mountains, heroic chiefs and warriors, and sensual Maori women.
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The rst tourists to visit New Zealand were well-to-do members of a privileged class and could afford to circle the world for six months. They came from Britain or Australia, with a handful from the United States. These tourists were quite distinct from emigrants: they travelled for diversion and to escape the ennui of urban life, to experience the novelty of the landscape and the difference of an indigenous people. They were intellectually curious and travelled to be refreshed and educated, expecting that the experience would give them the chance to understand and interpret the world. Others came for a change of season, turning their back on a European winter and taking a sea voyage for their health, or escaping the exhausting heat of an Australian summer. New Zealand’s cool greenery made it an alternative to Tasmania as a holiday destination for Sydneysiders and Queenslanders who disliked the sultry north of Australia and the dry monotone of the outback.⁶ A trickle of visitors were following the nineteenth-century fashion of ‘taking the waters’, although the conditions in New Zealand were still primitive. This form of travel combined the advantages of self-treatment for any kind of malaise with the charms of a change of scene and opportunities for entertainment. The journey to a foreign spa took people away from the
Nineteenth-century artists heightened the romantic qualities of the New Zealand landscape in paintings such as this watercolour of Milford Sound. , [ ], , ---
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The rst guide book for travellers to New Zealand was published in . Thorpe Talbot’s guide was one of a growing number to appear in the s.
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haunting anxieties of home, business and routines. Health resorts and spas made healing sociable; they gave a genteel aura to the discomforts of ill-health and the pursuit of pleasure. As one doctor said, ‘Sometimes the secret of getting well is to do everything differently.’⁷ When the opening of the Suez Canal in shortened the route and cut out the rough trip through the Roaring Forties from the Cape of Good Hope to Australia, there was far more incentive to travel. And the advent of steamships made journeys to New Zealand faster, cheaper and more luxurious. From the s tourists from Europe could reach New Zealand in four to seven weeks compared with three to six months under sail. The Union Steam Ship Company offered all the comforts of a rst-class hotel on their ships.⁸ Once tourists arrived in New Zealand, however, travel was more difficult, especially if they had to take horsedrawn coaches. Rivers had to be forded; horses could be carried off or coaches overturned. The roads were often swept by rain and lled with holes and gullies, and passengers were thrown about. The scenery was splendid but travellers’ bodies were often aching and bruised.⁹ Guidebooks for international travellers extolled New Zealand’s scenery and gave chatty, practical advice. One of the most popular guidebooks allowed a month for a tour from the north to south of New Zealand, but this meant a series of one-night stops and, as early as , the travel writer Thorpe Talbot was warning tourists of the risk of a ‘rushed-through feeling’.¹⁰ In the Union Steam Ship Company guidebook, a grand tour began by taking a steamship from Melbourne to Bluff, then journeying to Milford Sound and Mt Cook before crossing to Wellington and taking a steamboat up the Whanganui River, followed by a coach ride from Taupo through to the Hot Lakes district. The Pink and White Terraces marked the climax of the tour. The most popular destination was the Hot Lakes district around the Terraces and Rotorua, where visitors were tantalised by the sense of danger from boiling springs that burst out unpredictably through the soil and by the alarming nearness of the underworld. Here a foot astray could bring agony or death. Horrifying tales lent an extra fascination and became legendary tourist stories: the child who fell into a boiling pool, the man who threw himself in in a t of despair, and the darker suggestions of cannibal feasts of steamed esh in the past.¹¹ Both Maori and Pakeha were involved in servicing tourists and developing the tourist industry. The hosts and guides to the Terraces were the owners of the land, the Tuhourangi, a subtribe of Te Arawa.
They provided food and lodging, took tourists by canoe to the Terraces, and on their return in the evening presented performances of haka. Travellers enjoyed the attentiveness of the guides Sophia and Kate, who became famed for their beauty and condent manner. Nearby at Ohinemutu (the entry point for the Hot Lakes region), and later at Whakarewarewa, Maori nursed visitors to the thermal springs, guided them around the geysers, and put on concerts that thrilled some visitors and shocked others. In the s there was only one hotel in the village and some visitors slept on dry fern in Maori whare.¹² There were no bath-houses yet, and travellers who wanted to enjoy the waters shared the natural pools around the lakeside with the villagers or scooped out holes for themselves, jamming the hot spring outlets with rocks or twigs to adjust the heat. Although tourist conditions were primitive, Ohinemutu became a thriving settlement.
Charles Blomeld’s oil painting of the Twin Geyser at Wairakei highlighted the bizarre qualities of the thermal region. , , , -/
The Lake House Hotel at Ohinemutu, where tourists enjoyed resting on the verandahs and watching Maori bathing in the hot pools. , -/
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Tourists there could look down from their hotel verandahs to observe the charm of Maori domestic life: women cooking their baskets of potatoes and craysh over hot steam outlets and children bathing naked in the lake all day. Visitors felt condent of their right to study the Maori, and scrutinised the physique of the men and enjoyed glimpses of women bathing. But these tourists came with idealised preconceptions of an indigenous people who were bound to nature, an integral part of an exotic landscape, and were disconcerted to nd that Te Arawa were entrepreneurial providers of tourist experiences, charging entry to sights and expecting payment for guiding and entertainment. Disputes with Te Arawa over these payments contributed to critical tourist tales that multiplied and repeated one another. Travellers described their Maori hosts as manipulative and greedy, lazy and drunk, or as comic gures – men holding an umbrella as they bathed in hot pools, or women
hideous in high heels and red and yellow clothing ‘loud enough to make one’s head ache’.¹³ For these visitors, their experiences of a different, more exotic people reinforced their own sense of renement; they had come to another world to affirm their own.¹⁴ Pakeha businessmen were also involved in tourism. Robert Graham was one of the most entrepreneurial, owning the Waiwera spa north of Auckland, which was set beside sea, bush and hot springs. The hotel was famed for its strawberry beds and kept a ne table. Graham also owned the Terrace Hotel at Te Wairoa, near the Pink and White Terraces, and , acres near Wairakei. He published two books to advertise his resorts, and in he began trying to buy his way into Ohinemutu.¹⁵
Gaining a foothold Few New Zealanders considered the impact of the growing tourist trade. One of the rst to muse on its implications was William Fox, the politician who made an exploratory tour of thermal regions in the summer of . He was impressed by the unlimited number of springs and the wide variety of temperatures, and delighted by the special qualities of the waters. He was also torn between his appreciation of the wealth that such assets could offer the country and dread of crowds following in his footsteps. He knew that development would bring the risk that speculators who were keener on prots than beauty would swarm into the area.¹⁶ Fox saw a role for the government to act as both benefactor – protecting natural thermal wonders – and entrepreneur – guaranteeing the investment of private capital in the area to serve the needs of visitors. It seemed to him that nature had supplied these benecent waters preeminently for invalids, or as a sanatorium for Indian regiments (a kind of Victorian R&R). With the help of European experts on spas, the resources of this region could alleviate misery and provide wealth for the nation. Fox had toured the United States twice and was impressed by how quickly, after the discovery of the thermal area at Yellowstone, the federal government had acted to protect these thermal springs as a public park and to prevent a repetition of the trashy commercialism that dominated the Niagara Falls.¹⁷ With the Yellowstone Act in mind, Fox wrote to the Premier, Julius Vogel, arguing that the time had come for the New Zealand government to follow America’s example and intercede in the Hot Lakes district ‘as soon as Native title may be extinguished’.¹⁸
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Fox’s assumption that land could be purchased from Maori to be used for the nation and for the world was soon to become the basis of government policy. Within a few years Vogel’s government had followed up on Fox’s proposals to gain a foothold in the lucrative district around Rotorua where tourism was developing as a kind of free-for-all and huge prots were likely to be made by a few individuals. There were rumours that Robert Graham was planning to build a hotel closer to the Terraces.¹⁹ The Arawa owners were feeling uneasy too. Having entered into informal leases with Pakeha hoteliers and storekeepers during the s, they were becoming uncertain of their control over an area where they alone had formerly provided lodging and entertainment, transport, access and guiding.²⁰ The government was keen to intervene before private entrepreneurs could persuade Te Arawa to forgo land ownership for cash.²¹ The government rst worked on purchasing a block of land on a good site for hotels and entertainment. It chose an area near the largest number of springs and in a central position for scenic visits.²² But Te Arawa were as reluctant to sell to the government as to other tourist developers. Faced with their caution, the Chief Judge of the Native Land Court, F.D. Fenton, negotiated a compromise leasehold deal under which the Maori owners would allow long-term leases to private businesses with the government as intermediary. Te Arawa would gain a rental income and the government would encourage the creation of a European settlement. The agreement was signed in November , although dissension between different hapu over ownership of the land continued for some months. It was later granted to Ngati Whakaue.²³ A few months later, in , Parliament passed the Thermal-Springs Districts Act to codify the process it had already begun in Rotorua, legislating on the principle of reserving thermal districts for the use of the nation. The Act gave the government power to dene and proclaim an area as a thermal-springs district; thereafter, only the Crown could purchase land in that area. Once a thermal-springs district was declared and the owners dened in the Native Land Court, the government could negotiate with Maori to make land available through lease, purchase or grant. The aim of the Act was not to keep reserves in a pristine condition, but to develop them in a way that the government could control. The Thermal-Springs Districts Act made the Hot Lakes region the property of the nation rather than the speculator, open to the public at large
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and available to all classes of New Zealanders, and it allowed for other regions to follow this precedent. The legislation was also driven by an entrepreneurial vision that foresaw Rotorua as the sanatorium of the world. The speed with which the government acted, leap-frogging over the continuing litigation amongst Ngati Whakaue factions, suggests that development, rather than protection of this special area, was the chief goal of the Act.²⁴ In Rotorua the government obtained –, acres on Lake Rotorua (including all the best springs) and became responsible for their management. Rotorua was proclaimed a township, with a majority of government officials on its Board. While the legislation pre-empted Pakeha competitors, it also stalled Maori participation in the future bonanza of tourism. It is difficult to know whether Te
Sophia Hinerangi, principal guide at the Terraces (centre), with Kate Middlemass (left) and an unknown guide outside the meeting house at Te Wairoa. Success in catering for tourists to the Pink and White Terraces made the Tuhourangi wealthy enough to replace the paua shell on their carvings with gold sovereigns. , -/
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Arawa were fooled into having their enterprise wrested from them or whether, as James Belich and the Maori historian Ngahuia Te Awekotuku argue, they became willing partners in a co-operative venture as a solution to their problems. But the government’s ongoing drive to please tourists, along with its attempts to take over guiding and entry fees at Whakarewarewa, showed a determination to control Maori entrepreneurial practices rather than encourage them.²⁵ Once in control of Rotorua’s valuable hot springs, the government immediately set about establishing a spa town where taking the waters would become a New Zealand speciality modelled on the spas of Europe. This fashionable form of recreation was based on a belief in the benecence of nature, and appealed to people with its blend of technical jargon and sensual enjoyment of what was natural and pure. People could benet from mineral waters in various ways: by drinking the waters, bathing or swimming in them, inhaling steam or receiving water treatments – such as being sprayed with hot or cold water or rubbed with wet towels. Health resorts offered cures for a range of ailments, from ‘brain-fag’ to rheumatism, gout, dyspepsia, gonorrhoea, and skin infections.²⁶ The regime of these resorts alternated the discipline of medical treatments, early rising and walks in the fresh air with tennis and golf, beach promenades, concerts, and visits to historic ruins. The most fashionable offered the most pleasures: casinos, card-playing, balls, theatres and opportunities for clandestine rendezvous. It was bold to envisage the thermal regions of the North Island as a resort for world-weary Europeans. On the -acre reserve at Sulphur Point, the government built a cluster of bath-houses. The bath pavilion, opened in (and later named the Pavilion Bath House), provided baths containing a range of minerals. The alkaline waters of the Rachel Bath ‘lent the skin a soft, satiny feeling’ and cured infections like eczema and psoriasis. The large Priest’s Bath at the edge of Lake Rotorua contained acidic sulphur which stimulated the skin (and made the patient look like a boiled lobster), but its waters were advertised for an incredibly wide range of ailments: gout, dyspepsia, sciatica, impotence, disorders of the liver, cold feet, skin diseases, amenorrhoea, dropsy, and all forms of rheumatism. The reserve was scattered with other springs, some muddy, oily and offensive smelling, but used as a last resort by sufferers of gout and rheumatism.²⁷ Dressing boxes were erected beside other springs as more baths were added. The rst Blue Bath was opened in by George Sala, the
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famous writer. The new complex of bath-houses provided comfort and privacy and was a boon for women, who no longer needed to rely on scrubby bushes to screen them from view. In the government fullled its pledge to make the thermal waters available for all classes of New Zealanders with the construction of a hospital (later called the Sanatorium). This provided beds for invalids too poor to pay for private boarding houses or hotels, but only if the patient’s Hospital and Charitable Aid Board could fund the cost of a weekly stay (one guinea). The government also provided a permanent medical practitioner (although not a specialist) who could recommend the appropriate springs when visitors arrived. The curative benets of taking the waters were gained from immersing the body in hot springs and the action of minerals on its exterior. It is difficult to gauge how effective the baths were. Dr Alfred Ginders, the medical officer in Rotorua from to , followed spa tradition by citing cases of successful cures, from a nineteeen-year-old girl cured of pemphigus, a rare skin disease, to a professor of music from South Australia whose nger joints, deformed by gout, regained their exibility in sulphur baths.²⁸
Taming nature In the early years of Rotorua’s development, the government battled nancial risk and the onslaughts of nature. The Bath House project had recurring problems. Dr G.W. Grabham, the Inspector of Hospitals, visited it in and criticised the small, stuffy bathrooms, which seemed to bring on headaches, and the siting of the bath pavilion close to the lake. Acidic steam had defaced the building, and later in the year it corroded the nails and the ooring collapsed; the pavilion had to be reconstructed using wooden nails.²⁹ The much-touted Priest’s Bath was a simple open pool with timbered sides, so uninviting that the Inspector was surprised at its popularity.³⁰ The promise of the new Sanatorium had been the government’s lure to draw visitors and attract investors to the district, but its plan of leasing Te Arawa land to developers was turning into a nightmare. When the rst leases were auctioned in Auckland in March , buyers were attracted from as far as Melbourne and Madras and all the lots were sold. The new township of Rotorua was less appealing than the glamour of the government’s publicity, however, and soon faced nancial difficulties. The Long Depression made the s a risky time to invest in new
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The scene of desolation after the eruption of Mt Tarawera and the destruction of the Terraces. , -/
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ventures. Some of the buyers did not take up their leases and others let their payments lapse; few buildings were erected. Success seemed less likely each year. By Maori had received only half the rental income due to them, and by it was clear that, unless the government took action on unpaid payments, it would look as if the whole plan had been based on deception of Ngati Whakaue.³¹ The volcanic eruption of Mt Tarawera on June was a more dramatic threat to the future of tourism and the government’s investment in the spa township. The eruption devastated the landscape and wrecked nearby communities. Lake Rotomahana and the glistening silica Terraces were blown apart, replaced by steaming vents in a crater feet lower than the lake had been. The lakeside villages of Moura and Te Ariki were buried under feet of mud and hot ash. Mud smothered the remnants of the mission station and tourist settlement at Te Wairoa; hotels were smashed in, the chapel half-buried; the schoolteacher’s home blazed and then disintegrated under falling mud
and stones. News of the eruption circled the world. Only Iceland had seen this kind of spectacle in the nineteenth century.³² In one night, New Zealand had lost its most spectacular tourist attraction. At rst visitors were fearful of the area, and trips to the mineral baths in Rotorua slumped from , in to , in . But Tarawera’s eruption also contributed to New Zealand’s international fame and gave the country its own historic ruins and disaster tales. Instead of deterring visitors, the eruption heightened interest in the Hot Lakes district and added a new element to this quirky region; the landscape had become less beautiful but in some ways more stunning.³³ To stand and gaze at the site of the vanished Terraces and barren hillsides, the stripped trees, the buried homes and church, was to face the random force of nature and confront the mystery of fate. By visitor numbers were higher than ever. The famous Burton brothers were soon on the scene, and their bleak black and white photographs of a wasteland came to replace the pastel fairyland of Blomeld’s and Hoyte’s earlier paintings of the Terraces. Leaseholders in Rotorua were less condent of the future and by an increasing number were surrendering their leases. The government, however, was trapped by its earlier commitment to the region and believed its only way of salvaging the township was by outright purchase. Ngati Whakaue, too, saw the sale of their land as the only solution to the serious losses of the s. A large committee of Ngati Whakaue chiefs agreed to offer the land at ,. The government was reluctant to pay this price when the future of the region was so uncertain, and in May the sale of Rotorua was concluded for ,.³⁴ The government now owned New Zealand’s leading tourist region. The villagers at Whakarewarewa remained independent and still owned several of the popular geysers and hot springs. Sophia was now guiding here, more famous than before after her heroism on the night of the eruption. She and her companions resisted government attempts to control their guiding fees or the village entry toll.³⁵ The government’s control of geysers and guides was facilitated when the Native Land Court awarded ve-sixths of Whakarewarewa to Ngati Whakaue in . This was a controversial judgment that favoured the tribe most likely to allow this land to be purchased, and sure enough, two years later Ngati Whakaue sold acres of Whakarewarewa to the Crown.³⁶ The hapu retained a foothold of acres and remained as an attraction ‘to tourists who seem never tired of watching the peculiar customs and
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Maori daily life amongst the geysers and steam holes was a major tourist attraction at Whakarewarewa and Ohinemutu. , , -/
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manners of the “ ”’.³⁷ Guiding practices and the exaction of payments were restricted by the introduction of a toll-gate, although Maori subverted the system by continuing to charge fees for their work. The government kept a supervisory role at Whakarewarewa by appointing Sophia as the official caretaker, charged with restraining the sale of mineral specimens, although she later lost this position when she was suspected of soaping the geysers against regulations. Tourists, however, persisted in this practice, concealing soap within the folds of ladies’ clothing and gathering in crowds on moonlit nights to drop it into the mouth of Pohutu geyser and see it play. The government also attempted to extend its control over the thermal instability of the region in which it had invested. Immediately after the Tarawera eruption a French engineer, Camille Malfroy, was appointed as resident engineer to monitor thermal activity and oversee government works in Rotorua. A genius at hydraulic engineering,
Malfroy had made his reputation by designing hydraulic pumps on the West Coast goldelds.³⁸ Arriving at a turning point in the fate of the township, he experimented with geyser activity, made some of the baths more stylish and fostered a long-term vision for the development of a thermal spa. His adaptations of the natural resources of Rotorua contributed signicantly to its appeal as a tourist centre. Malfroy’s most dramatic work evolved from his curiosity about the behaviour of geysers: he wanted to know why they were often intermittent and sometimes stopped altogether. From his experiments with the small Te Puia geyser, he refuted the common theory that geyser activity was governed by the direction of the wind. He thought atmospheric pressure was a more likely determinant and found that, by draining cold water from the head of a geyser tube, he could stimulate the geyser into action.³⁹ Although afraid of creating something he might not be able to control, he went on to experiment on the Pohutu geyser at Whakarewarewa. This was the greatest geyser in the area but was sometimes quiescent for months at a time. Malfroy learnt to juggle the ow of spring waters to achieve huge eruptions to feet high and then managed to provide these spectacles on a regular pattern, with two performances every hours. By , he boasted that he could organise a geyser for eminent visitors at a few hours’ notice.⁴⁰ After nding he could make geysers play at will, Malfroy experimented with creating new ones and installed a system of pipes with revolving valves in a cluster of springs on the Sanatorium reserve. He enjoyed his success in heightening the magical qualities of the landscape and demonstrating the triumph of science over nature. His only disappointment was to nd that, during his absence in , Maori subverted his manipulation of Pohutu by tampering with his system of drains. Malfroy went on to make other articial improvements to the area’s thermal sights. At Whakarewarewa he constructed stone terraces around Waikite geyser; after a few years these were coated with silica stalactites and stalagmites and appeared like natural terraces.⁴¹ Malfroy was far-sighted in his vision of successful tourism. Realising the potential signicance of developing a proper spa, he felt dissatised with the piecemeal improvements the government had made to the baths. When he was sent to supervise the New Zealand stand at the Paris Exhibition in , he took a tour of European spas before his return. This convinced him that New Zealand had taken the right step – that government control of thermal springs was more efficient and
Camille Malfroy, the Government Engineer at Rotorua, constructed this simple apparatus to demonstrate his theory of geyser activity. By altering the admission of cold water into the ask, he could illustrate the activity of hot springs, intermittent geysers, steaming fumaroles and mud volcanoes. . , GEYSER ACTION AT ROTORUA
2
benecial than private spa development. But he also saw how much further the Continental spas had gone in developing bathing as a balneological science, for simple immersion in baths was being replaced by a range of massage, douche and spray techniques. He realised that Rotorua’s thermal waters needed to be applied more scientically. Until his death in , Malfroy tried to shift the government’s policy beyond minimal improvements to a comprehensive development of the spa facilities at Rotorua furnished with all the modern appliances he had seen in Europe.⁴² He argued that spa development was as much an industry as mining, and that it would be useless to proceed without using the proper equipment and modern scientic knowledge necessary to extract prots from the assets the country held.⁴³ By the government was convinced that the future of tourist development lay in the thermal districts and the establishment of spas. Premier Richard Seddon asked New Zealand’s Agent-General in London, William Pember Reeves, to tour the Continental spas, suggest improvements for Rotorua and nd a balneologist to head the baths in New Zealand. Reeves’s report at the end of his tour was encouraging, for he was convinced that New Zealand’s sanatoria were worth developing and should be owned and operated by the state. Tourist numbers could double quickly if Europeans knew of this colonial asset, although spa handbooks did not yet mention New Zealand. When specialists heard of the medicinal properties of New Zealand’s water, they told Reeves: ‘If you have such waters, you can do anything with them!’ ⁴⁴ Development, however, would be a challenge. Reeves thought that the most fashionable – those who wanted ‘to utter in the neighbourhood of social magnates’ – were unlikely to make voyages to the other end of the world. Rotorua’s facilities would seem crude to Europeans and needed to be modernised. Everywhere he went, Reeves saw that entertainment and pleasure contributed as much to the cure and the popularity of a spa as scientic methods. In Europe the interiors of baths were designed to be appealing: ‘Nowhere did I see the prison-like cells I can remember at Rotorua.’ And, as Malfroy had noted earlier, European spas no longer regarded taking the waters as a simple matter; the method of applying the waters had become all-important. Much less was done by bathing, much more by douches and massages. Spas used a huge range of apparatus – ‘curious, interesting, ingenious and varied’ – and often included a gymnasium. Invalids received close medical attention and were guided through their treatment. They were not
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likely to travel from Europe to New Zealand if personal professional advice was not available.⁴⁵ The skills that a balneologist would need in New Zealand were wideranging. Reeves thought the government needed to nd a person who combined a physician’s training with the analytical skills of a chemist. He should also be familiar with tree planting and engineering, capable of designing bath buildings, have ‘tact and knowledge of the world’, and be able to organise the entertainment of visitors. It would be difcult to attract this kind of person to New Zealand. Reeves’s choice of a German doctor disconcerted the government, who preferred an English physician. In fact the doctor whom Reeves had chosen refused the annual salary of a year. Duncan MacGregor, Inspector of Hospitals, thought the salary derisory and urged the government to offer at least ,.⁴⁶ Seddon gave Reeves a free hand to try again and offer whatever he thought necessary.
The Grand Hotel, built in Rotorua in by the Auckland businessman, L.D. Nathan. , -/
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The government’s investment in Rotorua began paying off in , when the opening of the railway from Auckland revolutionised travel to the Hot Lakes region and brought the long-awaited boom to the town. A cluster of hotels now sprang up: the sprawling Palace Hotel was shifted from Ohinemutu to the new township of Rotorua, L.D. Nathan built the luxurious Grand Hotel, and an Auckland businessman, C.E. Nelson, employed Maori carvers to decorate his Geyser Hotel opposite Whakarewarewa. By there were ve hotels and eight boarding houses in what had been a swampy wasteland, and in the summer season they overowed with visitors. In the ve years after rail came to Rotorua, the number of baths taken in the new town more than doubled.⁴⁷
‘New Zealand leads the world’ By the government felt it had entered a promising eld. By wresting control from Te Arawa at Rotorua, it had been able to nationalise a prime tourist asset and pioneer its development as a spa township. Thermal resorts had been the main focus of government support for tourism because they had the potential to draw overseas visitors. But while nineteenth-century governments were far less active in promoting scenic sights than health resorts, they responded to public pressure to protect the original wilderness quality of important areas of the countryside. By the late nineteenth century, tourists and new colonists looking on a landscape that had been ravaged by bush res and stock were appalled at the deforestation carried out by early pioneer generations.⁴⁸ In parallel with legislation to harness and manipulate natural resources at thermal resorts and promote settlement in these places, governments legislated to set aside small regions as national treasures and have their beauty preserved for all time. In these areas settlement would be stalled rather than encouraged. As Reeves, a keen proponent of protecting scenery, was to argue: ‘The value of the cleared land is in many cases innitesimal; the value of the scenery in days to come must be great’.⁴⁹ In the central peaks of the North Island were absorbed into the rst national park, Tongariro. A year later the government took over the failing Hermitage Hotel at Mt Cook and proclaimed the region a reserve. State railways were opening up resorts for overseas visitors and New Zealanders and, after special excursion fares were introduced nationally in , the number of excursions grew from , to , in ve years.⁵⁰
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William Fox’s early condence in the future of tourism was becoming more widely shared. Before heading for London as Agent-General, Reeves made an investigative tour of the thermal regions in – rather like Fox’s tour years earlier. Reeves was a strong interventionist, and after visiting Rotorua he pressed for a more consistent role for government in directing the tourist traffic to the colony rather than the spasmodic approach taken hitherto. He told Robert McNab, the Minister of Lands and Survey, that the government should centralise, nationalise and systematise the tourist industry as soon as possible. The marketing of New Zealand by the Union Steam Ship Company and Thomas Cook, each acting to advance its own goals, needed to be replaced by more consistent advertising through the Agent-General. Within New Zealand, the state’s development of a spa should go handin-hand with directing steamers and coaches along the nest routes, preserving the scenery, and even shifting hotel licences from Ohinemutu to the government’s own township at Rotorua.⁵¹ By , S. Percy Smith, the Surveyor-General, was articulating the benets of tourism in his annual report for the Department of Lands: Estimates made by people who have opportunities of gauging its volume make the sum annually spent in New Zealand by these people over , in hard cash, besides the indirect contributions to the Customs revenue. . . . We are in the very early stages of this traffic; its future proportions no one can foresee, but it is not at all rash to predict that, ere the rst half of the twentieth century shall have passed, our annual visitors will equal in number the present population of New Zealand.⁵²
The next impetus to extending the state’s involvement in tourism came from Joseph Ward, the Minister of Railways. Ward had a ‘keen commercial mind’ and an entrepreneurial attitude to state services. He was widely travelled; he had visited Baden-Baden and understood how fashionable spas were becoming in Europe.⁵³ His rst initiative was to open a Tourist Branch of the Railways Department in January to build on the success of the rail system by co-ordinating railways and tourism. He saw this as a sensible investment: ‘Every pound judiciously spent in making for the comfort of visitors to the colony, and also for the comfort and pleasure of the people who reside amongst us, will be recouped over and over again.’⁵⁴
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Thomas E. Donne, the rst Superintendent of the Department of Tourist and Health Resorts. , -/
Only a month later Ward decided to give tourism a more important focus. He persuaded the government to separate the Tourist Branch from the Railways Department and create a more specialised Department of Tourist and Health Resorts. When it opened on February it was the rst government tourist department in the world. Its role was large: to develop resorts commercially and publicise them internationally. Its title reected the fashion for seeking the curative powers of nature when travellers took a change of scene and implied that the Department would focus on both scenic resorts and thermal districts. The new Department was the culmination of the government’s earlier forays into tourism, Reeves’s promptings and Ward’s personal interest. Its formation also typied New Zealand’s willingness to embrace areas which other countries often left to private enterprise. It continued the Liberal Party’s late nineteenth-century pattern of intervention in a wide range of elds, from old-age pensions to land and factory reform. The new Department was linked with the Department of Industries and Commerce and shared its international focus: the pursuit of trade,
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tourism and overseas funds. Its founding became part of the Liberals’ pioneering boast that ‘in this as in many another innovation by our Liberal Government, New Zealand leads the world’.⁵⁵ Ward selected a friend, Thomas Donne, as Superintendent of the Tourist and Health Resorts Department. Donne was an ideal co-founder of the new Department. He had spent his career in the civil service, working briey in the Post and Telegraph Department, then for years in the Railways Department. He was known as a charming, popular man and a brilliant organiser. His interests were in tune with the job ahead, for he understood the special pleasures and history that New Zealand could offer visitors. He was not only a ne sportsman, a keen angler and successful deer-hunter, but also an amateur historian and collector of Maori artefacts and rare books on Maori culture.⁵⁶ With Donne at its head and Ward as its Minister, the Department of Tourist and Health Resorts had two able leaders and in the next decade would undertake an extraordinary range of activities. These men were condent that government could make the most of New Zealand’s natural assets – ‘our richest and most lasting gold-mine’. Yet the country’s distance from Europe, the centre of gravity for tourism, presented the Department with a stiff challenge. Donne believed that New Zealand was far superior to Switzerland, but knew that it was unlikely to be invaded by the thousands of tourists who visited that famed resort country. Although steamships had eased the passage from Europe and railways were displacing the old coaches, New Zealand’s handicap was serious: ‘it lies at the wrong end of the world’.⁵⁷
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The Metropolis of Geyserland
–
T
began the twentieth century in a mood of optimism, condent of its role in ‘pioneering the country for the pleasure-hunter’.¹ While the Department embraced a wide range of responsibilities, the goal of constructing an urbanised European resort in the exotic landscape of Rotorua was the force driving its policy in its rst decade. Rotorua’s importance as a thermal wonderland was heightened in January when a new geyser appeared at Waimangu, miles southeast of the town. This was unexpected and astonishing. The Waimangu geyser made a dramatic spectacle with its inky-black column of water Waimangu Geyser, near Rotorua, was the largest geyser in the world during its four years of activity. , , , -
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rushing hundreds of feet high, sometimes , feet or more, then streaking downwards to mingle with snowy billows of steam. It was the largest geyser in the world, without equal in records of thermal activity; American visitors claimed that it surpassed the wonders of Yellowstone Park.² Thomas Donne, the rst Superintendent of the Department, was a natural publicist and quick to make the most of this new attraction. An accommodation house was constructed beside the geyser and a ‘round trip’ introduced to carry tourists past the remnants of the Tarawera eruption at Wairoa’s buried village and across Lakes Rotomahana and Tarawera to Waimangu. Waimangu became still more famous when Mr Buckridge, a travelling stuntman and self-publicist, reached New Zealand on a tour of the world’s oddities. Keen to publicise his feats, Buckridge was soon to put Waimangu on the map. In the tradition of Blondin walking the tightrope over Niagara, Buckridge agreed to join Alf Warbrick, the famous Rotorua guide, on a stunt to take a dinghy across the boiling crater lake of Waimangu and sound the geyser’s depth – an event which would combine science and sideshow. Ernest Davis, Auckland’s brewing baron, supported Buckridge and, together with Warbrick, won the Department’s permission for an act of bravado which would be a splendid advertisement for both Waimangu and the new Department. Warbrick understood the time sequence of the geyser’s performances, with -hour lulls between bursts of activity, and Donne thought there was little risk unless the dinghy capsized and the men were boiled alive. The press promoted the stunt and titillated the public with the idea that, if the two men tickled the throat of the monster, it could easily awake and play.³ On Sunday, August , while hundreds of spectators stood by, Warbrick and Buckridge took , fathoms of line and pounds of lead weights, rowed out onto Waimangu’s boiling waters and disappeared into dense steam. Twelve minutes later the men returned to shore. They had succeeded in crossing the mouth of the geyser, but were surprised at the results of their soundings, for the geyser measured acres in extent but only feet in depth. Waimangu had spared the adventurers, and Buckridge received written proof from the Department of his crossing to add to the chain of his achievements around the world.⁴ Three weeks later Waimangu exploded unexpectedly and killed three tourists who had ventured too close and their guide, Warbrick’s brother Joseph. The tragedy added a thrill of danger for the crowds of
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tourists who continued to arrive, and made the Department more determined to understand the pattern of the geyser’s activity. Waimangu became still more unpredictable, destroying the paths and fences which guides had built to ensure visitors’ safety. Donne asked the caretaker of the accommodation house to chart its daily playing and the Tauranga Customs Director to record the wind and state of the sea, so that the Department could interpret connections between meteorological changes and thermal activity for the interest of the public. At the same time, Donne refused a phone link between Rotorua and the accommodation house that would enable visitors to check the geyser’s activity before they took the government launch, in case numbers waned when the geyser was inactive. Waimangu became a four-year wonder. From July the geyser became more sporadic and the accommodation house, which had been overowing in , was often empty. The township of Rotorua was jubilant when Waimangu red up but downcast when it faded and then suddenly ceased in November.⁵ Through the Department puzzled over the causes of Waimangu’s cessation and experimented with ways of reconstructing the geyser, sand-bagging the entrance of the lake and clearing out debris until workmen refused to continue so close to the geyser’s mouth. They had no success in reactivating its subterranean thermal power.⁶ Like the Pink and White Terraces before it, New Zealand’s nest showpiece had vanished. Rotorua was rmly placed on the route of the world’s marvels, but seemed a precarious centre for developing a tourist industry. The other highlight of the Department’s inaugural year was the visit of the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York in . Rotorua was the only scenic resort to be included on the royal tour in addition to the four major cities, and Donne carefully orchestrated the occasion to display Rotorua’s distinctive attractions to the Crown and the British press. The tour began with a drive through the Sanatorium grounds to the newly built Duchess Bath with its large hot-water swimming pool, private bathrooms and sumptuous dressing-rooms. The ceremonial opening by the Duchess marked another step towards Rotorua’s recognition as a thermal spa. At Whakarewarewa village the royal couple were guided by Sophia and her younger protégée, Maggie Papakura, who became internationally known after accompanying the Duchess on this day.⁷ The royal party watched Maori women cooking their meals over boiling pools and chil-
3
Maggie Papakura guiding the Duke of Cornwall and York to see Pohutu Geyser during the future monarch’s visit to New Zealand in . . ,
dren diving from the Puarenga Bridge for visitors’ coins. At night the latest technology turned the town into a fairyland. The government’s newly installed electricity system lit the thermal springs and pools and outlined the grand welcome arch, the Sanatorium, the doctor’s house and government buildings. Chinese lanterns were strung through the park so that the shrubbery became more delicate and the geysers more mysterious. The whole town sparkled and glowed.⁸ The climax of the royal visit was the ‘grand Carnival of the Tribes’. Donne had invited , Maori from other regions to join Te Arawa and provide a dance spectacle for the Duke and Duchess. Thousands of Pakeha ocked to the town to watch the nal performance with the royal couple and admire the warrior haka and ne physique of the dancers.⁹ After the departure of the Duke and Duchess, Donne would spend most of the next decade building up the contrasting elements of Rotorua that the Department had displayed to the royal visitors. On the one hand he aimed to pursue the government’s plan to develop
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Rotorua as a modern scientic health spa, and on the other he worked at Whakarewarewa to memorialise his ideal of a romantic Maori past. While the charms and needs of the rest of the country hovered on the periphery, these two projects at Rotorua remained central to the Department’s vision. The way ahead seemed straightforward. The government had already purchased land and provided the town with the civilised amenities of electricity, drainage and water supply, and then ensured its control through the Rotorua Township Act , which gave government officials the majority of seats on the Town Council.
‘A new era of things at Rotorua’ A rst-class spa required charming surroundings, a modern bath-house and varied amusements. A decade earlier Camille Malfroy had already encouraged the idea that the town’s design should create a sense of pleasure, and contributed to the park-like nature of the Sanatorium reserve by laying out avenues, overseeing the planting of thousands of trees and designing a sprinkler for the Sanatorium lawns. When the Department took over in , Rotorua had become an unusual blend of the exotic and the tamed, a ‘strange juxtaposition of Man’s handiwork and Nature’s wildest freaks’. T.E. Pearson, the head gardener at
The Government Gardens at Rotorua were constructed to create an atmosphere of civilised calm in the midst of the thermal region. , 1⁄2
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the Sanatorium, believed that nothing but the best would do for a government tourist resort. The gardens spread across acres scattered with small lakes, fountains and lawns, palms, ferneries and ower gardens, and provided a green haven of order and calm, and relief from the surrounding landscape of grey manuka scrub and seething mud and steam.¹⁰ The small town had a cosmopolitan air, with its wide avenues, electric lights at night and a mixture of idle tourists, Maori villagers, anglers and invalids.¹¹ Donne wanted to invigorate the government’s other nineteenthcentury spa-town initiatives and attended to the need for a balneologist as soon as he took office. Reeves advertised again in London and selected Dr Arthur Wohlmann, an English physician with seven years’ experience at the famed spa town of Bath. Wohlmann was a graduate of the University of London who had received his clinical training at Guy’s Hospital, written papers on rheumatoid arthritis and won several prizes.¹² Although Malfroy and Reeves had already visited the European spas, the government instructed Wohlmann to take a tour of inspection before he left for New Zealand. Wohlmann understood the factors that contributed to the success of spas and collected plans of bath buildings, and ideas on ventilation and the layout of men’s and women’s baths, noting which building materials were resistant to sulphurous fumes. He knew how difficult it was to preserve bath buildings in thermal areas from corrosion, and brought different materials to try for piping and a range of tiles so that he could experiment with their durability. He tried out douche baths, observed mud baths and examined all kinds of apparatus and treatments. He also investigated the administration and advertising methods of each spa.¹³ Dr Wohlmann arrived in Rotorua to take up the position of Government Balneologist in . His chief tasks were to analyse Rotorua’s mineral waters and publish a treatise on them, and advise the government on the country’s other thermal resorts. He was also to give medical advice to invalids who wished to consult him at Rotorua. Wohlmann was energetic and condent in his role. After spending a few months assessing thermal springs throughout the country, he was impressed by New Zealand’s extensive supply of mineral waters. He considered that it would be impossible to lavish money on entertainment and skilled medical care in every region, however, and decided that the government should concentrate on developing one district into a rst-class
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The Postmaster Baths at Rotorua were the most primitive of the baths that dismayed the new balneologist, Dr Arthur Wohlmann. , 1⁄2
spa that could attract overseas visitors. Rotorua should be the focus of spending: it was already popular and accessible by rail, it had plenty of sunshine, and the mineral water supply seemed inexhaustible.¹⁴ Despite his delight with Rotorua’s mineral springs, Wohlmann was critical of the town itself. It must have looked raw and ramshackle in comparison with the elegance of Bath, renowned for its Georgian terraces and architecture. Although he approved of the Sanatorium gardens, there was much to fault around the town. Electric cables were too visible in the streets and travellers were irritated by the pumice dust. The ne, wide avenues could be softened with more trees and owers. Buildings were painted in ochres or an ugly brown to obscure their discolouration by sulphur. Wohlmann thought the whole town needed brightening, and began testing pigments of different colours to see which could withstand the fumes and weather. He wanted a more controlled environment in which buildings had to be approved and ugly ones could be removed. He also considered that a successful spa required more entertainment, for visitors would look for more charming pleasures once the geysers and mud pools began to pall.¹⁵ Wohlmann found the baths at Rotorua as disappointing as the town. He was dismayed at their condition and claimed that he would be ashamed to send patients to them: the Postmaster Bath was primitive and dangerous, and the Priest’s Baths were ‘more like pigstys than places for Christians to bathe in’.¹⁶ The hot swimming baths were ne and
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very popular, but the Pavilion Bath House was so poor that Wohlmann immediately began to design new buildings.¹⁷ Donne was quick to respond to these criticisms. In the gardens he had an aviary constructed with ducks, swans and peacocks, kiwi, pukeko and kea, and added a monkey to charm young visitors, ‘the only diving and swimming monkey known’. A ne tea-house was built with wide verandahs where tourists could relax away from the summer heat and listen to music in the evenings. Two brass bands played twice a week, one with Maori performers and one with European.¹⁸ Donne agreed that new baths were essential and promised Ward ‘a new era of things at Rotorua’ under Wohlmann if , was placed on the estimates to cover the cost. He imagined the baths completed within seven months.¹⁹ Wohlmann began planning immediately. He wanted an elegant structure and the latest in technology but aimed at comfort rather than grandeur in his design, for he could see that the classicism of marble spas in the Greek and Roman style of Europe was too luxurious for New Zealand. Instead he chose a half-timbered Tudor design that could be constructed with wood from the Rotorua region. He designed a low-slung building, feet long, with a high decorative tower in the centre. Wohlmann’s design for the new Bath House would expand Rotorua’s facilities enormously, accommodating up to a thousand bathers a day. The cost would be high but he argued that, if the government wanted to prot from its thermal waters, it must be prepared to spend fairly freely.²⁰ Donne convinced Ward that, although Wohlmann’s plans exceeded Rotorua’s immediate needs, ‘the stream of travellers has certainly set towards New Zealand’ and if modern baths were constructed Rotorua would become world-famous.²¹ In March the government agreed to the construction of new baths at a cost of ,. There was a series of delays and costs escalated. It was a year before the Government Architect, J. Campbell, checked the plans and assessed the cost of baths, the pumping machinery and furniture at ,, more than double the original estimates. Campbell explained that modications would detract from the Bath House’s picturesque, imposing style, which was worthy of Rotorua’s signicance.²² C.R.C. Robieson, acting head of the Tourist and Health Resorts Department while Donne was overseas, also pressed Ward to go ahead. Tourist traffic had been increasing since and a smaller building could mean higher expenses in the future. Wohlmann pleaded with Ward to ignore the ris-
36
ing expenditure. He saw New Zealand competing with the spas of the Old World and felt that the baths had to be modern to draw visitors. To defer the project or restrict the size would waste eighteen months of his detailed work. A sum of almost , seemed large but was insignicant compared with the funding of European spas; Bath was intending to spend , on one wing of its buildings. He argued that the outlay was sure to be recouped and that the country would prot indirectly from money spent on steamboats and rail.²³ Rotorua citizens and businesses were becoming impatient as the old baths deteriorated and the Rotorua spa seemed to be going backwards. The mineral waters were corroding the nails that held the Pavilion Bath together and in October the roof fell in. Earlier in the year the stairs to the Priest’s Bath had collapsed.²⁴ The New Zealand Herald complained that ‘there is a clever balneologist, but practically no baths’.²⁵ In July , an election year, the government called for tenders. The job went to W.E. Hutchinson from Auckland and construction began. The Inspector of Works, B.S. Corlett, asked for a clerk of works to assist him in managing the only large building of this kind being constructed in New Zealand. It was so vast that the architect spent months on specications and had no time to make tracings for the engineers. Robieson in Wellington felt that the extra architect he sent to Rotorua would be there for life.²⁶ During Wohlmann ordered lists of X-ray equipment, appliances, baths and furniture from London. In Donne sent a handsome watercolour of the nearly completed baths to have placed in Parliament so that members could appreciate the quality of the building before voting on the estimates.²⁷ He also wondered about a title for the new baths. He wanted a Maori name that would be pleasant-sounding and suggest the baths’ curative properties. Wohlmann preferred a name which made the national character of the baths clear, and suggested Dominion Baths or New Zealand National Baths, to show that they were not built for Rotorua alone.²⁸ However, the foundation stone laid in January bore the simple title ‘Rotorua Baths’. Sir Joseph Ward opened the completed Bath House on August in the presence of Admiral Sperry and members of the American ‘Great White Fleet’ which was on a world tour. The admiral pleased everybody by saying he would like to take the building away with him.²⁹ The Bath House was indeed a ne building, the culmination of Wohlmann’s persistence and Donne’s enthusiasm, and a symbol
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The new Rotorua Bath House, opened in . , 1⁄2
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of both the signicance of tourism to Rotorua and the government’s faith in the future. It was called the most sumptuous building in New Zealand, more palatial than anything else. The red-tiled roof and timbered exterior were reected in an articial lake in front of the building. In the entrance hall, cool green palms and ferns and a stained-glass window at the end welcomed the visitor. The corridors had welcoming red-tiled oors to contrast with clean, light walls, and the bath tiles were white, green and orange. Individual rooms were furnished with soft rugs, a dressing-table and mirror, couch and chair. Small details such as a dado stencilled in a light-blue pattern of fern and manuka highlighted the New Zealand identity of the baths.³⁰ Wohlmann’s experience in Bath and his observation of Continental spas meant that he had been able to design an efficient layout. He separated the men’s wing from the women’s (although this was not usual in Europe) to put the bathers more at ease and facilitate administration. He designed the whole building on one level (except for his own laboratory), not only because a tall building would be dangerous on unstable ground but so that invalids could avoid stairs. A curving drive sloped
gradually to the front door to ease the passage of bath chairs. He set the building on high foundations to make its lack of height less obvious and expedite access to the pipes for repairs. Wohlmann had taken care over the smallest details: there were rounded corners on the baths and massage rooms so that grime could be hosed away more easily and invalids were less likely to fall against sharp edges. There were two dressing-rooms for each Deep Bathroom (a luxury lacking in his home town of Bath), so that while a new bath was being run one visitor could be changing to enter and the other to leave. This was both less harassing for bathers and more efficient for turnover. Another luxury was the large, graceful ‘cooling-room’, as comfortable as a club’s reading or smoking room, where bathers could meet and cool down before moving from hot baths to the outdoors.³¹ Long wings led off the entrance and ticket office and doctor’s consulting rooms to a variety of baths: shallow and deep immersion baths, then the massage room, where masseurs could supply Aix massage (by playing one or two powerful douches over the body) or the Scotch douche (which gave alternate jets of high-pressure hot and cold water).
This man is receiving needle douche treatment, one of the new therapies introduced by Dr Wohlmann that was offered at the new Bath House. , , ,
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Sculptures by the Melbourne artist Charles Summers in the grand entrance hall of the new Bath House. , /
Other treatments in this room included the needle bath, spinal douche, lumbar douche and ascending douche. As well, the building included hot vapour rooms lined with felt designed on the same principle as a refrigerator, inhalation rooms with steam spray for sufferers of bronchitis, asthma and laryngitis, and mud baths, sun baths and rooms for electric treatment. Journalists were impressed by the porcelain baths with nickel-plated handrails, the statues valued at thousands of pounds, and the well-appointed private bath rooms.³² Criticisms of all this luxury came from Opposition candidates in an election year and ‘journalists of the school of “what-was-good-enough-for-father-is-good-enough-for-us”’. Defenders of the new baths argued that luxury was necessary to attract wealthy tourists. Wohlmann explained that this was not luxury in European terms and that the Bath House’s magnicence would soon seem modest. He felt that New Zealanders did not realise how important Rotorua would be as health resort and playground to Australasia, and the air of comfort meant that the season could be extended to include the winter months.³³ The Department claimed that elegance aided the cure and was as important as the waters themselves.³⁴ The Sydney Sunday Times affirmed the government’s expenditure: ‘They sow gold, but to reap it a hundred-fold . . . it is good store wisdom to at-
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tract and impress the big-money-spenders.’³⁵ Joseph Ward, now Prime Minister, defended the Department’s vision, explaining that the baths were provided ‘by the public for the public’ and that the prices charged would allow ‘every democrat of this Dominion . . . to be a millionaire’ at the baths. He obscured the fact that the cheaper tickets gave entry to the old baths, not the new.³⁶ Nevertheless, the Department became suddenly cautious over expenditure in the months following the Bath House’s opening. There was still nishing-off work to be done, but most of this had to wait until the next year. Donne refused Wohlmann’s request for a ticket table and towel-racks, and some of the palm trees that had been ordered to highlight the statuary had to be returned.³⁷ Worse, in spite of Wohlmann’s precautions, the acid environment was corroding the pipes and surfaces of the new building. As soon as the Bath House was completed, repairs began. The day after the formal opening Wohlmann closed the baths for a few days because all the white paintwork on the furniture had turned black and needed repainting. By plaster was cracking and falling from the ceiling and walls; it endangered visitors and looked unsightly.³⁸ Wohlmann distrusted the construction work undertaken by the Public Works Department and feared for the future.³⁹ The Bath House had marked the transformation of Rotorua from a village to a small, wellordered city, but there were already hints that the government would be lured into an ongoing battle against the corrosive chemicals of the thermal region.
‘A perfect picture of the primitive’ Donne considered the Maori presence at Rotorua as one of its chief tourist drawcards, and tried in several ways to incorporate Maori into the new township. A collector of Maori artefacts himself, he fostered traditional Maori crafts by employing carvers to ornament government buildings, and in the government-run tea-house ‘prettily dressed’ Maori girls were employed to serve visitors. He also tried to renew the spirit of the past by encouraging regattas on Lake Rotorua which reintroduced Maori war canoes and dramatised a sense of the old-time rivalry between Te Arawa and Waikato tribes.⁴⁰ These gestures appealed to overseas visitors but were not enough. ‘The lament of many a visitor’, claimed Donne, ‘has been that there is not enough of the Maori element in the landscape.’ When he set about
4
The Tourist Department introduced an annual carnival in Rotorua to increase tourist numbers. Here the Maori band plays in the carnival procession in . , 1⁄2
trying to satisfy the curiosity of tourists, however, he found that Maori needs were fundamentally opposed to the tourists’ idealisation of the past and desire for ‘a perfect picture of the primitive’.⁴¹ Maori had been proud to perform for the royal visit and would soon display their treasures to the world at the Christchurch Exhibition, but these were short-lived celebrations, very different from providing a daily spectacle on their home ground for European travellers for whom ‘native life was inherently dramatic’.⁴² The Department had given little thought to how Maori villagers felt about living in a formal viewing site, on stage throughout the day, their customs reinvented as a tourist commodity. Nor did Donne consult the villagers in his intention to make Whakarewarewa a museum of itself to suit the requirements of tourists.⁴³ In the nineteenth century the village had been regarded as a more lively, realistic continuation of exhibition displays of Maori people that New Zealand had been sending to intrigue the Western world for decades.⁴⁴ When the government purchased most of Whakarewarewa and did away with the guides’ traditional system of collecting fees, officials had feared that Maori would desert the village – and that without them sightseeing would become tame.⁴⁵ The village had not been deserted, but Maori communities at the turn of the century were on the cusp of change as reformers aimed to destroy old housing and construct new homes to save their people
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from the devastation wreaked by diseases in the nineteenth century. The councils established under the Maori Councils Act were pressing for the modernisation of their villages. Leaders demanded the removal of airless raupo whare and the construction of wooden cottages in Pakeha style, built above the ground with windows and plenty of ventilation. In , when Dr Maui Pomare, the rst Native Health Officer, attended the great camp of all the tribes on the occasion of the royal visit, he impressed Rotorua villagers with the need to change radically their style of architecture. To Pakeha criticisms that the new housing was less attractive than the old, he responded: ‘[I] would rather have my Maoris live, than that they should satisfy the curiosity of the passer-by and die.’⁴⁶ While Maori leaders were heading into the future, tourists were searching for a timeless romantic past. Visitors to Ohinemutu and Whakarewarewa expected to see clusters of brightly painted and decorated traditional Maori whare, but were disgruntled to nd new hous-
Children perform a ‘fourpenny haka’ for visitors to Ohinemutu in . Visible in the background are the weatherboard Pakeha-style houses the Tourist Department wanted to replace. ,
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ing that lacked the character of the old; they thought weatherboard shanties, like the poorest of Pakeha homes, blighted the landscape. Donne knew that the old whare were insanitary, but he liked their exterior design and was determined to preserve the historical character of Rotorua. He wondered about a compromise, suggesting that villagers could at least retain the steep pitched roofs and carved barge-boards.⁴⁷ An alternative was for the Department to construct its own model village. Donne soon decided to plan a new village to be tted in amongst the lagoons and mud volcanoes of the geyser valley in the portion of the Whakarewarewa reserve that the government had purchased in . There the Department could preserve the past in an ‘authentic’ form by controlling the design and selecting the residents. Donne hoped that skilled carvers in the Rotorua region could establish a carving school to educate younger Maori. Their activity would enhance the village and the goods could be sold to visitors; the scheme would be protable to the government, benet tourists and provide sustenance for the Maori community. Later, the Department would construct a model ghting pa.⁴⁸ Donne’s tourist agent in Rotorua suggested that the ghting pa could go ahead immediately, for the site of Rotowhio, a former ghting pa with a dramatic history, lay on the hill adjoining the geyser valley at Whakarewarewa. Three hundred years earlier Tuhourangi had driven Ngati Tama from it. The pa had been well positioned for defence, with steep cliffs on three sides and boiling water below. Using the original site would provide a sense of historical realism and reconstructing the pa would be inexpensive, for its embankments and ditches were still discernible and the Department needed only to add palisades.⁴⁹ Acting on this suggestion, Donne expanded his original plan for a small kainga into a larger ghting pa. He chose Alf Warbrick, the son of a Ngati Rangitihi woman, to oversee the reconstruction. The goal of recreating a perfect replica of the past had seemed simple, but the design of the pa became contentious when disagreement arose over which slice of the past should be memorialised. Without consulting Maori, Donne had originally planned to reproduce an early ghting pa from the era before the arrival of Europeans and the introduction of rearms – one similar to Cook’s descriptions of pa at Mercury Bay in .⁵⁰ Warbrick, however, chose to construct a pa typical of the musket era. The palisades were built and carvings made for the tall posts. Then an outcry arose while Donne was away at the St Louis Purchase Exposition in .
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One of the most knowledgeable critics was Captain Gilbert Mair, who had seen some of the country’s most famous pa and had fought alongside Te Arawa. He had met old Maori warriors and read everything available on the subject, yet claimed that even he would hesitate to build a pa without the assistance of all the most learned elders. When he came to inspect the half-completed pa, he was dismayed. His verdict was damning: ‘Everything is wrong, and nothing right’. The inner and outer palisade fences (kiritangata and pekerangi) had been reversed; the gateways were wrong; the posts which held the carvings should be round rather than rectangular – the list went on. The carvings themselves should not be identical but varied: ‘One of the greatest attractions of an ancient Pa, consisted in its innite shape and variety, no two sticks, posts or gures being the same in height or appearance’. The worst mistake had been the rst: in an endeavour to reconstruct history, the actual remnants of the site’s true history had been removed and an ancient landmark destroyed. To erect the new pa, Warbrick’s workers had razed the original foundations (sixteen generations old) of the ‘classical historical pa’ of Te Rotowhio. They had levelled the interior area, ignored the advantage of the uneven ground and taken down the old pa walls.⁵¹ Mair felt that Warbrick had been cavalier in his approach and the Department had to be much more certain of the appropriate design. What was intended to become the chief attraction of Rotorua would be an ‘utter burlesque’ and would lead to attacks on the Department’s work in developing the colony’s resources. He knew that the model pa was despised by local chiefs, who referred to it as ‘“Paraka Hoia” – a soldier’s barracks’. He urged the Assistant Superintendent to stop construction until Donne’s return, and then hold a korero with the oldest chiefs of the region. To do the work properly was worthwhile: the cost would probably be ,, but a valuable attraction would be created and the expenditure would be quickly recouped.⁵² A few months later the criticisms of Teipu Tarakawa, chief at Whakarewarewa village, were published in the Auckland Weekly News. He claimed that the basic design, square in shape with none of the irregularities of a ghting pa, was more like a stockyard or a Pakeha redoubt. Maori would be ashamed when this was described as a Maori pa. The gateway (waharoa) was a caricature, carved in an over-elaborate pattern to please Pakeha visitors.⁵³ Warbrick defended himself, arguing
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A Maori carver working on the model pa at Whakarewarewa, . , , 1⁄2
that different tribes had different ideas and that pa were not constructed ‘on any cast iron plan’; if several experts were consulted, each would have his own view. Meanwhile costs had been escalating and work on the model pa was halted. Then, because the Department was afraid that the carvers would be bought out by private enterprise, more funds were approved.⁵⁴ Soon the carvings themselves became an issue when the Rev. Fred Bennett, a leading member of the modernising Young Maori Party and the newly appointed Maori Missioner to Rotorua, joined with the clergy of local churches to request the removal of the carvings because they were indecent, and offensive to both races. Although Donne had earlier approved them, Robieson as Acting Superintendent agreed with Bennett and instructed that the offensive portions be removed.⁵⁵ It was a relief when, in the midst of dissension and the escalating cost
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of labour and timber, the progress of the pa was boosted by the arrival of the carved houses and carved posts that Donne had made a focal point at the Christchurch Exhibition.⁵⁶ The design of the pa was still a problem when Lawrence Birks, the Tourist Department engineer in Rotorua, was put in charge of the project in . Birks held a series of korero to discuss the pa’s design with elders, who in turn discussed the plans with their hapu. They seemed in general agreement, but a few months later Birks felt that the old men differed on basic points and he preferred to rely on specialist texts which he could point to if he were criticised. He had only Augustus Hamilton’s Maori Art and John White’s Ancient History of the Maori to guide him, but these convinced him that Warbrick had mishandled the pa construction; moreover, he could see no nancial advantage in Warbrick’s design to justify his departure from early pa designs.⁵⁷ Although Tarakawa later complained to the Herald that ‘none of these things are to be found in any book’, Birks considered that Maori themselves were unaware of the importance of authenticity and were not as concerned to eliminate modern tendencies as a Pakeha enthusiast would be.⁵⁸ Birks, needing a specialist to help him, asked for Gregor McGregor, who had supervised the pa construction for the Christchurch Exhibition and understood the issues. McGregor also knew from experience how to use day-workers to keep costs down. Birks suggested that to reduce the costs the Department make do with the carvings they had and let some buildings remain unadorned in the meantime. Another was needed to complete the housing within the pa and the palisades. Sensing that the Department’s desire to salvage the past was linked to a strong commercial drive, Birks estimated that income from d admission tickets was likely to be a year. The next challenge was to bring the pa to life: ‘the main thing’ was ‘to get a few of the Maori living in it’.⁵⁹ Progress was speeded up for the visit of Admiral Sperry of the American eet in July , but the pa was still incomplete. In Birks was still requesting both more money from the Department and the help of McGregor. However, a small carved house, two wharepuni, two watch-towers and a cookhouse were complete, and three families shifted into the model pa. Birks hoped six families would soon be living there, and encouraged the new inhabitants to plant kumara to provide an exhibit of Maori agriculture. A large carved house (at a cost of ,) would need to be added later.⁶⁰ Before the model pa was formally opened, visitors were already arriving. Gradually additions
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were made and the issue of historical authenticity slipped from view as it became an increasingly popular tourist sight. The entry fee, however, went to the government to provide a return on its outlay, rather than to the inhabitants as compensation for their loss of privacy.⁶¹ While Maori were an essential feature of Rotorua’s tourist identity and history, the government had constructed this identity and determined where the prots should go.
A government town Rotorua had been made by government expenditure. In ve years , of public money had been invested to highlight Rotorua’s distinctive appeal and underpin its tourist attractions. Funds had been poured into its baths, gardens, the model Maori village and into making the thermal areas accessible to visitors. As Prime Minister in , Joseph Ward could claim that ‘Government virtually owned the place entirely’ and argue that, with the success of the Sanatorium and spa, the government needed to protect its investment and direct future expansion.⁶² The Rotorua Town Act repealed the legislation and gave the Department of Tourist and Health Resorts even fuller control of the town. The Department took over from the Town Council so that it could control expenditure without the risk of local opposition from a semi-independent body. In the villages of Whakarewarewa, Ohinemutu and Tarewa, village affairs had been run by Maori councils, with the Rotorua Town Council involved only when it was forced to be. It had done little to give the villages the same amenities of electricity, drainage, tree-planting and roading as the European township, and by houses in the villages were decaying; some had no oors and sanitation was still poor. Two or three good toilets were shared by households.⁶³ The Rotorua Town Act put the control of the villages under the Town Council, despite Birks’s warning that this would mean immediate expenditure. Proper municipal works would reduce disease and deaths, and make the village more attractive to tourists.⁶⁴ Peter Buck joined village discussions and persuaded the villagers to give up their feeling of ‘aroha’ for old Maori councils and come under the umbrella of the Town Council.⁶⁵ The Department took on the role of ‘overlooker, inspector and assistant’ of newly elected marae councils, and became responsible for beautifying and improving the villages.⁶⁶ With the government now in charge of
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both the Maori and Pakeha sections of the town, Rotorua became ‘the only State-owned State-managed town in Australasia’.⁶⁷
‘The delightful freedom of intercourse’ Only the wealthiest New Zealanders could afford to tour their own country, and many settlers and immigrants were too preoccupied with breaking in the land or earning a living to travel for pleasure. Holidays were limited to the occasional anniversary days when people took a one- or two-day excursion out of the cities to rivers or the sea, or to the other health resorts of Te Aroha and Hanmer. Te Aroha was a tiny hillside village surrounded by forest between Auckland and Rotorua, with mineral springs similar to the famed waters of Vichy in France. Its baths had been developed earlier than Rotorua’s and, because it was on the route of river steamers and rail, trippers came from Auckland and miners from Waihi and Thames travelled across by train on Saturday and stayed the rest of the weekend. The town had ne hotels where visitors enjoyed reading rooms and billiards and danced on long balconies or watched the steamers pass.⁶⁸ When the beautiful Cadman Baths were constructed in , the resort’s future seemed assured. Wohlmann’s demands for a new era at Rotorua, however, meant that Te Aroha and Hanmer received less of the government’s funding and advertising, and were soon eclipsed. When the Tourist and Health Resorts Department was handed supervision of all reserves in , the Te Aroha Domain Board was quick to put pressure on Donne and Ward to nance the resort town properly and provide expert advice on its development. The Secretary of the Domain Board resented the publicity given to Rotorua and wanted the government to see the advantage of having two strings to its bow by encouraging travellers to pass on from Rotorua to Te Aroha, with its distinctively different springs. Railways prots would in turn benet government coffers.⁶⁹ Even with , extra funding from Donne, the Domain Board felt it could not cope with the resort’s development and by it had handed supervision of Te Aroha over to the Department.⁷⁰ In , Donne sent Dr Wohlmannn to report on Te Aroha. He reported that the Cadman Baths were the most elegant immersion baths in New Zealand, but criticised the other springs and baths. The piping was poorly designed – so narrow that the valuable heat of the mineral waters was lost. The lack of really hot water was the district’s most
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The ne Cadman Baths at Te Aroha on the opening day in . , , ,
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serious failing as a thermal resort, especially in contrast to Rotorua’s inexhaustible supplies. Wohlmann thought Te Aroha’s future lay simply as a spa for drinking the waters. The Department made improvements. Many of the baths were repaired, and it built and staffed a tea-house on the lines of Rotorua’s and Hanmer’s with an ornate ceiling, multi-coloured Murano glass fanlights, Japanese screens and lace curtains.⁷¹ But maintaining a sophisticated welcoming air required constant supervision and regular funding. Wohlmann’s perfectionism meant that Rotorua absorbed a huge departmental outlay; while , was going into the new Bath House there, Te Aroha’s role as a thermal resort was being diminished.⁷² Pumps broke down regularly, the enamel mugs at the drinking fountains rusted quickly, vandals broke a new drinking fountain, and on his next visit Wohlmann found dogs drinking from a favourite drinking spring.⁷³ Te Aroha’s resentment of Rotorua’s favoured role persisted.
Hanmer’s situation in the South Island – , feet above sea level and surrounded by mountains up to , feet high – gave it a bracing air and separated it from the world of work. At the turn of the century it was becoming popular as a health resort in the broadest sense – a refuge for city workers and an opportunity to escape the constraints of ordinary life for ‘brain-worn’ businessmen or mechanics.⁷⁴ A railwayman described Hanmer’s informality as ‘the delightful freedom of intercourse peculiar to watering places’.⁷⁵ When the Department of Tourist and Health Resorts took over Hanmer from the Department of Lands and Survey in , the baths were renovated and the title of its sanatorium changed to Hanmer Spa to foster the idea of leisure as well as health. A tea-house with wide shady verandahs was erected to allow travellers to enjoy languid afternoons and evenings.⁷⁶ T.E. Pearson, the head gardener at Rotorua, was sent to supervise a new layout for the garden and planned wide borders on the rim of the lawns, with hundreds of azaleas, rhododendrons and roses and over a thousand bulbs. He also requested huge tree-plantings: , seedlings from the Forest Department for Conical Hill, a few thousand seedlings for a shady creek-side plantation and native plants and a rustic bridge near the waterfall.⁷⁷ In spite of the government’s efforts, the popularity of Hanmer waned. Wohlmann inspected the resort in and found the interior of the baths rundown. He decided that the idea of accommodating both invalids and pleasure-seekers in the government spa was a failure: the Department was trying to run ’a quasi-hospital along with a quasi-hotel’. There was insufficient nursing and medical care to provide properly for patients, and with its bare walls the building was too institutional to cater for tourists. The Department needed to provide something distinctively different for healthy visitors if accommodation was to be nancially successful, and Wohlmann thought this should be left to private enterprise.⁷⁸ In fact, private establishments at Hanmer resented the government’s involvement in tourist accommodation and this contributed to Hanmer’s problems. Local hotels set ‘dodgers’ on incoming trains and coaches to tout for custom and divert new visitors from the government spa. Malicious rumourmongers suggested that the government’s diversion of gas from the springs to run its spa equipment had diminished the medicinal properties of the waters. Meanwhile the new resort of Caroline Bay at Timaru was drawing more and more South Islanders to the seaside, for it was closer to coastal towns and cities – three and a
5
half hours from Christchurch compared with the seven-hour journey to Hanmer.⁷⁹ The government’s receipts from the bath-houses declined. Only Rotorua, with Wohlmann’s passionate, controlling leadership and the Department’s extensive support, succeeded in attracting large numbers of visitors.
‘One of the foremost sporting countries’ Although the development of health resorts dominated government tourist policy, Donne gave an impetus to other initiatives. The feature of New Zealand which he pursued most ardently was game sports. Hunting had been a colonial pleasure from the earliest days, a pastime regarded as worthy for the masculine virtues it fostered: teaching young men skill with a gun and encouraging them into the outbacks far from ‘city dissipations and the laps of ballet girls’.⁸⁰ Donne believed that game sport was not only vital for New Zealanders, but one of the best ways to attract tourists to the country. Throughout his decade of leadership he aimed to make New Zealand one of the foremost sporting countries of the world, an essential stopping-off place for adventurous world travellers.⁸¹ He was encouraged by the visit of the renowned English game hunter St George Littledale, who assessed the mountains of New Zealand as a ne setting for deer and goats. Donne was himself a keen hunter, and his passion for wild game propelled Tourist Department policy in the early years. For a long time he had been a council member of the Wellington Acclimatisation Society, one of the many such societies responsible for importing animals, assisting their adaptation and administering licences. In the Tourist Department took over the interesting task of importing animals into New Zealand and left the more mundane administration to the local societies.⁸² Ward gave Donne a free rein to import animals that interested him as long as they were liberated in areas where they could not be a nuisance to settlers. Donne aimed to replenish stocks of red deer – with their magnicent antlers – extend the variety of animals that could be hunted, and introduce others that would look appealing against New Zealand’s alpine landscape. By , at Littledale’s prompting, six thar (Himalayan mountain goats) had arrived in New Zealand as a gift from the Duke of Bedford, and American President Theodore Roosevelt was promising an exchange of wapiti for New Zealand birds.⁸³
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Donne’s role as host to important visitors assisted him in building up New Zealand’s sporting resources, and his charm helped him form an international network of interested gamekeepers and people well placed to help him. In he assisted the Austrian Rear-Admiral Ritter von Hohnel, who was visiting Wellington on the Panther, and, after offering him gifts of kea, tuatara, weka, kiwi and ducks, Donne suggested that chamois would be a welcome exchange. Shy mountain creatures, the aristocrat of Austrian game animals, chamois were highly valued and difficult to obtain. They were not likely to survive a trip through the tropics, but if they arrived safely they could become an attraction leaping on the rocks and glaciers of Mt Cook. Donne’s conception of transporting such animals from the snowstorms of the European Alps through the tropics was a mark of the passion that fuelled game sports. Emperor Franz Josef agreed to Donne’s request and called on hundreds of hunters, gamekeepers and soldiers to drive chamois from the Alps into captivity so that eight could be selected for New Zealand. The Inspector of the Royal Menagerie at Schönbrunn and another keeper accompanied the animals to London. It was an epic journey. The train bearing the chamois was halted for days by snow in Switzerland, then caught re at Ostend. The Channel steamer collided in fog with another ship on the Thames. When the British Board of Agriculture refused to dock the animals, they were held on a barge in the Thames until loaded onto the Turakina for the long journey to New Zealand under the care of a former keeper at the London Zoo. The chamois were provided with two tons of hay from Scotland, ash leaves, r branches, carrots, wurzels, bran, biscuits, barley, oats, locust-beans, rock salt and mistletoe. Donne had designed crates for the sea journey. These were held on the foredeck and covered with netting so that the animals could exercise in safety. A shelter was erected to protect them from the tropical sun. In March the chamois arrived in good condition. To Donne, this success was a historic occasion. He relished his own ability to ‘prompt the gift’ and the power of the government to provide the resources.⁸⁴ Donne’s air with people met the same success when he visited the United States as co-ordinator of New Zealand’s stands at the Louisiana Purchase Exhibition in . He charmed John Hay, the Secretary of State, by his familiarity with ballads that Hay had written, and was then introduced to President Roosevelt, who admired New Zealand’s labour legislation and its old-age pension, and helped organise contacts
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for Donne to buy more wapiti and other game animals. Donne went on a collecting spree. Hunting in New Hampshire, he had discovered the red-coated Virginia deer with their ‘stylishly pretty heads’ and lithe movements, and ordered . He bought more wapiti, mule deer from Santa Fe, Canadian geese, other geese and ducks, and Chesapeake Bay terrapins for the Kaipara harbour, which did not arrive in Washington in time for dispatch. The National Zoological Park in Washington presented him with ve racoons and four owls.⁸⁵ This was the largest consignment of game animals ever transported to New Zealand. Fred Moorhouse, game inspector for the Tourist Department, travelled to Washington with two assistants to pack the animals and accompany them on a journey of , miles. The livestock were loaded into steam-heated wagons to travel through blizzards to San Francisco. Three of the Virginian deer died of gastro-enteritis on the steamer to Hawaii, and nearer New Zealand two wapiti had to be killed after their spines were crushed in heavy seas.⁸⁶ Donne’s imports soon met opposition from settlers for their depredations on crops and animals. The arrival of the racoons stimulated an early debate on the kinds of animal suited to New Zealand. Donne had brought them on a whim, enchanted by the way they hung upside down to sleep; he fancied them as a novelty in the aviary at the Sanatorium gardens in Rotorua, where they could entertain visitors. But as soon as the racoons were put in a cage the kea next door loosened the wire netting and enabled them to escape. Rotorua residents were enraged, for racoons were notorious for ravaging fruit and poultry. Alf Warbrick searched the district and offered a head for their capture, but they remained at large. The Free Lance objected to these attempts to stock the country with destructive animals and make it as unlike New Zealand as possible simply to please tourists.⁸⁷ The issue of the racoons became the forerunner for other battles between the pleasures of tourists and the needs of other New Zealanders. When Donne released six axis deer in Tongariro National Park in , along with some red deer, he faced the wrath of Robert McNab, the Minister of Lands and Chairman of the Trust Board, although Donne was a member of the Board himself.⁸⁸ Conservationists, who had grown in inuence over the preceding decade, opposed the introduction of deer, which destroyed native plants.⁸⁹ More conict followed in when Donne planned to add the rest of the consignment of axis deer to the park, along with a second consignment of bharal sheep, beautiful
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Donne ordered six bharal sheep from Tibet for Tongariro National Park in . , , //
animals from Tibet that required an alpine environment. McNab could not believe that Donne would disregard park policy and intensify the problem of the destruction of alpine ora. A special meeting of the Tongariro National Park Trust Board decided that Donne must remove the axis deer already there and send the new animals elsewhere.⁹⁰ Despite his protests that deer, wild horses and cattle were already roaming the park, Donne had to send the bharal sheep to Tarawera and the axis deer to Dusky Sound in Fiordland, while relying on ‘masterly inactivity’ over the earlier arrivals. Donne had no time for conservation policies when they clashed with game hunting, and argued that the park’s botanical value was less important than prots.⁹¹ But the tide was turning and in Cabinet refused entry to a Washington collector’s offer of mountain goats, which were likely to denude scenic areas.⁹² Most of the imported animals went to districts where access was difficult: the wapiti were given a home in Fiordland, where they were expected to thrive in the isolated forests, but in fact were rarely seen. Some of the Virginian deer were sent to the Lake Wakatipu region and some to Stewart Island.
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Donne had made the most of the opportunity of the St Louis Purchase Exposition not only to promote wild game, but also to inspect American sh and make contact with shery experts. Rainbow and brown trout had been introduced to Rotorua lakes years earlier by the Auckland Acclimatisation Society. They had ourished, and thousands of miles of North Island streams and lakes were alive with them.⁹³ Donne was excited by the salmon he saw at St Louis, and set his heart on getting hold of some to populate the cold southern lakes. He also met the chief of the Department of Fisheries and requested up-todate shway plans and specications for hatchery boxes. He asked the United States Bureau of Fisheries to donate , salmon eggs – he would have liked , but felt honoured to get any.⁹⁴ Lake Ayson, Chief Inspector of Fisheries in New Zealand’s Marine Department, worked with Donne to dene New Zealand’s needs and plan where the sh Donne had ordered should go, and shared Marine Department facilities with him.⁹⁵ In the largest consignment of sh ova ever to reach New Zealand, the , salmon ova for the Tourist Department arrived safely, were hatched without many losses and went to Te Anau. A shipment of , mackinaw trout reached Canterbury and Hokitika (the latter by Premier Seddon’s request). However, herring ova from Lake Erie, bound for Rotorua to supplement the feeding supply for trout in the lakes, were poorly packed and died.⁹⁶ Rotorua’s trout were becoming a signicant drawcard and earning New Zealand a reputation as the nest shing country in the world.⁹⁷ In the United States, Forest and Stream published photographs that showed New Zealand trout which looked like giant salmon. While trout in America commonly weighed between and pounds, in New Zealand the Tourist Department could boast that - to -pound sh were often caught on the y, and occasionally some weighing pounds; anglers commonly went home after a few hours’ shing with a catch of – pounds of trout.⁹⁸ In Joseph Ward claimed that the trout shing in Rotorua had become a matter of ‘colonial importance’; it was tting that the government should ensure that the best trout shing in the world remained superb. Rotorua became more than ever a government town when the Tourist Department took over from the Auckland Acclimatisation Society the control of shing, shooting and acclimatisation work in this tourist area by creating a special Rotorua Acclimatisation Society, whose area soon extended from north of Rotorua across to Whakatane, and as far south as Ruapehu.⁹⁹
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‘Booming New Zealand’ While developing Rotorua and pursuing wild game overseas, Donne led the Department of Tourist and Health Resorts straight into its work of ‘booming New Zealand’. The Department’s goal was to advertise the country for both pleasure-seekers and permanent settlers.¹⁰⁰ Donne was a natural promoter and exploited a wide range of media to highlight New Zealand’s splendour and variety. Visual images of the landscape were vital to the tourist industry from the beginning, and the Department set up its own photographic section and employed Thomas Pringle to capture scenery, industries and Maori life throughout the country. By Donne boasted that the Department had one of the nest collections of photographic negatives in New Zealand. Shots of mountains, lakes, geysers and scenes of Maori life were fed to the postcard industry. In its rst year the Department published , postcards, and the same number the following year. It drew from this collection to produce lantern slides that were lent to lecturers in Australia, Britain, Canada and the United States. Pringle was also
Portraits of Maori women were one of the most popular themes of tourist postcards. This photograph is one of a series titled ‘New Zealand Beauties’. , /
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a kinematographer and captured Maori dance, geyser action and a Whanganui River journey on lm.¹⁰¹ The Department could not afford to pay for advertisements in overseas magazines, but sent reams of illustrated articles off to these publications to educate the mass of readers overseas who knew as little of New Zealand ‘as of the mountains in the moon’. James Cowan, the historian and journalist, worked with the Department and produced many of these articles, as well as a lively guidebook which celebrated the romantic qualities of New Zealand.¹⁰² The St Louis Purchase Exposition in was the rst opportunity for the Department to showcase New Zealand in a big way. Most government departments were reluctant to contribute exhibits: the Defence Department ags were faded, Public Works provided only a few specimens of unattractive timbers, the Mines Department’s specimens were depleted, and so on.¹⁰³ Donne was more resourceful and, although the cost prohibited transporting a Maori house and Maori dancers, he took a large number of oil and watercolour paintings of tourist sights and Lindauer’s portraits of Maori chiefs from the Department’s own collection. The Auckland Art Gallery lent Goldie and Steele’s Arrival of the Maori. Donne was keen to attract wealthy game travellers to New Zealand and also displayed monster trout, as well as twelve red stags’ heads from his own collection.¹⁰⁴ The Department aimed to facilitate travel as well as to attract tourists and sportsmen. It established agencies in the main centres to inform tourists about ‘where to go, when to go, how to go, what to pay’.¹⁰⁵ Officers answered inquiries from overseas and local travellers; in , they received and dispatched , letters.¹⁰⁶ The Department supplied maps, accommodation information, route plans and d railway guides. Each agency was used as an exhibition space to display oil paintings and photographs of New Zealand’s most visually dramatic sights. Donne was determined to place the agencies in visible central-city positions. As Auckland was the gateway to both the Rotorua district and the rest of New Zealand, he encouraged the rst agency officer there to pursue a ground-oor space near the wharves and railway station. The rst Tourist Department office opened in March in the Waters building in lower Queen Street, beside the Waters Coffee Palace and a photographic shop. Even before it opened, a stream of curious visitors came in each day as renovations were undertaken. The Auckland office had large shop-front windows and was decorated with photographs
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taken by the Department’s photographer. It displayed Tisdall’s Anglers’ Guide, the New Zealand Official Year-Book, maps of South Island regions, advertisements for Hanmer and the Hermitage, d railway guides and travel brochures. It became a popular centre where travellers could collect their mail. Tourists from Australia and Britain were impressed by the service provided, for they had nothing like this at home.¹⁰⁷ The Tourist Department opened its Rotorua agency a couple of months later, in May , and a year later shifted to a new office built in Tudor style, with an expensive roof of Marseilles tiles to make it attractive. The Rotorua office was a conspicuous central meeting-point. The rst tourist agent set up an exhibition of silica and other rock formations.¹⁰⁸ When the next agent took over, he extended the office hours until nine in the evenings to catch tourists on their return from day-long excursions, but soon found himself overwhelmed, working seven days a week, day and night. By the Rotorua office was dealing with over , visitors a year.¹⁰⁹
The Tourist Department’s rst agency office in Rotorua was replaced by this larger office in . This interior shot was taken two decades later. , 1⁄2
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The Head Office in Brandon Street, Wellington was like an art gallery and museum as well, with large paintings, Maori carvings and noble stags’ heads on display. Yet the working conditions were uncomfortable. The ventilation was poor and the rooms stank, and employees frequently became ill. Timber was rotting and chairs fell through the oor. As the Tourist Department grew, the office became overcrowded and it was difficult to nd table space to work on. Employees had to be dispersed to three different buildings in the city. It was not until the end of that Donne signed a three-year lease for a pretty building in Panama Street, although he had to pay an extra a year in insurance to cover his collection of Maori artefacts and stags’ heads.¹¹⁰ In the South Island tourist offices were opened in Christchurch, Dunedin and Invercargill. Donne’s entrepreneurial vision led the Department to open agencies in Sydney and Melbourne in /. The Agent-General in London dealt with tourist inquiries in Britain. Donne’s next goal was to open agencies in Vancouver, San Francisco and Colombo, giving him access to virtually all of the English-speaking world.¹¹¹ The Department of Tourist and Health Resorts not only was the chief promoter of New Zealand, but had other practical and enterprising roles thrust upon it. It inherited from the Department of Lands and Survey the management of scenic reserves as well as thermal reserves (a responsibility formalised by the Scenic Preservation Act )¹¹² and the management of bird sanctuaries on Great Barrier Island and Resolution Island in Dusky Sound (a transfer formalised by the Tourist and Health Resorts Act ). Whereas the Lands Department had maintained a caretaking role, the Tourist Department took a more vigorous stance with its vision of ‘pioneering the country for the pleasure-hunter’.¹¹³ Although its main focus was the thermal resorts, it also began to facilitate access to scenic resorts and improve accommodation, especially when private enterprise was running services so inefficiently or expensively that they deterred tourists. In its rst decade the Department managed accommodation houses near the Waimangu geyser and the caves at Waitomo, and beside Lake Waikaremoana. In the South Island it ran the Hermitage Hotel at Mt Cook and rustic accommodation houses at Lake Pukaki and Te Anau. These were the primitive beginnings of the Department’s major role in providing tourist accommodation where private enterprise could not succeed or did not venture – a responsibility that lasted most of the twentieth century. The Department also made the lakeside park in
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Queenstown more attractive, owned steamers on lakes in the north and south, developed roads and tracks into wild country, and kept mountain huts well stocked with food. The Department’s rst work around Te Anau typied the range of issues that the early development of tourism could involve. In it purchased Glade House at the head of Lake Te Anau, put in new managers and built more bedrooms, and took over the steamer on the lake because the service provided was poor. When it took control of the track from Te Anau to Milford (rst walked in ) and lowered the guide fees and employed cooks in the huts, tourist numbers soared on this -mile walk through sublime scenery, ‘the Yosemite of New Zealand’. The Department also saw that native bush was being burnt by prospectors for greenstone, and successfully lobbied the government to set aside Fiordland as a national park, so that this rugged, remote region could remain home to kiwi, tui, kakapo and the blue mountain duck.¹¹⁴
The Tourist Department purchased Glade House at the head of Lake Te Anau in . , /
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The Pompolona Hut on the Miford Track. When the government assumed control of the track in , the Department cleared it and noted that women could travel with ease. , -/
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After Donne was transferred to the New Zealand Trade Commission in London in , the Department of Tourist and Health Resorts was never the same. His enthusiasm had driven government policy between and and his impetus had involved the Department in a dizzying welter of activities that ranged the length of the country. The staff it employed included masseurs, doctors and nurses, gardeners, guides to the alps and hot pools, caretakers and cooks, engineers and journalists. Donne had assistants in Wellington, but he was Secretary of the Department of Industries and Commerce as well as Superintendent of the Department of Tourist and Health Resorts, and his energies were fully absorbed. He developed Rotorua as a sophisticated spa and constructed a model pa there as a showpiece of Maori culture, and at the same time set up a network of national and international agencies and contacts to make New Zealand visible.
Donne left a legacy of rivalry between the different regions of the country, however. Government investment had focused almost entirely on Rotorua. Its Bath House was so splendid and expensive that South Islanders felt that Rotorua had become a soak-hole for tourist funds. And Donne’s pursuit of his personal interests had exacerbated the government’s neglect of the south. Led on by Wohlmann’s obsessiveness and his own fascination with Maori culture and big-game hunting, Donne paid less attention to other regions of New Zealand. While Wohlmann was ordering porcelain baths and the latest equipment for the new baths in Rotorua, the manager of the Hermitage, D. McDonald, had to mend the collapsed oven by patching its side with plaster and tin.¹¹⁵ This imbalance intensied public criticisms of government over-spending on tourism. The government boasted of an increased ‘stream of pleasurers’ to the country within a year of establishing the Department, but numbers were still small and a high proportion of visitors came from Australia. Out of nearly , visitors in , , were Australians and , came from Britain. The number from America had grown from in to after the St Louis Exposition, then dropped again when the steamer service from San Francisco was cut.¹¹⁶ In the government defended expenditure on tourism by claiming that the Department’s earnings – it was not yet making a prot – were only a fraction of the direct benet of tourism to the country as a whole. It pointed out that indirect revenue meant that hotel-keepers, shop-keepers, shipping companies, coach drivers and the railways ‘all shared the traveller’s gold’.¹¹⁷ Nevertheless, the idea that tourism was a goldmine with benets for the nation as a whole seemed far less certain by .
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Waves of ice on the Tasman Glacier are captured in an early s series on Mt Cook by the Tourist Department’s photographer. , /
A Spice of Adventure in their Pleasure –
T
pleasures from the steam and sensuality of the Bath House and hot lakes of Rotorua. Visitors who liked a ‘spice of adventure in their pleasure’ came to climb and explore the wild terrain of mountains where snow glistened on peaks up to , feet high that ran like a ‘great white saw-edge’ down the South Island.¹ The glaciers were larger than any found outside the Himalayas or the Arctic regions, with the Tasman Glacier’s waves of ice spreading eighteen miles long, two miles wide and one thousand feet deep. These were the only mountains in Australasia which were snowcovered all the year round, and they attracted Australians who had never seen snow or ice at home. Other visitors were alpinists from Europe and Britain who had tackled the Andes and the Rockies after
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scaling the Matterhorn and were ranging the world to nd more peaks to climb. The Southern Alps offered them more excitement than Switzerland, for New Zealand climbs meant going into the unknown, an experience which was diminishing in Europe, where the routes were well-trodden and climbers knew what to expect.² Several were members of the famed English Alpine Club who regarded themselves as a natural aristocratic élite, pitting muscle and brain against the elements and against peaks which were ‘cold, cruel and careless’.³ These climbers contributed to the glamour and fame of the Southern Alps, but they were not the only visitors. In the summer of Lady Ranfurly, wife of the Governor, and her entourage set a precedent by coming to the Hermitage to enjoy the cool mountain air in the summer. Distinguished New Zealanders soon followed her. Attorney-General Sir John Findlay was a strong believer that the wilderness was an antidote for ‘brain-fag’ and the stresses of modern life, and came every summer for years.⁴ Some of these visitors were content to rest on the Hermitage verandah and gaze at the splendour around them; many took picnics nearby, collected wild owers in the Hooker Valley, or made overnight excursions over rugged terrain to spend the night in the spartan corrugated-iron Ball Hut (at , feet) or the Malte Brun Hut (, feet). The high point of the day at the Hermitage was the
The Gifford party picnicking on the way to Ball Hut, with Chief Guide Peter Graham at left. , , 1⁄2
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evening dinner, when climbers returned and shared their adventures with those who had spent a more leisurely day. Both the alpine peaks and the Hermitage below were available only to those with time and money to spare. A Hermitage holiday was expensive: tourists who wished to climb up into the snow and ice paid a day for a guide and on the higher reaches. The round trip from Fairlie with a week’s stay at the Hermitage cost in , more than most New Zealanders could afford. Local South Islanders could all too easily feel that Mt Cook was accessible only to wealthy globetrotters.⁵ Long cycle trips were popular at this time and occasional visitors ventured this far, like a group of schoolteachers in who took a cycling tour from Fairlie to camp near the Hermitage, where they were permitted to buy bread and basic provisions from the kitchen.⁶ The rst Hermitage was built by the surveyor Frank Huddleston in as a base for climbing Mt Cook. There were one hundred unclimbed mountains in the South Island but Mt Cook was the supreme challenge – not only was it the highest peak in the Southern Alps, but the routes to its summit were longer than any in Switzerland. The rst attempt on the mountain had been made by a member of the English Alpine Club, Rev. Spotswood Green, who was foiled on the last stage by swirling mist. The construction of the Hermitage soon after this drew young members of the Canterbury gentry to make several attempts between and .⁷ But it was not until Christmas Day , after thunderstorms and thick fog had defeated other attempts earlier in the summer, that Tom Fyfe, a young, self-taught climber and experienced guide and explorer, led a team up a difficult new route to make the rst ascent of Mt Cook. The adventurous colonials received great acclaim for beating an Englishman’s intentions to be rst to the top, but too few other tourists came to the Hermitage below, and coach companies failed one after the other. The hotel was bought by the government and passed into the reluctant hands of the Lands Department in .⁸ On its establishment in the Department of Tourist and Health Resorts inherited the Hermitage, which was still a remote hideaway. Despite Donne’s enthusiasm, neither he nor B.M. Wilson, his successor, tackled this alpine resort with the intensity, research and long-term vision that had been applied to Rotorua’s purchase and development. The major initiatives in tourism in this region came from Rodolph Wigley, an entrepreneur who was unafraid of taking risks and hounded the Tourist Department over the next few years to ‘let private enterprise in’.⁹
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The rst Hermitage Hotel at Mt Cook, built in . , , 1⁄2
The Tourist Department was battling the odds in maintaining a hotel in the Southern Alps. The Hermitage was small and neglected, and the solitude, snow and wild landscape that gave the region its appeal became the bane of development plans. Through the rst decade of the twentieth century maintenance of the Hermitage remained minimal. The guides whom the Department employed for summer visitors spent their winter months maintaining the buildings, but heavy snows made construction work difficult and storms often destroyed the improvements. In the ground was frozen as hard as iron and Jack Clarke, Chief Guide, had to resort to the Klondyke method of burning huge res to thaw the earth so that he could lay foundations for outer buildings.¹⁰ The winter elements raged against the cob and tin buildings and
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the guides faced repeated repairs to leaking roofs and burst pipes. The hotel decayed further each year as its damp foundations drew water up into the walls. Clarke felt that the building could strip like paper and wrote, ‘It’s a wonder the old place stands’.¹¹ When Captain Dudley Alexander accompanied Lady Ranfurly and her party to the Hermitage in , he warned the Department about the past neglect of the place and suggested that the government needed to spend more if the district was to become a tourist asset. The ladies’ toilets were a disgrace, and there was no telephone within miles to make a holiday attractive for businessmen.¹² The Tourist Department publicised the Hermitage and attracted more visitors, but the hotel had only rooms. After visitors lled it in the / summer season, increases could be only gradual, from visitors over the whole season in / to in .¹³ The Department added a makeshift dormitory annex in , but this was too primitive for the class of visitors who came to the Hermitage. Wealthy travellers who came to enjoy an environment of spectacular wilderness expected comfort and amenities as well as adventure. Professor Baldwin Spencer from Melbourne
A horse-drawn passenger coach leaving the Hermitage, about . , , 1⁄2
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objected that a dormitory would not do; the prospect of being sidelined to the annex spoilt the anticipation of a holiday and would prevent him recommending Mt Cook to Australian friends.¹⁴ And even with the annex there was still a shortage of accommodation. Mt Cook’s distance from towns and railways made transporting building materials and food expensive, and deterred travellers from venturing so far. Whereas tourists were able to reach Rotorua quickly and comfortably by rail, a trip to Mt Cook involved a wearisome twoday journey by coach. This meant that, while people stayed at the Hermitage at Mt Cook in the / season, the railways delivered , passengers to Rotorua and others came by road.¹⁵ The -mile route from the railway station at Fairlie took visitors past splendid scenery – the turquoise water of Lake Tekapo and the chalky white of Lake Pukaki – but the last half of the road turned sharp corners and was strewn with boulders.¹⁶ A cheaper, faster route was essential. Settlers in Nelson and Canterbury, however, whose own needs had to be met, opposed the idea of new roading and bridging the wide Tasman River simply for the ease of tourists.¹⁷
‘Let private enterprise in’ A new era of transport began early in the morning of February , when Rodolph Wigley and John Rutherford left Timaru in two De Dion single-cylinder vehicles to make the rst motor-car expedition to Mt Cook. After a long day during which they ran over two dogs and blew all the tyres, they reached the Hermitage late at night. Their achievement inspired them on their next venture, a pioneering motor service from the railhead at Fairlie that would reduce the travelling time from two days to one each way. With the backing of friends, Wigley and Samuel Thornley formed a partnership as the Mt Cook Motor Car Service (later the Mt Cook Motor Company), probably the rst motor coach service in Australasia.¹⁸ The company bought four powerful Darracq service cars that could hold eight passengers and travel at miles per hour. They were painted Napier green with crimson trim and given brass mountings for a touch of style.¹⁹ Wigley’s publicity for the company was the rst of many attempts throughout his career to expand the range of people who would use tourist resorts and facilities. The service-car trip to Mt Cook was promoted as an easy weekend jaunt for people who wanted pleasure
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rather than exertion: ‘Many people, apparently, think that the region is one of ice, snow and cold, and that the only persons who can extract pleasure from it are Alpinists. But this is not so. No better health resort can be imagined, and for the Tourist who does not wish to go in for anything in the way of climbing, there are numerous and varied attractions.’²⁰ The journey could still be an ordeal, nevertheless. Chauffeurs found it difficult to erect the car hoods to protect travellers from dust, rain and wind, the road was no smoother than before, and the Mackenzie County Council was slow to bridge the creeks and rivers. When rivers changed course or silted up with debris, cars had to ford them and the engine could be ooded. Drivers kept carrier pigeons in the cars to send for assistance.²¹ With the motor service under way, the number of visitors to the Hermitage doubled in a year. Wigley found it difficult to run the company protably, however, especially as the tourist season lasted for only ve months over summer. And although the service cars were faster
The hp Darracq that inaugurated the motor service to Mt Cook. The veil on a woman’s hat could be pulled over her face as protection against the dust.
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Rodolph Wigley about the time he founded the Mt Cook Motor Car Service. He would become one of the most visionary of New Zealand’s twentiethcentury tourist developers.
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than the coach, they were more expensive to maintain; the rugged terrain meant terrible wear and tear and the cars required skilled repairs. Tyres blew out frequently and cost more than wages in the early days.²² Although it was subsidised by a mail contract, the Mt Cook Motor Car Service lost money in its rst year. Wigley requested the Tourist Department’s help, asking for an increased postal subsidy or permission to raise the fares so that he could continue in business, and suggesting the alternative of selling the motor service to the government.²³ Wigley expected a policy of reciprocity between government and private enterprise: he felt that the Department should appreciate the increase in tourist traffic to the Hermitage and help to speed tourists’ access. But he was tackling Ward’s government at the point when it was enmeshed in the expense of the Rotorua baths and determined to reduce spending on tourism. Donne opposed government purchase of the company and the alternative of a higher subsidy: ‘We cannot “buy” passengers to the Hermitage.’²⁴ After selling his share in the family estate, Wigley bought out the Motor Car Service’s shareholders and took over on his own.²⁵ Rodolph Wigley, ‘a big man in every way’, loved the outdoors and was condent of the potential of the Southern Alps region.²⁶ He was to spend the next fteen years struggling to inspire the government with his own zest for expansion. He began a long campaign to convince the government that it was useless for him to speed access to the Hermitage if guests were turned back when they arrived: it meant that both he and the government were losing customers. He asked the Tourist Department to provide an additional building so that a total of people could be accommodated. Donne had already asked the Public Works Department to plan a new Hermitage with beds, to cost ,. It would be sited at nearby Governors Bush, which had ne views of Mt Cook, more sunshine and better water supplies.²⁷ Donne examined photographs of ne buildings in the Canadian resorts of Agassiz and Banff, and planned a hotel built of stone in a rustic, picturesque style to t Mt Cook’s alpine surroundings. He wanted it to be ‘practically everlasting’ and inexpensive to maintain. ²⁸ The South Island press added weight to Wigley’s demands. As news of the luxury and cost of the near-completed Rotorua Bath House reached the public, the Christchurch Press and the Otago Daily Times protested that Dr Wohlmann’s inuence had dominated government policy and relegated the South Island to secondary status. While public
money had been ‘poured like water’ on Rotorua, the Hermitage was decaying and its access road was a ‘terror to visitors, and a disgrace to the Government’. Critics hoped the Tourist Department would recognise the magnitude of its responsibilities and the potential of tourist traffic through the whole country.²⁹ It was exactly this magnitude that unnerved both the Department and a government that had overspent at Rotorua. A second modern tourist development seemed extravagant. When the lowest tender for the construction of the new Hermitage came in at ,, Donne turned his back on a decade’s condent policy and advised James McGowan, the Minister, to call a halt. He recommended deferring the new Hermitage and spending a few hundred pounds to make minimal changes to the existing building: turning the annex dormitory into single and double rooms, which would provide no extra accommodation.³⁰ While Wigley was impatient, Ward was adamant, arguing that he needed to listen to calls for economy.³¹ Thomas Mackenzie, the next Minister, outlined modest alterations that would provide comfortable bedrooms and wholesome food.³² In , in a climate of growing stringency, the Department of Tourist and Health Resorts was integrated into a new Department of Agriculture, Commerce and Tourists. The whole idea of the government’s involvement in tourist accommodation was coolly appraised. F.S. Pope, Secretary of the Department, surveyed the revenue of the previous twelve months to see what tourist hotels were costing it. When this showed that most of the hotels and hostels were running at a loss, the Department decided to retain only those with the potential to be protable in the near future. It leased out the four most unprotable hostels – Te Puia, beside the thermal springs near Tokomaru Bay, Waikaremoana, deep in the Urewera, and Pukaki and Te Anau in the South Island. Glade House near Milford and the Waitomo Hostel were retained along with the Hermitage, which was showing a handsome prot. To continue to attract overseas tourists interested in the Southern Alps and Fiordland, it was vital to have the Hermitage and Glade House running superbly. If the Hermitage was released into private hands, the Department thought it unlikely that care would be taken to maintain the expert quality of alpine guides.³³ Although the Hermitage was regarded as a valuable asset, it was still cramped, and the manager, D. McDonald, complained that he had to make shake-downs in the bathrooms and the sitting-room.³⁴ But the
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Members of the McDonald family who staffed the Hermitage in this era of expansion. , 1⁄2
Minister was determined to spend only on improvements to the existing building while a new Hermitage remained a possibility.³⁵ Again Wigley was beside himself, for to run a successful motor service he needed expansion at the Hermitage so that he could co-ordinate passengers and beds. He complained that ‘we are trying to push the traffic forward but it is like knocking our heads against a brick wall.’ When Mackenzie suggested that tents be erected to cater for the overow of tourists in the summer of , Wigley and McDonald protested that these were useless in an exposed position vulnerable to violent storms.³⁶ Wigley felt more and more impatient with a government that was satised with the status quo, and complained: There is no system of working the guides, there is no push and not nearly enough interest taken in the place, nor will there ever be while the place
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is under the charge of salaried persons. A person directly interested could make a lot of Mt Cook for the Tourists. . . . I don’t want to cast a slight on present staff – for ordinary work they are very satisfactory. . . . But we want to get ahead of old times and push things along a bit.³⁷
He suggested that the government forget the new Hermitage and let him take over, or allow him to build at Ball Hut, to where he could divert a third of the Hermitage’s visitors. With a road through to Ball Hut, he could put tourists ‘right on the ice’. In frustration, he complained to Ward a few months later that it was ‘hard to be blocked for accommodation. Why won’t you let me build?’³⁸ With the Hermitage nancially successful, the government had no desire to give Wigley a foot in the door. His insistent claims for attention could be ignored no longer, however, and in January Cabinet approved modied sketch plans for a cheap new Hermitage. Although tenders had come in at , in , the spending limit was again set at ,.³⁹ Pope was aware that tourists had been cutting the Southern Alps out of their itineraries and pressed the Public Works Department to hasten construction. Vital decisions on materials and the installation of electricity held up the work each season, and progress was slow.⁴⁰ Construction was limited to the summer months when the road was open, and even in summer the weather could be atrocious. Labourers were reluctant to work in such an isolated setting and often left the job, and it was particularly difficult to entice plasterers and carpenters so far from settled towns. In December the foundations were down, but snow was falling and the machine for making concrete blocks had not arrived.⁴¹ At the same time Pope visited the site and found that the original plans had been considerably altered. While the new Hermitage would hold more visitors, the dining room was smaller than the old one. Mt Cook visitors were very hungry, he wrote, and could not be served in relays. Visitors who were shown the plans in condence commented that ‘only emaciated waitresses’ would t between the tables. The site at Governors Bush gave a superb view of Mt Cook, yet there was no glassed-in verandah from which tourists could enjoy the spectacle. Wet clothes were a feature of Hermitage life and staff could not continue hanging them in the kitchen to dry. An outhouse was inadequate for drying tourists’ boots and puttees. A modern hotel needed a drying room, an equipment room, and more rooms for staff and guides. Pope
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The new Hermitage opened in February . , 1⁄4
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was scathing. The new Hermitage would bring dissatisfaction and even ridicule, he said.⁴² After alterations to the plans, the new Hermitage took two more years to construct. In the completion of a road from Queenstown brought more tourist traffic to Mt Cook, and by tourists in the old Hermitage were sleeping on the oor, in the guides’ rooms and even in the linen cupboard.⁴³ When the Hooker River ooded in January and March , huge blocks of ice, moraine and sludge swirled around the Hermitage and the annex collapsed. Carpenters were needed to dismantle it, and building slowed once again. Wigley became de facto overseer, pressing the Department for decisions on electricity so that work could continue through the winter, and urging supplies of furniture so the new building could open in late to catch as many tourists as possible.⁴⁴ The new era at Mt Cook began in February , when the new room Hermitage replaced the old patchwork of buildings. Although
the stone exterior originally planned had been replaced by rough-cast concrete blocks, the Timaru Herald welcomed the hotel as ‘striking and substantial for a wild region’.⁴⁵ The horseshoe design allowed for future extensions at the rear. Gardens, tennis courts and a croquet lawn were planned to make the hotel more welcoming to a wider range of tourists. Only a few traditionalists felt nostalgia for the homeliness of the original hotel; they dreaded the tourist crowds and litter that would appear, and disdained the tennis courts and golf-links that would transform the place into ‘a fashionable resort . . . where you will play about in pretty clothes’.⁴⁶ With the rivers between Fairlie and the Hermitage nally bridged and the Mt Cook Motor Company service running efficiently, more tourists began to arrive. People enjoyed the comfort of the new Hermitage and the vista surrounding it; ‘every visitor’, claimed B.M. Wilson, who had become General Manager when the Tourist and Health Department was re-established in , ‘became an enthusiastic advertising medium’.⁴⁷ By he was condent that the inux of tourists was only just beginning and the new Hermitage would soon be expanded.
‘The best type of the colonial men’ One of the chief attractions of the Hermitage was the quality of the guides employed by the Tourist Department. They were a team of t, handsome young men, suntanned and adventurous, resourceful and adapatable – ‘the best type of . . . colonial men’.⁴⁸ The rst guide employed by the Department was Jack Clarke, an expert climber with experience in Europe, and a cultured man, condent in dealing with visitors from around the world. In he was joined by Peter Graham, a young West Coaster who had been invited to work at the Hermitage after showing Donne the way onto the Franz Josef Glacier.⁴⁹ Graham became Chief Guide in and within a few years was the star of the Hermitage. His stature, good looks, dark eyes and ease with women heightened the resort’s appeal to female visitors. He had taken advantage of the off-season periods, when he was directed to help at the Tourist Department Head Office in Wellington, to benet from the more sophisticated environment of the capital, visiting families like the von Haasts whom he had met at the Hermitage.⁵⁰ In their homes he learnt the arts of conversation and developed a passion for opera,
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Tourist Department guides at Mt Cook, about . Back row (from left): Alf Cowling, Jock Richmond, Jack Lippe, Charlie Milne and Frank Milne; front: Darby Thomson and Peter Graham. , 1⁄2
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and in turn became a more condent host on the mountains. Above all, he was an expert climber, a good planner and skilled at assessing risk. When Lieutenant Tryggve Gran visited Mt Cook on his way home from the British Antarctic Expedition, he told the press that ‘with a man like Peter Graham, climbers could go anywhere’.⁵¹ Graham drew a team of able young men from the West Coast to join him in an arduous job. Alpine guiding required huge stamina, for guides did all the heavy work, swagging the tents, food and equipment and hacking steps in the ice to ease the climbers’ route. Both Peter Graham and his brother, Alec, became legendary for their swift axe work.⁵² Guides explored new mountain routes, led ambitious, experienced alpinists and introduced new climbers to alpine work through a series of graduated climbs. Their job required tact as well as outdoor
skills, for they had to walk a ne line between leading their clients and retaining the deference of employees. They refused to bow to visitors’ desire to ‘bag’ a speedy succession of peaks, and as a result New Zealand became famous for the rarity of its alpine accidents. The guides also took care of every aspect of the tourists’ outdoor welfare, inspecting boots and clothing, introducing them to bird life, alpine owers and the geology of glaciers, boiling the billy and serving packed lunches, entertaining visitors with anecdotes and sharing their own love of the Southern Alps.⁵³ Tourist Department guides were not permitted to conne their work to accompanying serious alpinists, as was the practice in Switzerland, but had to divide their time between high, interesting ascents and brief excursions with ordinary tourists. Often this meant leading expeditions onto glaciers to give visitors their rst experience of ice and a feel for mountain crevasses. Nor could the guides be monopolised by one client; even renowned climbers had to cool their heels on ne days while experienced guides like Darby Thomson and Peter Graham took newcomers on excursions to the Tasman Glacier. An eccentric, individualistic climber like the Englishman Samuel Turner was easily offended if expert guides were not available to accompany him for weeks at a time. Turner was highly competitive and, in his determination to be the rst to conquer virgin peaks, tackled over two dozen South Island summits between and . He felt jealous of the attention Peter Graham gave to all-comers, and especially young women. He tested the New Zealand rules by offering to pay tips to the Department’s guides who worked for him, partly to induce them to take high climbs rather than helping tourist parties onto the glaciers, and to reward them if adventurous climbs were successful. Turner’s demands provoked Peter Graham to defend the principles that underpinned the Tourist Department’s system of mountain guiding. The Hermitage was a resort where all climbers and visitors were treated equally and fairly, and staff refused money when it was offered for their kindness.⁵⁴ It was natural for climbers to give a present to guides who shared the excitement of a whole season’s holiday, but Graham strongly opposed tips. If they became customary it would lower the quality of the guiding staff, who would come to expect rewards and favour those who rewarded them best. Graham was also a loyal employee who knew that the Department was not only interested in the glamour of high climbs, for sightseers provided far more revenue.⁵⁵
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Freda du Faur with Alec (left) and Peter Graham, photographed after her ascent of Mt Cook in . , 1⁄2
The egalitarian atmosphere at Mt Cook and the need to cope with all-comers also encouraged women climbers. From its earliest years the Tourist Department had applauded women who climbed or trekked into the region – often they were the wives or sisters of mountaineers.⁵⁶ Mrs Lindon, a teacher and wife of the headmaster of Geelong Grammar School in Victoria, was one of several women who undertook a series of high climbs. The camaraderie between the sexes contributed to the success of Freda du Faur, the nest alpinist to visit New Zealand in this period. Du Faur was drawn to the Southern Alps by panoramic paintings the Tourist Department displayed at the Christchurch Exhibition in
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, and by photographs by the West Coast climbers Dr Teichelmann and the Rev. Newton. She set off immediately to satisfy her ‘snowstarved Australian soul’ and, from her rst glimpse, the Southern Alps became her passion. She could climb ‘like a blessed cat’ and ourished in an environment where women visitors were encouraged to take to the mountain tracks and the ice of the glaciers, and to do whatever they proved capable of. ⁵⁷ From to Freda du Faur achieved a remarkable series of ascents. Fine weather, her agility and cool-headedness, and Peter Graham’s competence contributed to her successes. In she not only became the rst woman to climb Mt Cook, but reached the summit and returned in record time. In she completed the rst traverse of the three peaks of Mt Cook, along a ridge like a knife-edge. She went on to make the rst traverse of Mt Sefton and to climb two virgin peaks. The Tourist Department applauded her successes in the summer of ,
The Malte Brun Hut, built above Tasman Glacier in , had ten bunks, four for women and six for men. It was used as a base for alpinists making high ascents, and for Hermitage guests willing to ‘rough it’ to get higher into the mountains. Visitors would ride on horseback to Ball Hut, then tramp to Malte Brun and stay overnight, taking walks and playing in the snow. , /
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which ‘caused quite a sensation among those interested in alpine work. Miss Du Faur has the distinction of having performed the biggest alpine expedition yet accomplished in the history of climbing in the New Zealand Alps.’⁵⁸ Du Faur not only broke records, but also broke with convention by climbing alone with a guide and without a chaperone. Her behaviour contributed to the idea that a tourist resort, even one as élite as Mt Cook, was a place to escape from the proprieties of ordinary life. She also hoped to demonstrate that an adventurous life was not a masculine prerogative. After successful ascents she made a point of wearing her nest dress to the Hermitage for dinner to show that climbing did not detract from a woman’s femininity. In the years following her exploits many of the high ascents in the Southern Alps were undertaken by single women, including Dorothy Theomin, Miss Holdsworth and Miss Chambers.⁵⁹ Du Faur enjoyed the publicity her fame brought her, and in turn helped to publicise the Southern Alps. The Tourist Department lmed her posing as a heroine in alpine scenery for an excitement-loving public, and her own colourful accounts were published in the New Zealand press and in the prestigious Australian journal The Lone Hand. Her own long story of her conquests in New Zealand was published in England in , although its impact was limited by the more over-riding concerns of war.⁶⁰ Her failure to be accepted into the male establishment of the English Alpine Club a few years later was a shock after the companionship of guides and alpinists, and men and women, at Mt Cook.
‘The very luxury of motion’ Alpine climbing was not for everyone, and from the new sport of skiing looked as though it would contribute to the popular appeal of the Hermitage. Before this the nearest pleasure to skiing was glissading, when people simply stood on a slope – or sat, legs in the air – and spun downhill trying to steer an exhilarating, giddy course with their ice-axes. Even serious climbers loved this thrill. In an early guide book for the Tourist Department, James Cowan wrote of the appeal of ying like this down a steep slope after the slow, weary plod uphill: ‘It is one of the thrilling sports of the Alps – the very luxury of motion.’⁶¹ In Wilson saw the Mueller Glacier as an ideal spot for skiing and hoped that, with a decent hut there, a new resort could be devel-
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oped that would ease the crowding at the Hermitage.⁶² Both he and Wigley were keen to develop the sport as an inducement for tourists to come earlier in the season, for the chief nancial disadvantage of the Southern Alps as a tourist resort was the brevity of the summer season, which usually began in late November. Skiing in October would extend that. A Canadian mountain climber, Otto Frind, visited Mt Cook in and saw the potential for skiing there, but Wilson must have been aiming at New Zealanders rather than international visitors. He realised that the cost of access to Mt Cook was still an immeasurable obstacle for ordinary workers. The South Island lacked the infrastructure of railways which had enabled the Canadian Alpine Club to popularise alpine holidays.⁶³ These were early days for the development of commercial ski resorts; even in the Rockies skiing was just becoming a community activity. In New Zealand it was also going to be difficult to overturn the notion that summer was the time to go on holiday. Wilson recognised that ‘with the exception of a few odd parties . . . New Zealanders . . . are not keen on leaving their homes during the winter months’.⁶⁴ In Tourist Department guides built the Mueller Hut near the Mueller Glacier. This was the highest of the huts and would become the base for at least sixteen high ascents; it also made a splendid site for skiing. On the Mueller Glacier you could take a -mile run ‘without shifting a foot’.⁶⁵ Wilson encouraged Peter Graham to put on an alpine sports display at the opening of the ski slope in October . The Tourist Department intended to produce a lm of this for Graham to take to Australia when he went to inspect the Kosciusko resort in the Snowy Mountains.⁶⁶
Calamity and war World War I soon blighted the beginnings of skiing, halted extensions to the Hermitage and threatened the profession of guiding. The outbreak of war in August meant that the rst display of alpine sports in New Zealand was cancelled. Undeterred by government caution, Wigley advertised the opening of the ski season nationwide, but the alpine playground atmosphere had already been dimmed not only by war but by the rst fatalities on Mt Cook. On February the English climber Sydney King and two senior guides, Darby Thomson and Jock Richmond, were engulfed by an avalanche on their way back from a successful ascent. King was a member of the English and Swiss alpine clubs,
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a daring and experienced alpinist who had climbed many European peaks. Thomson and Richmond were West Coasters who had followed Peter Graham into a life of guiding. Thomson was an experienced, popular guide and his death was a huge personal blow to Graham. Richmond was only and had been two years in the Alps; he had been promoted to high climbs because of the increasing number of visitors. He was quiet and gentlemanly, ‘as attentive as a woman’ in the care of his clients. The tragedy was also a blow to the reputation of the Hermitage, which was popular partly because of the safety record of its guides.⁶⁷ Memorialising the dead was a new experience in the Southern Alps. Climbers who died in the Swiss Alps received no memorial on the mountains, and visitors such as Otto Frind thought New Zealand should follow that tradition. Peter Graham was disheartened by the lack of status granted to his staff and insisted that they be honoured. His plea was supported by Dorothy Theomin and members of ‘Peter’s Ladies Admiration Club’, as Frind termed them.⁶⁸ The Tourist Department (with nancial support from the Dunedin Memorial Committee) built the Haast Memorial Hut to commemorate the disaster. Set on a ridge , feet high, it was a wonderful site for both sightseers and high climbers. Erecting the hut presented a more difficult challenge than any of the huts the Department had constructed, and the Public Works Department had to offer double pay to persuade labourers to lug tons of material up a rugged route.⁶⁹ A cairn commemorated all three men, the upper-class Englishman and the two young New Zealanders together. The death of two experienced guides was a serious loss to the guiding capacity of the Hermitage, and it was difficult to get staff for strenuous alpine work because adventurous men were enlisting for the front. Four young guides, ‘the very nest type of humanity’ in Wilson’s words, left the Hermitage to join the New Zealand Expeditionary Force. One of this group died in the Dardanelles, one was severely wounded, and another caught tuberculosis and died a few years later. Peter Graham could not manage all the high expeditions single-handed, and the Department agreed to invite Conrad Kain, Chief Guide of the Canadian Alpine Club, to instruct the younger guides.⁷⁰ The heightened emotions of wartime brought anything with a connotation of German identity into disrepute. Throughout New Zealand street and personal names were changed to avoid censure; even someone as well known as Dr Wohlmann, the esteemed Rotorua bal-
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Public Works Department labourers carried more than tons of building materials up the Haast Ridge to build the Haast Hut in the summer of –. The hut commemorated three climbers killed in an avalanche in . , 1⁄2
neologist, took on his mother’s maiden name of Herbert. The Tourist Department’s promotion of the new Hermitage and the Southern Alps soon attracted attacks from people who were dismayed by the Germanic avour of the region’s most striking features, with names like the Hochstetter Icefall, the Haast Pass, Franz Josef Glacier, Mt Lendenfeld and the Mueller Glacier. The Tourist Department faced further criticism when it showed a lm of the Southern Alps in . The lm opened with a shot of the Unser Fritz Waterfall (‘Our Fritz’), which seemed scandalously inappropriate. Audiences were disconcerted when the splendid scenes that followed were marred by the catalogue of German names.⁷¹ Under attack, the Department removed these and described
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alpine sights in phrases such as ‘the glacier beside the Hermitage’. Its annual reports remained contentious throughout the war, for it was hard to describe tourist activity without peppering reports with unwelcome German names, although by the war’s end Wilson was deleting these from the Department’s other publications as well.⁷² There was even a call to rename the Southern Alps. The strongest advocate of change was Frederick Chapman, a Supreme Court judge, who had lost his favourite son on a battleeld in Europe and called for the area’s name to reect the independent nature of the country: ‘This country is surely our own: we strive to maintain it pure and national’. ⁷³ There were discussions about replacing the names with those of Maori gures, Pakeha heroes or British soldiers. H.F. von Haast entered the fray, strongly opposing changing the identity of a region his father had named in honour of nineteenth-century explorers and an international community of scientists, who symbolised co-operation rather than aggression.⁷⁴ Wilson’s customary caution was an advantage on this issue. He held out for sanity against hysteria and convinced the Minister of Tourist and Health Resorts that there would be great confusion if geographical names were changed whenever the Empire went to war.⁷⁵ Wartime cutbacks had curtailed any hopes of extending the Hermitage or making the Southern Alps attractive to a broader range of tourists. For a grand alpine lodge, the amenities were not yet good enough. Electricity had not yet been installed, heating was inadequate, and visitors often returned from walks to contemplate a cold bath. The Department reneged on the plans to construct lawn tennis courts and croquet greens for the pleasure of people who tired of walking every day.⁷⁶ It had also intended to construct rock gardens beside the hotel with examples of New Zealand alpine owers and varieties imported from Switzerland and the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew.⁷⁷ Sir Robert Heaton Rhodes, the Minister from to in the new Reform government, was an enthusiastic supporter of Mt Cook and sent his own head gardener to check the Department’s layout of the Hermitage grounds. His initiative was stalled because of the need for rigorous economy in his Department’s budget. He atoned for this by presenting eleven sackfuls of his own daffodil bulbs to make a bold display on the grassy slopes near Ball Hut.⁷⁸ Rhodes could do little, however, to provide more accommodation at the Hermitage, which had been crowded as soon as it opened, with
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people sometimes sleeping three to a room. Wigley still hoped for expansion and argued that, even in wartime, the government needed to prepare for the future. Rhodes was unsympathetic and the policy of cutbacks continued.⁷⁹ The next Minister of Tourist and Health Resorts, Robert McNab, refused Wigley’s offer to lease the Hermitage in .⁸⁰ Meanwhile the whole district suffered neglect: huts decayed and tracks became overgrown and impassable.
‘Government must get out’ By the end of the war, the protability of the cramped Hermitage had ended. This had been the most successful of the government’s hotels, but losses increased from in the / season to in /. Although tourist numbers were up, the war was followed by ination, so that the costs of freight and subsidies for Wigley’s Mt Cook Motor Company were rising.⁸¹ When it was suggested in Parliament that the state should rid itself of the burden of the Hermitage, the government remained adamant that it was not going to hand this hotel over to private enterprise.⁸² Instead William Nosworthy, the new Minister, demanded an increase in the Hermitage’s tariff from to shillings a night. Wilson persuaded him that this would exclude teachers and civil servants who saved hard for a Mt Cook holiday, and as a compromise the tariff was set at a night, with children charged at the adult rate because their appetites tended to be large.⁸³ Other economy measures included better book-keeping methods, the appointment of a new clerk and improvements in the poultry run. But these were small and the insuperable problem of the brevity of the season remained: the hotel could not be protable when it was open for half the year or less. Nosworthy suggested extending the season until May, although experiments in to encourage skiing had shown that people were too apprehensive of bad weather to make late-season bookings. The fate of the Hermitage was governed by the bitter cold and storms of its region. The Department tried an October opening again in , instructing its agents to highlight this.⁸⁴ It also publicised Mt Cook as a national attraction with advertisements in the Otago Daily Times, Dunedin’s Evening Star and city cinemas. But the early s were tough years for New Zealand – a foretaste of the Depression to come. The Hermitage’s losses increased to , in / and , in /.⁸⁵
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A new look for a new era: tourists on the Tasman Glacier in the s, when Rodolph Wigley took over the Hermitage. , /
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By this time public feeling supported change at the Hermitage. One South Island member of Parliament argued that ‘Government must get out and let private enterprise in’. The Timaru Herald pointed to the dilemma of the Hermitage: with its short season, it was not only too expensive for the government to run but also too expensive for ordinary New Zealanders to stay at. The newspaper supported charging high tariffs for ‘the gilded tourist’, but did not see how New Zealanders could pay shillings a night on top of tips, guide fees, equipment hire and the cost of travelling there and back. The dilemma remained, and ‘so a beautiful hostelry in a grand and impressive spot becomes half the year a white elephant, and a holiday that ought to be a wild joy from the rst hour to the last is half the time a nagging anxiety’.⁸⁶ In March Wigley renewed his efforts to take over the hotel. In July the government considered letting the Hermitage go the way
of the smaller hostels it had leased out, and called for tenders. There were protests from people with a long history in the mountains – men like Peter Graham and A. Harper – that if the government withdrew the quality of guides would not be maintained, accidents would be more likely, and alpine ora and fauna would no longer be protected.⁸⁷ Conditions to prevent such eventualities were incorporated into the leasehold contract. Wilson wrote to his agent in Sydney to compare the viability of the Hermitage and the Hotel Kosciusko, which the New South Wales government owned in the Snowy Mountains. The Kosciusko resort had the advantage of bedrooms and an all-year season, yet the Australian experience was discouraging. Since the hotel had been expected to become a viable enterprise, but the resort had been losing money steadily and the New South Wales government intended to lease it to private interests.⁸⁸ Its losses affirmed the New Zealand government’s view that the Hermitage was unlikely to become protable. Wigley was granted a ve-year lease on September . The management staff and guides found positions elsewhere. When Peter Graham left to join his brother Alec in the hotel at Franz Josef, after years’ guiding at Mt Cook, Wilson called this ‘a deep loss to the government of New Zealand’.⁸⁹ Wigley inherited a remote hotel with bedrooms that was closed for most of the winter. While takings for January were ,, those in for June had been nil, July s, August nil, September s. Electricity had not yet been installed – Wigley’s wife called the hotel ‘a cow of a place’ in winter.⁹⁰ But at last Wigley had the chance he had longed for: to integrate transport and accommodation, develop skields, extend the alpine season and attract all kinds of New Zealanders to Mt Cook.
In Wilson told Donne that the Tourist Department was ‘jogging along quietly, though things are not as good as they might be’.⁹¹ Nothing could be further in tone from the dynamism of the Department of Tourist and Health Resorts in its pioneering years. At the turn of the century Donne’s enthusiasm and Joseph Ward’s commercial opportunism had led the government to open up tourism, but Donne’s shift to London in and Ward’s loss of power in had slowed the
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impetus. The Department had also lost the ingenuity and air of men like Camille Malfroy and Arthur Wohlmann, who had helped develop tourism in Rotorua. A slow but steady downhill slide meant that fewer overseas visitors arrived in New Zealand in than in .⁹² The only visionary gure in the era of development at Mt Cook was Rodolph Wigley, and he was frequently frustrated with government caution and wartime constraints. The nancial fears of and then wartime priorities froze government investment just when the new Hermitage was being built and the signicance of South Island tourism was on the rise. Financial caution shifted government policy from an early entrepreneurial vision of creating ne tourist attractions to a reluctance to do anything more than minimal maintenance. Moreover, without Donne’s condent leadership, the Tourist Department no longer felt it could do everything. The management of the freshwater sheries at Rotorua was transferred to the Department of Internal Affairs in . By several government hostels, as well as the Hermitage itself, had been leased to private enterprise. Tourism was not the easy route to national wealth that had been envisaged at the end of the nineteenth century. The extremes of landscape which made both Rotorua and Mt Cook magical tourist regions also made it tricky to instal permanent tourist facilities: the storms of the Southern Alps proved to be as difficult to counter as the corrosive steam of Rotorua’s thermal district. A tourist resort needed to be easily reached and open all year round. The government was still not grasping the nettle of the costs involved in expanding the tourist industry or recognising that spectacular scenery was not enough. The problems of inaccessibility, inhospitable terrain, weather, and the tourist industry’s vulnerability in times of war and depression would dog the government and tourist entrepreneurs for decades. The year marked the apparent end of a long battle between Rodolph Wigley and the Tourist and Health Resorts Department. The expansion of the Hermitage had really begun with Wigley’s pioneering motor trip in . In the ensuing years his vision of Mt Cook as a national tourist resort was checked by the government’s reluctance to expand the Hermitage and huts to accommodate all-comers. While most of these visitors were from Timaru, Christchurch and Dunedin, by per cent were coming from overseas.⁹³ With the lease of the Hermitage in his hand, Wigley now faced the opportunity the
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government had been unable to pursue: to make Mt Cook into a popular, all-season tourist resort. Condent that he could transform its prospects, he sent Wilson an ebullient note with the cheque for the rst six-monthly payment of his lease: ‘Please cash it gently and spill a little champagne across the corner’.⁹⁴
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Sunday winter excursionists revel in their rst experience of alpine snow, Otira Gorge, . AUCKLAND WEEKLY NEWS,
The Romance of Rail
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people crowded onto two trains which were heading out of Christchurch Railway Station for Otira Gorge and a day in the Southern Alps. On board were none of the serious alpinists and wealthy New Zealanders who could afford a holiday at the more distant, sophisticated Mt Cook. These passengers were Christchurch factory workers and their families, office girls, shop girls and clerks, most of them dressed as if for church – the men in jackets and hats, the women in coats, cloche hats and the stocky high heels of the s. Many of them had not had the opportunity to visit the mountains before the opening of the Otira Tunnel made Christchurch the only city in New Zealand where an excursion to the mountains could be made in a single day. A Sunday trip was a boon for people who were kept close to work
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on weekdays and Saturday mornings and whose holidays were few and far between. Large advertisements in the newspapers offered an escape from town for a few hours’ refreshment in the mountain air and the chance to see forests, waterfalls and glistening snowy peaks on a country jaunt that was promised to be better than any tonic. People had booked ahead to avoid a bustle at each end and, as the guards shed their official workday demeanour, the Sunday outing took on a festive air.¹ The two trains took travellers across the Canterbury Plains, stopping for morning tea at Springeld, then winding up the serpentine track into the mountains over gorges and gullies, offering eeting glimpses of dramatic scenery. The Railways Traffic Officer from Christchurch accompanied the passengers to point out features of the landscape and explain the engineering feats required to construct the Otira Tunnel. It had taken three attempts and miles of tunnelling into mountain rock to produce the longest rail tunnel in the British Empire and the seventhlongest in the world – surpassed only by alpine tunnels in Switzerland, Italy and Austria.² At Arthur’s Pass, miles from Christchurch and near the crest of the divide between Canterbury and Westland, passengers could complete the trip by rail through the tunnel or alight and take a -mile walk over the pass. Nearly all the excursionists, elderly people as well as younger adults and children, chose to walk over the old coach road, where the company of a railway guide ensured their safety and the views were spectacular. The torrent of the Otira River plunged beside the road and snow glistened on Mt Rolleston, , feet high, with Bealey Glacier on its ank. After their exhilarating three-hour walk people felt proud of making the crossing. On this Sunday the Railways ran a train from Greymouth to Otira so that Christchurch people could join friends and family from the West Coast.³ The Greymouth Municipal Band played at Otira; visitors picked wild owers or bought bunches at the railway stations, and lunched at the Refreshment Rooms. In the evening the travellers caught the train back through the cool, well-ventilated tunnel, and were returned to the city by nine.⁴ Next year the Sunday excursions were extended into winter. In June more than travelled in steam-heated carriages to Otira for their rst experience of the thrills of winter sport and the chance to play in the snow of the mountains. The whole landscape was decked in white, and rst-time skiers created a carefree atmosphere – strangers threw snowballs at each other, and no introductions were necessary. Without
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ski runs or tows, people tried out skiing and crowded onto toboggans on the steep embankments, crashing into spectators scattered along the road below.⁵ Fires warmed the travellers in the station waiting-rooms and a hot grill was ready for those who reached Otira. When the churches protested against this style of enjoyment – ‘a riot of pleasuring’ that infringed upon the duties of the Sabbath – an excursionist explained what it meant for ordinary New Zealanders to see their own country: ‘Why, being amongst the mountains is the only way to grasp them, and realise why God made our country so beautiful. . . . when some-one gets a chance occasionally to get away from this humdrum existence in town he should be encouraged, not barred’. Within a few years Sunday excursion travel was so successful that the Railways brought feeder trains from other districts to join the main line, and transported , people a year from Christchurch into the wilderness of Arthur’s Pass and Otira.⁶ The Railways Department was democratising the outdoors by making it possible for thousands of ordinary people to enjoy the country. City workers had gained the means to reach special places – but in doing so they changed them, ‘trampling the prime nature of the region’.⁷ The highlight of a visit to the country was the chance to gather owers and take them home; day-trippers did the same in the wild-ower regions of Western Australia. But while the ideal of ‘nature for all’ was strong in Canterbury, conservationists and Otira Gorge locals were appalled at the sight of day-trippers carrying off quantities of wild owers and stripping the mountain slopes of the blaze of late summer rata. One long-time resident, Grace Adams, recounted local indignation against the depredations of outsiders: A wonderful thing [the excursions] were too; except that afterwards the road over the Gorge would be strewn with ferns, branches, moss, orchids – just abandoned. People would pick far more than they could carry, or else see better things and drop what they had, or as the day wore on, throw aside their huge bouquets of wilting lilies or daisies. . . . Guy had a row with Otira folk who were regularly coming up there to get the early rata owers. They’d bring axes and chop down mature trees along the road-edge, just for the few top sprigs, which they’d later sell to tourists on the railway station.⁸
In response to this behaviour, a group of conservationists and outdoor enthusiasts pushed for national park status for the Arthur’s Pass
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This train is taking passengers from Timaru to link up with Sunday excursion trains from Christchurch to Otira Gorge. , , ,
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reserve to guarantee some kind of supervision. They succeeded when the Public Reserves, Domains and National Parks Act formalised the principles of protection and development in Arthur’s Pass and established the Arthur’s Pass National Park Board in .⁹ However, the new Board was hamstrung by lack of funding. It was refused the for subsidy it expected from the government and had to rely on a meagre a year income from deer licences and small rents. The Railways Department felt that, having opened up the district and provided most of the publicity, it should not be asked to contribute further and declined the Board’s request that it add a levy to rail fares to provide a subsidy for park development.¹⁰ The Tourist Department also refused appeals for assistance. This meant that developing the park as a holiday resort and protecting the ora was almost impossible. Although occasional overseas tourists took the trans-alpine railway and were amazed by the rata, the screeching river and the mountains, the development of national parks was not yet a consistent part of tourist policy.
‘See Your Own Country’ The Railways Department was to do far more than the Tourist Department in the s to foster a spirit of travel among ordinary people and popularise a wide variety of resorts. The popularity of Sunday rail excursions marked the success of a vision that was bred of desperation. From , the New Zealand Railways shared the plight of railways in the United States, Australia and Britain (and to a lesser extent Canada) which saw millions of pounds of past investment being wasted as motor cars revolutionised transport.¹¹ Cars were convenient for passengers who wanted to reach their destination quickly, travel according to their own timetable and enjoy a sense of social prestige. By New Zealand was one of the world’s most motorised countries, with one motor vehicle for every eight adults.¹² As the Minister of Railways, Gordon Coates was determined to minimise the losses caused by motor-car competition and led the Department in an aggressive shift of policy to create new customers. The experimental Otira Sunday outings were part of a comprehensive project to develop new railway traffic. Soon excursion trains took people from Ohakune to the Waitomo Caves, from Auckland to Helensville or on the new line up to the Bay of Islands, from Christchurch to the golden sands of Caroline Bay, from Morrinsville to Waihi and in
Increasing numbers of New Zealanders explored the country by car in the s. This party is taking a summer tour around Lake Waikaremoana. AUCKLAND WEEKLY NEWS,
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other directions. The new services were ourished on hoardings at every station and in full-page newspaper advertisements and cinema promotions with the words ‘Do not deny yourself ’ the chance to see the countryside.¹³ The Department’s Advertising Branch produced a set of colourful, original lino-cut posters, cheaply printed.¹⁴ Early in the s these advertised Russell, Rotorua and Queenstown, and later series included Otira, the Remarkables, Franz Josef, Hanmer, Te Aroha, Helensville, Waitomo, and the Hermitage and Mt Cook. These scenic posters were placed on large billboards at a sequence of railway stations so that passengers caught glimpses of a series of different resorts as they travelled.¹⁵ As motor cars became more popular, Coates adopted a exible approach of ‘if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em’ and began arguing for co-operation with motor traffic rather than outright competition.¹⁶ He took advantage of the New Zealand and South Seas Exhibition in Dunedin in (which was expected to attract over two million people) to persuade visitors to the south to extend their holiday and travel further. The Railways Department worked in tandem with hire companies to initiate a raft of South Island round-trips by rail, road and steamer. Routes were designed from Dunedin to Wakatipu, Wanaka, Manapouri and Te Anau; to Queenstown and through to the Franz Josef and Fox glaciers; and from Christchurch out to Akaroa, and north to Nelson. North Islanders were encouraged to cross to Christchurch via Picton, Blenheim and Kaikoura, or Nelson, the Buller Gorge and Greymouth. The number of routes provided a dazzling choice for travellers. This era marked a turning-point in the opening-up of travel as rail and motor transport vied to make seeing the country a pleasurable possibility for everyone. In the largest promotion of excursions the Railways Department had ever undertaken, booklets were sent not only to newspapers and tourist bureaux, but to Chambers of Commerce, schools, local progress leagues and delegates of organisations attending the exhibition. They helped to popularise regions and sights the Tourist Department had nearly ignored. To extend the traditional period of holiday travel, another , booklets were produced to promote the winter season in Westland – ‘the most invigorating time to travel South’. A year later, small promotional cards were placed in leading hotels.¹⁷ In Coates returned from overseas armed with more schemes from North America and Britain to help the stricken Railways battle the popularity
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of cars. Passenger agents were established in the main centres to inuence people to take the train and to link international visitors with the rail network. These agents welcomed tourists arriving from overseas, helped them with their luggage, framed itineraries and made their train bookings.¹⁸ Another boost to the idea of New Zealanders exploring their own country came when the Publicity Office of the Department of Internal Affairs experimented with the production of a black and white travelogue called Glorious New Zealand. The early use of lm as a means of advertising ‘was almost a revolution in itself ’ in an era when lms meant silent movies, glamour, romance, melodrama and slapstick. ‘To use lm for showing real life, even if it were only scenic life, was not a step forward, it was a leap, especially in New Zealand, where a lm was essentially an imported marvel.’¹⁹ The Publicity Office claimed to be creating a national spirit and a keener appreciation of New Zealand’s beauty, as well as stimulating tourist traffic to benet the Railways and reverse the lop-sided nature of tourist activity. For while New Zealanders spent . million on overseas travel a year, visitors spent only , in New Zealand.²⁰ Under the leadership of A.H. Messenger, head of the Publicity Office, a group of young photographers spliced together movie shots of scenic centres interspersed with Messenger’s written commentary. The scenes ranged widely, opening with New Zealand’s territories – the palm trees and dancers of Western Samoa and the icy chill of the Ross Dependency – and then itted from Auckland’s Queen Street to Northland’s subtropical orchards, the Whanganui River, Mt Cook, Stewart Island, Tongariro, Egmont, Whakarewarewa, Queenstown, Franz Josef and Waitomo. Film showings of Glorious New Zealand were incorporated into a publicity campaign with the slogan ‘See Your Own Country’. At each session cards were handed out for viewers to ll in the addresses of friends overseas who might like to receive information booklets. The Prime Minister encouraged every New Zealander to attend, and the Education Department allowed school parties to see the lm during school hours as part of their geography course. Glorious New Zealand was a popular success, drawing , Aucklanders to viewings in its rst week. Critics noted the quick switches from place to place, which bore no relationship to a traveller’s route, and the lm’s nale, where glimpses of World War I battle scenes clashed oddly with the preceding scenic beauties. But the lm aroused strong patriotic feelings. The Christchurch Sun described
One of the Railways brochures that encouraged visitors to the South Seas Exhibition in Dunedin in / to extend their tour by rail, steamer and motor car. , , / /, .
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everybody at the Liberty Theatre as feeling proud of being a New Zealander as they viewed ‘our rst national lm’.²¹
‘We make merry in a thousand ways’ After winning the lease of the Hermitage in , Rodolph Wigley became another force in breaking down the traditional barriers to holidaying in New Zealand. In his attempts to make the Hermitage and the Mt Cook Motor Company nancially successful, he used similar methods to the Railways to popularise travel. Wigley aimed to encourage an ethos of pleasure-seeking by making the Hermitage accessible to all classes and lengthening the tourist season into the winter months. He needed to change New Zealanders’ conception of a remote, élitist hideaway and show that Mt Cook was no longer a resort for the wealthy, nor bitterly cold in winter. The Tourist Department was curious to see how his experiments would go.²² Wigley did all he could to counter the idea that the winter was inhospitable. In his rst year in charge of the Hermitage he took the risk of making the rst winter ascent of Mt Cook, using skis to speed his progress on the lower sections. He publicised his achievement by telegraphing the Tourist Department with the claim that he and his guides were ‘proud of having upheld the honour, as New Zealanders, of New Zealand’. In spite of his patriotic claim, his daring ascent symbolised more than anything his desire to break with tradition and show that winter was no bar to enjoyment of the Southern Alps.²³ Wigley’s publicity advertised the alpine climate as dry and exhilarating, with warm, sparkling days and cool nights enjoyed beside crackling log res. One of his pamphlets advised: ‘Don’t come equipped for Arctic exploration, you will be disappointed.’ A hydro-electric power plant was constructed miles away at Sawyer’s Creek so that the Hermitage could shift out of the ‘Stone Age’ and provide all the luxuries of a city hotel, with heated bedrooms, hot-water handbasins and bedside lights in every room.²⁴ Wigley’s second aim was to make the Hermitage accessible to all classes without deterring wealthy customers from continuing to visit. He maintained the hotel’s special cachet by employing an overseas chef and keeping one of the best tables in New Zealand, and retaining the tradition of white damask cloths, ne silverware and formal dress at dinner. Then to ensure that everyone could stay there – ‘the poor man as well as the wealthy man’ – he introduced a wide range of sleeping
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facilities and tariffs by extending the rear of the hotel with a wing of medium-priced rooms, some with bathrooms attached. This was a novelty in the days when it was customary to trudge down a chilly corridor to bathroom and toilet. Wooden-oored tents and a provisions store were set up to cater for people seeking a cheap holiday; differential rates were introduced for families, and there were concessions for those who stayed a week or longer. ²⁵ The cost of transport was lowered to encourage people to travel so far. In motor fares from Timaru were halved, and they were cut by a third on the Queenstown route. In the winter of the Hermitage was linked to the Railways’ winter-excursion scheme, enabling cheap travel from any rail point in New Zealand. The Hermitage’s publicity drew a wider range of people by introducing activities for both those who needed a ‘spice of adventure’ and those who preferred gentle walks, easy-to-ride ponies, tobogganing or sitting on the verandah.²⁶ An ice-skating rink was built in the courtyard and a billiardroom was added on. Wigley developed skiing, both on the Mueller Glacier, where the rst experiments had begun in , and beside the hotel, where the hillside was stripped of matagouri scrub and rocks and beginners’ trails were constructed. The development of skiing was difficult, for if the snow was too light beside the Hermitage skiers had to make a day’s trek to the Mueller Hut, stay overnight, then climb a steep slope the next morning. Swiss clothing and skis were imported for visitors to hire, but equipment was still primitive and there were no ski tows. Skiing techniques were almost unknown – people schussed straight downhill until they fell or reached at ground. In this era skiing was an excuse for an excursion rather than a sport in its own right.²⁷ Above all, the Hermitage was a place to have fun. Wigley’s pamphlets tapped into the high-spirited, pleasure-loving ethos of the s. They portrayed Mt Cook as ‘the Rendez-Vous of Happiness-Seekers’ and ‘New Zealand’s Joy Centre’, where the air was like champagne and visitors threw off restraint. The Hermitage promised that ‘we make merry in a thousand ways. We eat prodigiously; we dance, sing, and play while the gleaming kindly moon oods mountains and gorges with streams of romance. You will meet charming people – all happy. We are “thousands of feet above worry level” – remember that!’²⁸ ‘Thousands of feet above worry level’ was to become the Hermitage slogan for years. The only people excluded from this new era at the Hermitage were serious climbers. In the pre-war period Peter Graham had led a staff of
This Railways poster produced in captures the carefree holiday atmosphere that Rodolph Wigley was promoting at the Hermitage. , , /
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While Wigley opened the Hermitage to ordinary people in the s, the resort did not lose its popularity among the élite. Here an English visitor, Mrs L.S. Amery, the wife of the Secretary of State for the Dominions, collects a bunch of Mt Cook daisies. AUCKLAND WEEKLY NEWS,
seven guides, but without Graham and the government’s support the system of training young guides over two to ve years to learn their way around the mountains and lead high ascents soon lapsed. Wigley encouraged university students to have a paid holiday away from the city and undertake labouring and guiding tourists for low wages.²⁹ These students lacked ‘weather-wisdom’ and knowledge of the region. Few stayed longer than two years, and without experienced guides high climbers felt neglected. When the famous English mountaineer H.E.L. Porter protested that he needed to bring a Swiss guide with him to Mt Cook, A.P. Harper, President of the New Zealand Alpine Club, took up the issue with the Tourist Department.³⁰ Wigley defended his policy of employing students and explained the difficulty of keeping good guides in New Zealand, where the demand for high climbing was small. Swiss guides were too expensive to import – and the government should not expect him to run a philanthropic institution. Alpinists were a tiny minority of visitors – only or per cent – and expected to receive accommodation and climbing below cost. Their complaints were ‘all eye-wash’. The Tourist Department
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supported his stance against the élitism of mountaineers who regarded the whole of the Mt Cook region as their own domain. Wilson made the renewal of Wigley’s lease in an opportunity to insist on more stringent rules, but declined the mountaineers’ suggestion of enforcing the employment of Swiss or Canadian guides.³¹ In a deputation from the New Zealand Alpine Club saw Philip de la Perrelle, the acting Minister of Tourist and Health Resorts, to repeat their concerns. A tragedy on the descent from Malte Brun hut on the Tasman Glacier in which ve young people had lost their lives made the guiding issue more urgent. Harper claimed that the tragedy would have been averted if the guide had understood alpine weather conditions, and argued that the lack of a professional guiding system at the Hermitage was risking the lives of tourists and guides. The alpinists thought it was necessary to set up a licensing system under a board on which Peter Graham would represent professional guides. The Minister promised action, but nothing happened. Meanwhile Vic and Clem Williams, the most expert of the Hermitage guides, stayed on, although they grew increasingly embittered by the shift away from professionalism.³² By the s New Zealand’s declining safety record was affecting its guiding reputation. The creation of a blithe mood ‘thousands of feet above worry level’ could not relieve the Hermitage of nancial difficulties. For fteen years Wigley had despised the Tourist Department’s administration at Mt Cook, but the burst of modernisation that he had achieved in his rst years depended on government assistance. Heating and building improvements and the installation of electricity received low-interest government loans of , and ,. In Wigley requested another , for extensions; the government refused but authorised the company to raise and spend ,. By this time it would take a rental of , a year for the government to recoup the money it had lent rather than the nominal that Wigley paid.³³ Wilson, still General Manager of the Tourist Department, was becoming impatient with the favours demanded by this innovator who had called out for less government in business and yet received a level of government assistance which had been denied the Tourist Department during the stringent years when it managed the Hermitage. As the hotel’s capacity was increased from to beds and the Hermitage drew the applause of the press, Wilson found it difficult not to resent the lack of acknowledgment given to government nancing of Wigley’s improvements:
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‘Any discredit . . . comes our way, but all the “kudos” goes to the other fellow!’, he grumbled.³⁴ The situation was exacerbated by Wigley’s cavalier attitude towards payment of rent, interest on the loans he had requested and insurance premiums. ‘We’ve got a hard row to hoe’ was to become his catchcry in correspondence with the Tourist Department and the government. In self-defence he claimed he was fostering a spirit of travel and working for the good of New Zealand. Wilson admitted that Wigley was opening up the alpine region and had released the government from facing liability during hard times, but he felt that the government should never have let the Hermitage out of its hands.³⁵ As capital outlay on the Hermitage soared and rent payments were deferred, Treasury was drawn into the issue and concluded that the government was better off accepting a low rental than it had been in previous years when the Tourist Department managed the hotel on its own.³⁶ In Wigley won an extension of the Hermitage lease for another fteen years.³⁷ By this time he was buying up motor transport companies and expanding a chain of hotels in North and South Island tourist resorts, with an interest in Brent’s Hotel in Rotorua and ownership of the White Star Hotel in Queenstown. His reserves were low and his borrowing high. When Ward became Prime Minister again in , Wigley expected more favourable treatment from the government, for it was Ward who had given him the rst motor mail contract years earlier. But Wilson warned the Prime Minister that Wigley had agitated for the Hermitage lease, taken the place with his eyes open, and demanded concessions ever since. Cabinet refused Wigley’s requests for leniency but its stance made little difference, for payments remained irregular.³⁸ By the end of the decade, with the Depression deepening and Wigley’s debts growing, the prospect of getting a return on the government’s expenditure at the Hermitage was even less certain.
‘A ne up-to-date establishment’ While Wigley struggled with the Hermitage through the s, the Waitomo caves and hostel were modernised and became the success story of the Tourist Department. Managed with less panache than the Hermitage, Waitomo nevertheless retained its popularity and nancial viability in these tough years, partly because the cave fees of day-visitors contributed to hostel prots. In fact, the ease with which
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Waitomo’s popularity grew contributed to Wilson’s intolerance of the Hermitage’s problems. The Waitomo caves were marvellous, but touring conditions had been primitive for years. These caves near Te Kuiti had rst been explored in and by Fred Mace, a surveyor, and Tane Tinorau, who owned the land. In the years that followed, Maori guided occasional visitors through by the dim light of tallow candles, which blackened the delicate walls. After the Ruakuri caves nearby were explored in , the government decided to take ownership of both sets of caves in on the principle of controlling and conserving scenic reserves.³⁹ Waitomo became the responsibility of the Tourist Department, which replaced the old accommodation house with a two-storeyed wooden hostel and provided electricity by generator. A punt was built to transport passengers through the river entrance to a magical grotto with glow-worms unique to New Zealand. The fairyland setting was enhanced by silently gliding into the darkness by boat. There were other pleasures at Waitomo and Ruakuri. The underground limestone was formed into stalactites and stalagmites in bizarre and beautiful shapes, their characteristics expressed in the names given to each chamber. While the caves had Maori names derived from the
The Aranui caves at Waitomo. , /
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The government-owned Waitomo Hostel in the early s. , /
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surrounding district, below ground these regions were seen through the eyes of romantic European fancy, with titles such as the Ghost-Walk, Banqueting Hall, Temple of Peace and Cathedral Majestic, the Crystal Palace, the Bride’s Jewels and Wedding Cake, the Sentinel. Waitomo’s fame had grown after Ruruku Aranui’s discovery of more beautiful caverns in ; these were opened in and named the Aranui caves in honour of the discoverer. They were grander (soaring to feet high) and as white as wax, with some of the surfaces sparkling with a sheen like diamond dust.⁴⁰ After the discovery of the Aranui caves, Waitomo had become a stopping-off point between Wellington and Auckland and the most protable of the government’s resorts, attracting both overseas visitors and New Zealanders. Although the hostel was often crammed to overowing, extension plans had been halted as at the Hermitage by World War I. The Tourist Department also faced a continuous battle against the elements. While corrosion destroyed Rotorua’s facilities and storms threatened the Hermitage, at Waitomo it was ‘water, water everywhere’. Wooden steps and railings rotted in the dampness; viewing sites were slippery and dangerous; clay at the cave entrances was so sticky and damp that it was difficult to walk through. Lawrence Birks,
the Rotorua engineer, installed ttings designed in a natural, rustic style to blend in with the surroundings: concrete steps that would merge into the pale limestone to replace dark rimu wooden ones, and inconspicuous galvanised-iron railings to replace rotting wood. Duckboards were put down on the oors of the Aranui caves to protect the white limestone and save visitors from wearing overalls.⁴¹ By Waitomo was the only government resort to be consistently protable. This was good reason for further improvements. In earlier years the Tourist Department had dismissed the idea of using electricity to light the caves. Birks, liking the charm of the primitive conditions, had wanted to retain the natural atmosphere and avoid disguring the caves with wires.⁴² Magnesium tape manufactured in Germany had been used for lighting until the war years, when it was no longer available; after the war it became prohibitively expensive. One of the guides invented a substitute lamp made out of a -pound treacle tin and scraps of tin and rubber tubing. This produced a huge saving in costs because the carbide used was much cheaper than magnesium; in one month, could be saved.⁴³ By , however, a growing number of tourists were comparing Waitomo unfavourably with the Jenolan caves in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, which had been dramatically lit by electricity for years. Wilson visited Jenolan and found that electricity was considered the simplest, cheapest and most effective source of lighting, and the only method that did not damage the caves.⁴⁴ Modernisation seemed necessary at Waitomo, and a hydro-electricity scheme was proposed to light the caves and for heating, cooking and lighting in the hostel. Lighting caves was not without difficulties; the Cheddar Cliff caves in England had been rewired four times in years. It took skilled workers to install the cables out of sight without damaging stalactites; the cables themselves had to be sheathed in lead to protect them from dampness, and the switchboards needed to be well insulated. At Jenolan guides constantly suffered shocks because of the damp oors.⁴⁵ Electricity was supplied by the government through a sub-station at Hangatiki that was linked to the hydro-electricity station on the Horahora rapids of the Waikato River. The new lighting was based on Jenolan’s, although it was less elaborate. Naked bulbs were used in the corridors, and oodlights in the caves to highlight scenes and portraits in a way that earlier lighting methods could not achieve. Coloured lights were used sparingly, for bulbs with frosted glass highlighted the
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A new Californian-style stucco wing was added to Waitomo Hostel in as part of a programme of modernisation at the caves. , NEW ZEALAND: SCENIC PLAYGROUND OF THE PACIFIC
pale limestone best. A more sophisticated approach was used in the ne Aranui caves, with banking of lights and a system of cutting lights in and out. The scheme’s completion in January ushered in a new era. The Railways Department made the most of the occasion by advertising excursions from all over New Zealand to a place that it described as the eighth wonder of the world.⁴⁶ Its brochure announced: ‘The old order has changed. . . . The caves are now electrically illuminated, and the past is but an “insubstantial pageantry”. These fairy palaces now yield up all their true and elegant treasures, particularly so in the Aranui Caves, where undreamt-of ethereal vistas for the rst time unfold themselves.’⁴⁷ A large extension to the hostel two years later with a Californianstyle stucco building and the replacement of the hostel generator with hydro-electricity made Waitomo a ne up-to-date establishment. Wilson, the ageing head of the Tourist Department, was proud of Waitomo’s success and called it one of the dominion’s star resorts.⁴⁸ But he was perhaps too complacent, or unimaginative about the small inexpensive improvements that could make a great difference to a tourist resort. The Department’s inspector noted primitive conditions that were an irritation to overseas tourists and recalled conditions at the
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Hermitage and Mt Cook years earlier. The pre- hostel with its crude sanitary arrangements was still used as an annex to cope with an overow of visitors. While this would be suitable for ‘the tripper tribe’ at cheap rates, and for one sex at a time, ‘to ask overseas visitors to accept it is a calamity’. The inspector pointed out that the Department needed to recognise that the best advertising medium was the satised tourist. Yet at Waitomo ‘almost every tourist accommodated at the Annexe leaves with resentment – resentment at the lack of comfort, at the high tariff and the state of the Hangatiki–Waitomo road and the road between the caves’. Within the caves the old punts knocked tourists around and should be replaced by gondolas. A simple spillway was needed to save the glow-worms from annual ooding and the risk of annihilation. Eighteen months later the inspector noted that no spillway had yet been built. Visitors were also disconcerted by the nature of the access to Waitomo: the signpost at Hangatiki Station was worn and badly placed, and the road signs were almost invisible. By the end of the s, despite the Railways Department’s aggressive promotions, most tourists were arriving by car. Motorists described the ruts and loose metal on the roads from Te Kuiti and Hangatiki as the worst in New Zealand, and many avoided Waitomo. The inspector pointed out to the Department that ‘the tourist does not know of County Councils and Highway Boards. He knows it is the means of access to an up-to-date Government Hostel and he cannot understand. He condemns our Department and his faith in our Bureaux and general arrangements for his tour are not strengthened.’ ⁴⁹ In spite of the hardships of the journey, however, between and the revenue at Waitomo’s hostel and caves increased by per cent.⁵⁰
Revival and decay In the s the major impetus to the government’s other major resort, at Rotorua, came from Apirana Ngata, the political and cultural reformer and politician who attacked the alienation of Maori land, led a revival of Maori arts and ‘stimulated his people to recover their stolen humanity’. He made the Maori meeting-house once again a vital symbol of community.⁵¹ One of Ngata’s initiatives, aided by Gordon Coates, by this time Prime Minister, was to prepare the Maori Arts and Crafts Act that established a carving school in Rotorua in . His
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school gave a huge boost to the art of Maori carving when its trained craftsmen undertook major commissions, and graduates fanned out around the country to contribute to dozens of meeting-houses in the following decades. The new lease of life highlighted how dilapidated the villages of Whakarewarewa and Ohinemutu and the model pa had become. While Waitomo had been modernised, Rotorua was decaying. No one had predicted the expense and effort that would be required to maintain the model pa. In B.M. Wilson had considered leasing the pa to private enterprise or closing it down, but nothing was done. The thatched roofs attracted vermin and needed repairs, but by the s thatching had become a lost art. Occasional face-lifts were carried out for royal visits, but most of the time the site remained empty and neglected. By the s the pa was overgrown with blackberry, the whare were in disrepair and the watch-towers had fallen over.⁵² In the Tourist Department had handed the responsibility for Whakarewarewa over to the Rotorua Borough Council, which showed less interest than the Tourist Department in the welfare of Whaka residents. The Council was unable to provide adequate rubbish collection or an efficient sewerage system on land too unstable to bear the weight of trucks and nightsoil carts. The mixture of dilapidated Maori and European houses and corrugated-iron shacks became an insanitary home for the villagers, an eye-sore for visitors and an increasing embarrassment to a succession of governments unwilling to provide funding to rehabilitate an area they neither owned nor controlled, yet uneasy that Whaka was the only example of Maori living standards which overseas visitors observed. It was rarely acknowledged that the two villages were a highly visible symbol of problems larger than Rotorua, and that all over the country Maori were being excluded from funding for housing and farming development.⁵³ In a Commission on Maori Model Villages was set up to inquire whether it would be possible to restructure Whakarewarewa and nearby Ohinemutu as model villages combining distinctive Maori architecture with modern health and comfort.⁵⁴ The Commission found houses crammed onto small sections and rubbish dumped around the rims of hot pools. Te Arawa Trust Board (representing the villagers), the Borough Council, Rotorua’s business interests and the Tourist Department all hoped for improvements, although the community at Ohinemutu opposed access for motor vehicles. It had no wish to see
0
Captioned ‘Building Types in Whakarewarewa’, this photograph was one of several taken during the Commission of Inquiry into ‘Maori Model Villages’. AJHR, , -
a widening of roads that would endanger children and reduce the villagers’ privacy: ‘We . . . would far rather that the village be viewed by pedestrians at their leisure than that it be invaded by motor-loads of “see-it-all-in-a short-time” hordes of sightseers.’⁵⁵ The Commission proposed that dilapidated houses at Whakarerarewa and at Ohinemutu be demolished, and suggested minor remodelling of the others rather than complete reconstruction. The alterations should include Maori architectural features such as a high front elevation with barge-boards, the planting of grass and trees, and the erection of a carved gateway at the bridge entrance to Whakarewarewa, and a few storehouses to reproduce the ‘old-time’ character of a Maori village. The vital issue was money – in spite of the Commission’s recommendations that funding for town planning and rebuilding should be provided by long-term government loans, no resources were made available. Meanwhile the Borough Council refused permits to villagers who wanted to build basic homes while it waited for more comprehensive and picturesque improvements. Through the following years of Depression and war, villagers and government seemed locked in a long process of ‘taihoa’ – wait and see.⁵⁶
Overseas publicity The Railways Department not only encouraged ordinary New Zealanders to travel around the country for pleasure, but also led New Zealand’s initiatives in overseas publicity in the s. Coates’s visit to North America affirmed his conviction that publicity and propaganda were the mark of every progressive railway organisation. The stylish posters produced by the Railways were exhibited in the window of the New Zealand High Commission in the Strand in London, and sent to fêtes, bazaars and schools around England. An American company distributed copies in the United States and Canada, and the Royal Hawaiian Hotel at Honolulu requested samples to display.⁵⁷ The Railways also beneted from co-operation with the Canadian Pacic Railway (CPR), which took part in the New Zealand and South Seas Exhibition to publicise the route across Canada to Britain. As a reciprocal gesture, CPR distributed large photographs coloured with oils which the New Zealand Railways Department commissioned from R.P. Moore. These were shown in department stores across Canada.⁵⁸ A few new subjects were introduced – sheep stations and Friesian stud cattle, racecourses, Christ’s College and the University of Otago – to exemplify New Zealand’s fertility and its identity as the ‘brighter Britain of the South’. But the usual themes dominated publicity shots: Maori and Whakarewarewa, trout shing at Taupo and volcanic mountains in the north, the Hochstetter Icefall and lakes in the south. Even the Waimangu geyser and the famous Pink Terraces were included (and admired in the Canadian press), despite their disappearance decades earlier.⁵⁹ While several different departments were engaged in their own projects to publicise New Zealand for international travellers, Coates was keen to co-ordinate government tourism efforts through a joint publicity board similar to those in South America, Australia, Canada and the United States.⁶⁰ He established an Overseas Publicity Board comprising B.M. Wilson from the Tourist Department, D. Rodie from the Commercial Branch of the Railways Department, and A.H. Messenger from the Publicity Office of the Department of Internal Affairs. The Board’s goals were to co-ordinate the funds each Department spent on advertising, confer on plans to advertise overseas, and make recommendations to the ministers concerned.⁶¹ A few months later a representative from the Department of Industries and Commerce joined the Board. His involvement reected the government’s interest in advertising New Zealand as a source of business as well as a tourist destination,
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A Railways brochure used for overseas publicity, . , ,
and its intention of competing with the other dominions for immigrants during a period of alarm over the decreasing population.⁶² The Overseas Publicity Board began with a ourish by deciding to spend on a full-page advertisement in the London Times, and stepping up the production of booklets, photographs, lantern slides and posters to be sent overseas. It nanced a lecturer to tour Australia and bought , copies of a book on the dairy industry to distribute at the Wembley Exhibition. Its best idea was to send a rst-class lecturer and journalist to the Pacic Coast of the United States, but nothing came of this. There was no funding earmarked for new initiatives and, with responsibility still fragmented among three ministers, ideas that were costly simply lapsed. ⁶³ The Overseas Publicity Board’s existence was publicised in the press and drew suggestions from the public. This made the Board a receptacle for half-baked schemes and suggestions that reected the public’s
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ignorance of established activities. It spent most of its time explaining what was already being done or refusing offers from people who hoped to use its programme to get nancial assistance for their own schemes to lecture overseas. When a real need was discovered, such as providing information for anglers and big-game shermen, recommendations were sent off to ministers – and action deferred.⁶⁴ While the Railways Department drove marketing policy in the s, public anxiety about the Tourist Department’s role was escalating. Local tourist leagues and Chambers of Commerce around the country felt that New Zealand’s potential for tourism and settlement was still untapped and looked enviously at Canada, where tourism was forging ahead. By tourist numbers had crept up to ,, still fewer than in the rst decade of the century.⁶⁵ There was a feeling that the Tourist Department had been drifting since the war. Dr Teichelmann, who had helped to popularise the West Coast and Mt Cook with his ne photographs, called the Department ‘a dying body’.⁶⁶ Chambers of Commerce and tourism businesses agitated for the formation of a tourist board that would draw together private enterprise and civil servants in a scheme funded partly by the tourist industry and partly by the government.⁶⁷ No members of the Overseas Publicity Board were attracted to this idea. As government officials they felt that government policy had to be government-led, and they could not accept outside directors whose ideas seemed parochial and impracticable.⁶⁸ Wilson was the most scathing about outside interference. He saw businessmen as naive to think that they could achieve in their spare time more than three government departments with years of experience in tourist promotion. If any government funding was available for tourist advertising, the Tourist Department and the Overseas Publicity Board should spend it. He was also aware that, although tourist numbers had not increased, neither had the availability of ne accommodation. If the government courted more visitors, there would be nowhere suitable for them to stay, especially at the height of the season. The year before, the arrival from Honolulu of a steamer with guests had caused great anxiety in the Department. Given the hotel shortage, Wilson was unwilling to promote New Zealand: These people all want rst-class accommodation, such as they get in American centres, and I shudder to think of their comments on what they would get on the West Coast, or some of our other tourist resorts. Where
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we would put American tourists in rst class rooms in Rotorua during the summer I do not know. Much better put our own house in order in this respect rst, and have the accommodation ready before we invite the tourists here in such large numbers.⁶⁹
The Angler’s El Dorado One American whom Wilson was glad to welcome was the world-famous sherman Zane Grey. Condent of the future of deep-sea shing, Wilson had sent off , copies of Charles Wheeler’s Deep Sea Fishing in New Zealand to the United States, Canada and Britain in .⁷⁰ Grey’s visit to New Zealand in seemed a splendid opportunity to boost the attractions of the country, for here was not only a famous sportsman and novelist but a natural self-publicist who recast his exploits in books, articles, lm and photographs. He arrived in Wellington and travelled north by train, taking the new railway line from Auckland to Opua in the Bay of Islands. Grey found a small township pioneering a thrilling new sport in a region where tremendous swordsh and mako – the aristocrat of sharks – could be hunted.⁷¹ Although big-game shing was an expensive sport, it had won swift popularity when shing centres in the Bay of Islands, Mercury Bay and Mayor Island began to cater for visitors. The Bay of Islands Kingsh Club was founded in and began issuing certicates for catches. By the mid-s visitors could choose among several camping grounds. One of the most popular was at Otehei Bay, where a long wharf ran into the sea, up-to-date scales had been set up to weigh large sh, and a taxidermist was ready to preserve them. The camp boasted ne cuisine, a lounge, comfortable cabins, private bathrooms and two fast launches for hire. Visitors could play tennis and croquet and dance on the long verandah in the cool of the evening.⁷² On his rst expedition to Russell, Zane Grey broke world records with catches of kingsh and striped marlin. His companion, Captain L.D. Mitchell, caught a -pound black marlin that set a world record for all species of sh and became an exhibit in New York’s Museum of Natural History. Back home in California, Grey extolled the sh in New Zealand’s northern waters in Tales of the Angler’s Eldorado, New Zealand. His story captured the thrill of the chase, the grandeur and ghting spirit of the sh he pursued, the charms of sun and wind and sea, and the scent of manuka twigs on the re at the end of the day. Only in the
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The famed sherman, Zane Grey (at left), with a mako shark caught in New Zealand waters. , /
appendices to his Tales did he discuss the friction he had engendered in the local community, where shermen were outraged that a wealthy American was aunting his successes and criticising local techniques. For Grey was pioneering new methods and called obsolete the light slim tanekaha rods with the reel underneath used by New Zealanders; he preferred short, tough, exible rods, with the reel above the rod to give an angler room to brace his legs and ght for his catch.⁷³ To the more reserved New Zealanders, Australians and Englishmen, the newcomer was a ‘trumpeting American’.⁷⁴ A local paper protested against his amboyant style: He runs his shing on circus lines. When he caught a swordsh he announced through a megaphone in grandiloquent tones, ‘Mr Zane Grey has caught another swordsh: weight lbs.’ as the case might be. Then there would be run to the mast head a pennant with ‘swordsh’ printed on it. One Australian who regarded the procedure as swank, announced when he caught a swordsh, that it weighed , pounds and in the place of the pennant ran up to the mast head his pyjama pants instead.⁷⁵
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Despite the antagonism of local shermen towards Grey, the Tourist Department did all it could to gain publicity from his visits. Wilson joined A.H. Messenger to welcome the famous visitor by providing free rail travel, organising trucks for his gear, loaning a photographer and dark room, and co-opting a keen sherman from the Government Printing Office to escort his party. It was a mutually benecial deal, for Grey’s party spent , in the country and the government received overseas publicity for a sportsmen’s paradise.⁷⁶ On his second shing expedition in , Grey chose Mercury Bay as his base, setting up camp on Mercury Island, the most beautiful site he had ever seen. The local community at Whitianga was enthusiastic and Grey vowed to boost the place ‘Sky high’.⁷⁷ On his nal New Zealand expedition in , Grey planned to return to Mercury Island with a party which would include ten sportsmen, fteen shore staff, fteen launchmen, ve cooks, two photographers and ve launches.⁷⁸ But his persistence in wielding the authority of the rich and famous exposed the ambivalence New Zealanders felt towards tourists. A new owner, Edward Mizen, had bought Mercury Island, paying a huge sum for a retreat that guaranteed him privacy. Grey’s expedition looked to be an unwelcome intrusion that would set a precedent for others. Grey was sure that behind Mizen’s refusal to allow him to set up camp again lay the jealousy of the Russell community, and the indifference of New Zealanders to his contribution to the sporting image of their country abroad. His reluctance to camp elsewhere and his threats to cancel his visit dismayed the commercial interests at Whitianga, who expected this time to gain , from his entourage.⁷⁹ The Tourist Department was alarmed at the risk of losing Grey’s promotion of New Zealand. When the American’s agent threatened to publicise his displeasure all over the world – ‘there will be the devil to pay with sword-shing in New Zealand’ – the Minister appealed to Mizen for an act of grace which would forestall New Zealand’s loss of publicity and prots. On Mizen’s continuing refusal, the Department’s tourist agent in Auckland was sent to negotiate with him and his solicitor, E.S. Northcroft.⁸⁰ Mizen had no desire for uncontrollable visitors and remained adamant over the issue of privacy. Northcroft suggested that the Tourist Department’s patronage of the famed sherman was misplaced and could rebound on it. Mizen could respond to criticism of his stance by exposing Grey’s discourtesy to people on the island and the mess he had left behind on his previous visit.⁸¹ The Department
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Zane Grey’s visits to New Zealand were valuable at a time when game sport and shing were an important focus of Tourist Department publicity. This brochure was designed by L.C. Mitchell in the s. , ,
capitulated and Grey gave up his threats and entreaties. Mizen won this contest between private rights and the power of the wealthy tourist. Unable to resist the lure of New Zealand’s waters, Grey arrived by yacht and found another campsite in Mercury Bay. Few wealthy Americans followed in Grey’s footsteps. American travellers still ocked to Europe and could only occasionally be diverted off the beaten track.⁸² Moreover, as Wilson knew all too well, when Americans did cross the Pacic they found New Zealand’s hotel accommodation inadequate. New Zealanders who knew the United States explained what was required: ‘American people are luxury-loving, and though they crave new elds for travel they prefer to discover those places with the minimum of discomfort or effort.’⁸³ Efforts to attract American tourists were also hindered by the lack of Tourist Department representation in the United States. An expatriate businessman, W. Stephenson Smith, acted as honorary agent in San Francisco, but by the s he was old, deaf and muddled. An American woman was indignant to nd him occupying a musty windowless office behind the
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Union Steam Ship Company when the Tourist Department should be regarding San Francisco as ‘the gateway to the colony’. In Sydney and Melbourne, on the other hand, the Tourist Department maintained salaried tourist agents who undertook a wide range of initiatives to keep New Zealand in the public eye.⁸⁴ While the novelty of travel lms like Glorious New Zealand impressed New Zealanders, they were less effective in the more sophisticated centres of the United States. The reactions of American audiences were channelled back to the Tourist Department by a dynamic New Zealander, Bathie Stuart, a self-proclaimed ‘missionary’ for New Zealand who had made a hit in the wealthy world of American ne hotels and women’s clubs with glossy performances of Maori dances and songs. Stuart was keen to use the Department’s lms in her presentations but criticised their quality. She felt that many of the Department’s scenic shots were too slow-paced for impatient Americans: lm publicity needed to be a ‘knock-out’ to make her audiences sit up and take notice. While lms of Zane Grey with an immense trout never failed to elicit gasps, Stuart asked for more pizazz and more action, with anglers catching sh rather than meandering along the river. She was similarly impatient when New Zealand lm-makers highlighted city streets and industry.
In the late s the Tourist Department contracted Filmcraft Ltd to make its publicity lms. Here the company is lming at Whakarewarewa. , , ,
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Walking the Milford Track, . The government built a hostel at Milford Sound in . AUCKLAND WEEKLY NEWS,
Sunny Napier was ‘the most feeble of all’; its ‘busy streets’ made people laugh aloud. When the Department ignored her advice, Stuart edited the lms in America, deleting shots of post offices, main streets and dirty milking-sheds.⁸⁵ What Americans enjoyed, Bathie Stuart claimed, was the exoticism of Pacic New Zealand: sub-tropical forests, steaming geysers and Maori culture. At a time when some in the Department wanted to ensure that New Zealand was seen abroad as a ‘white man’s country’, Stuart insisted that Polynesia was becoming attractive to Americans.⁸⁶ But it was a polished version of the Pacic that they found appealing and, in her requests for more lm on Maori life, Stuart insisted on glamour. Whereas the government’s photographers seemed ‘to delight in taking the fattest and homeliest women’, she requested that only slim, pretty Maori girls be featured; when it was necessary to use older women to display traditional crafts, she suggested that beautiful Maori girls sit in the foreground to observe them. A Los Angeles lm adviser supported her in the view that larger women should be kept for comedy. The same criticism was made when the Tourist Department sent shots of Pakeha New Zealanders bathing in the Blue Baths and Lake Wakatipu. Stuart
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urged that no more close-ups of local bathers be included: ‘over here the bathing belles – at least on the screen – all look like movie stars’.⁸⁷
When Coates’s Reform government faced a worsening economy in , it curtailed expenditure on the publicity that had become important in the s. Meanwhile the Overseas Publicity Board was critical of its own lack of progress: meetings had become infrequent and members were dissatised with the undened nature of their work. Wilson was the most unhappy about the Board’s hand-to-mouth existence without proper funding. It could work only if it was responsible to a single minister: ‘Messing about with three or four Departments is no good.’⁸⁸ As if in response to Wilson’s frustration, three of the departments that had worked together in the s were amalgamated in to form a Department of Industries and Commerce, Tourism and Publicity. Wilson’s death in September marked the end of a -year era of economic caution and restricted vision in the Tourist Department. While many more New Zealanders now travelled around their own country to visit small resorts, the growth in overseas tourist numbers had been negligible. But New Zealand at least had a national structure in place to support tourism, whereas Australia lagged behind. Each state was still responsible for its own tourist development and publicity, and state travel bureaux had little voice outside their own state and none in the wider world. As a far larger country than New Zealand, facing the same problem of distance from Europe and the United States, Australia had just , overseas visitors a year (only twice the New Zealand gure) and was ‘the Cinderella’ of the world tourist business.⁸⁹ In New Zealand there were signs of optimism. Rodolph Wigley still held to his vision of a hotel empire that could serve both overseas visitors and ordinary New Zealanders, although by the nancial base of his enterprise was becoming increasingly shaky. And while the Tourist Department was disappointed at the small number of Britons who had responded to its publicity, Australia and the United States looked to be more promising markets. Charles Kingsford Smith’s ight over the Tasman in and the introduction of a new Matson luxury liner, the Malolo, on the Pacic route in both offered a foretaste of closer international links in the future.⁹⁰
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The hot springs at Orakei-Korako where the politician, William Fox, mused on the future of tourism in . .. , , , , //
This painting of the White Terraces, one of a series of the Pink and White Terraces by Charles Blomeld, was completed in , after their destruction. , , 1⁄2 , Nineteenth-century postcards and greeting cards publicised New Zealand’s landscapes. The drama of the Tarawera eruption was highlighted in this New Year card, ornamented with mingimingi berries. , , . , , 1⁄2 , The romantic landscape of the West Coast made a stunning Christmas card. , , . , , 1⁄2
In the s and s the Railways Department made effective use of colour in its publicity. This Railways brochure depicts the Hermitage at Mt Cook, the country’s opportunities for hunting and shing, and a cruise ship at Milford Sound. , –––– This s Railways poster shows the continuing use of the Maori people as a tourist icon. , –––
Rodolph Wigley, the founder of the Mount Cook Motor Company, was a great publicist. He helped fund this Railways poster during his era at the Hermitage. , --; , , , .
The silk-screen artist, Leonard Mitchell, produced many posters for the Tourist Department in the s. This scene of Lake Waikaremoana – ‘sea of rippling waters’ – was used as an illustration in one of the Department’s tourist booklets. , NEW ZEALAND, SCENIC PLAYGROUND OF THE PACIFIC,
The Centennial Exhibition in Wellington in – stimulated urban images of New Zealand. This poster, titled ‘New Zealand’s First Hundred Years of Progress’, was designed by the Maori artist Oriwa Haddon for the Tourist Department’s centennial publication. , NEW ZEALAND CENTENNIAL – An artist’s impression of Edward Anscombe’s modernist design for the Court of Progress and main buildings at the Centennial Exhibition. .. , , NEW ZEALAND CENTENNIAL – Bill Haythornthwaite specialised in publicity for Qantas, BOAC, Air India and TEAL as they attracted passengers to a new means of travel after the war. He and George Moore designed this poster in .
New Zealand was portrayed as a miniature wonderland for decades. This poster was produced by Haythornthwaite Studios in the s. This brochure from the s was one of several in a handy kit that was distributed by Tourist Department staff. Bureaux staff took the customs launch to meet incoming liners in midchannel, clambering up ladders to give advice and take bookings before tourists arrived in port. In the s, Air New Zealand’s -s featured images of New Zealand birds on their menus. This is the New Zealand kingsher. ,
Travel publicity of the s emphasised images of clean, green, rural New Zealand to attract the Japanese market. , , In the decade of the Maori Tourism Task Force and the Te Maori Exhibition in New York, the Tourist Department produced its rst posters to feature the name Aotearoa. This poster was published in . , ,
Adventure in the outdoors: a warm tinge of colour was used in the foreground of this poster as a change from the cooler tones of early % Pure New Zealand publicity.
From Hanoi to Madrid, showings of The Lord of the Rings lm cycle conjured up expansive, romantic images of New Zealand, and heightened the country’s tourist appeal.
The Playground of the North –
T
Park was formally opened in November , just as worldwide Depression loomed. Set on a sunny spur , feet above sea level against the backdrop of Mt Ruapehu, with a splendid outlook over sweeping plains and bush-clad ranges, it was a palace of a hotel, emulating the resort hotels of Canadian Pacic Railways and the alpine hotels of Europe. Its scale was altogether different from the corrugated-iron huts which had sheltered nature-lovers in earlier decades and meant that the park was no longer the exclusive domain of the strong A Tourist Department brochure in the s publicising the new Chateau and the Tongariro National Park’s role as playground of the North Island. , ,
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and active. Visitors could arrive in style, sweeping up to the entrance portico and columns that framed a view of the mountains. In its shift from primitive frontier simplicity towards sophistication, the Chateau marked an important stage in the development of Tongariro National Park, making it more of a pleasure resort than a sanctuary and reigniting debates over the meaning of national parks. There had been decades of dissension over the use of Tongariro National Park before the Chateau was conceived. Of all New Zealand’s national parks, the purpose of Tongariro was the most ambiguous. Its foundation as a gift from Ngati Tuwharetoa made the issue more complex than in other national parks. Te Heu Heu Tukino IV’s cession of three mountain peaks by deed of gift to the Crown in cleverly pre-empted fragmentation of his tribal land, and restored the mana he had lost by his support of Waikato during the land wars. While his grand gesture of generosity avoided the major impact of colonisation which land sales would have brought, it allowed a more surreptitious form of colonisation in its stead.¹ Transferred to the nation as a ‘sacred gift’, a place which had been tapu, a memorial to the ancestors of Ngati Tuwharetoa, the park was perceived by Pakeha as a place set apart for development and recreation as well as preservation. In the following decades, this mountain region would be roamed over, built upon, domesticated and glamorised as the ‘playground of the North Island’.² The rst conict between the interests of tourism and the preservation of indigenous ora and fauna in Tongariro National Park had arisen when (as described in Chapter ) Thomas Donne, the rst Superintendent of the Tourist Department, battled with Robert McNab, the Minister of Lands, over Donne’s consignments of red deer, axis deer and bharal sheep to the park. Although Donne had been forced to moderate his plans, his preference for game sport and tourist prots over the indigenous character of the park set a precedent for the Tourist Department managers who succeeded him. The two men who dominated debates on Tongariro National Park over the following years symbolised the polarities in attitudes to national parks: Dr Leonard Cockayne, the world-famous botanist, and John Cullen, Police Commissioner and sports enthusiast. Cockayne was one of the rst to foster the indigenous character of the park. Soon after Donne released his deer, the Department of Lands and Survey directed Cockayne and E. Phillips Turner to investigate the botanical nature of the park and judge whether it was better suited for protection
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Te Heu Heu Tukino IV, chief of Ngati Tuwharetoa, who ceded the peaks of Ngauruhoe, Tongariro and Ruapehu to the Crown in . , , /
or development. While Cockayne envisaged the area as a domain for citizens and tourists, his report provided a radical reassessment of the meaning of a national park. Tongariro National Park offered remarkable scenery that formed the climax of the thermal region of the North Island – glaciers, volcanic cones and craters, lakes, Ketetahi’s boiling springs and steam vents, deserts ‘sublime and weird’, river gorges and quiet pools. But Cockayne claimed that the signicance of landscape lay in the detail rather than the grand design. He dismissed dramatic scenic views, which were common the world over, and looked beyond the aesthetics of landscape to the complex natural world living within it. Almost two decades before scientists in the United States showed a similar interest in the botany of America’s national parks, Cockayne saw the distinctive character of the plant life that clothed the region as the Tongariro National Park’s chief claim to interest:
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it must not be forgotten that mountain, river, lake, glacier, and even hot spring, are much the same the world over, and that the special features of any landscape depend upon the combination of plants which form its garment, otherwise a monotonous uniformity would mark the whole earth. Therefore the more special the vegetation, the more distinctive the scenery. And nowhere does this dictum carry weight more than in New Zealand, where the vegetation is unique.³
Dr Leonard Cockayne, world-famed botanist and advocate of retaining the indigenous nature of national parks. , , /
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Cockayne catalogued hundreds of alpine owers, grasses, ferns and shrubs in the region of the park. He believed that the rst priority in national parks should be to represent plant life which was unique to the area, so that parks would become ‘havens of refuge’ or ‘great open-air museums’ where the individual elements of nature and their interaction with one another could be preserved. In a sanctuary for indigenous plants and animals, Cockayne saw no excuse for the presence of hares, wild cattle and deer, however small their impact had been. His vision also meant that an extension of the park’s boundaries was essential, for it was conned to the area of the original gift: three peaks joined by a neck of land miles wide. Its alpine landscape was almost treeless – in fact a ‘true desert’. The forests that should lend the park its interest were as yet outside its boundaries. He proposed extending the park to include the forests south and west of Ruapehu.⁴ Cockayne’s report was a landmark in the conservationists’ stake in Tongariro National Park and led to a prohibition on the introduction of deer. But no extensions to the park’s boundaries were made under farmer-led governments that felt more empathy for millers and settlers than for conservationists. And few people as yet ventured into the isolated park. The next enthusiast to be involved in Tongariro National Park’s development was John Cullen, the honorary park ranger, whose passion to spread heather and transform the park into a game reserve was as single-minded as Donne’s pursuit of big game a decade earlier, and the antithesis of Cockayne’s ideals. Cullen’s interest coincided with the transfer of Tongariro National Park from the Trust Board to the Tourist Department in . Whereas Donne had been responsible for promoting tourist attractions, Cullen was acting in a free-lance style to manipulate nature for sporting and tourist purposes. He had a forceful personality, and where he led the Tourist Department followed. A week before the park was transferred to the Tourist Department, Cullen won permission from Prime Minister William Massey to import
John Cullen, Commissioner of Police, who worked to develop Tongariro National Park as a game reserve. , .. , /
heather seeds and began a ten-year programme to develop Scottishstyle grouse moors. The planting of heather would improve the park as a pleasure resort by concealing the unsightly patches of bare scoria where visitors’ res had burnt back the native growth, but Cullen’s major interest was in breeding game for sport – and heather and bilberries were the favourite foods of grouse and blackcock.⁵ Heather was difficult to get growing, however, and there were few plants in New Zealand; without encouragement over a number of years, it would take a lifetime to spread. By the time the Tourist Department took over the park, the High Commission in London had already been asked to purchase large quantities of seeds of bell heather and common ling heather from the Boards of Agriculture in England, Scotland and Ireland. Over the next few years, although he took few initiatives himself, B.M. Wilson, General Manager of the Tourist Department, was grateful for Cullen’s interest in the park; he supported his programme and defended his actions in the press. England could provide no heather seed, because too many northerners were away at the war to nd people to gather it on the moors. The Irish Board of Agriculture sent plants, but only twelve were to
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survive. Cullen received a ton of seed from Edward Wiseman, supplier to royalty and most of the nobility of Scotland and Ireland, but the sacks were full of husks and only per cent sprouted. His best success was with pounds of French seed from Vilmorin, Andrieux and Co. in Paris: dried in a warm climate, per cent of these seeds germinated in New Zealand. Cullen began his huge project by sowing the heather in an area miles by near the Haunted Whare on the western border of the park – an area to be included within it when its boundaries were extended. He spread as much as possible along the route of the new Waimarino– Tokaanu road to make an attractive vista for tourists. He intended to sow regularly, not only on the plains but until the mountain slopes too were swathed in heather, and asked the Tourist Department to order – worth of the French seed each year until this aim was achieved.⁶ He reported on his progress regularly; in he boasted of having sown 1⁄4 tons of seed between the Waimarino Road and the base of Ngauruhoe and Ruapehu. Cullen also planted wild cherry trees, rowans, bilberry bushes, Indian strawberries, lucerne and Oregon pines, and later oaks, mountain ash and willows.⁷ When he retired as Commissioner of Police in , nurturing the development of a game park became his life. One hundred acres of heather were sown in . The Tourist Department envisaged planting another –, acres, and enlisted a range of government departments and private nurseries to assist. It sent heather seeds to its gardens at Queenstown, Te Aroha and Rotorua, and the Agriculture Department’s nurseries at Ruakura and the State Forest Nursery at Whakarewarewa nurtured others. The Lands Department supplied lupin seed. The imported heather seeds produced a ner crop than expected, so that by Cullen was expecting , heather plants from Whakarewarewa alone. Three years later he was pleased with the ne showing in the park, with plants inches high and the prospect of seeing , acres covered with heather – then that ‘ne game bird the grouse’ could be introduced. Cullen claimed that this should become a protable business for the Tourist Department; with , acres of heather in the future, the income from shooting licences and the sales of grouse would be astronomical.⁸ By , however, as the spreading heather became more visible, opposition against the ‘vandalism’ involved in park improvements mounted and disputes over the aesthetics and purpose of national parks arose
28
in the press. Some New Zealanders thought the ‘sea of pink’ a welcome sight on the drab volcanic plateau and saw imported plants as the only alternative to grey and yellow tussock, sour swamp and ugly desert.⁹ Opponents were inuenced by a rising tide of sentimental attachment to New Zealand’s own ora and fauna. They tended to be those who knew the region best – outdoor enthusiasts, members of the Ruapehu Ski Club and the Tararua Tramping Club – who prized the national distinctiveness of the landscape, which contained New Zealand’s heritage. One argued that ‘these plant formations have not been arranged by chance. They are the result of physical and biological inuences that have been at work for ages; in them lies a history which future New Zealand scientists and investigators may reveal to their generations.’ They saw beauty in the vast brown steppes, the ruddy red-orange shrubs and sombre beech, and felt that tourists would expect what the title ‘National Park’ implied, a New Zealand park and not a Scottish one.¹⁰ Nostalgia for the Highlands was insufficient reason, they argued, to make New Zealand a ‘dumping-ground’ for ora and fauna from other countries that would smother the indigenous plants and destroy native birds.¹¹ Protesters decried people’s sentimental preference for the prettiness of Scottish heather and demanded a sanctuary for New Zealand ora and fauna, free of guns, dogs and foreign plants.¹² Farmers joined these protests for economic reasons: in their eyes heather was a ‘vagabond’ plant, as threatening as blackberry if it spread through the North Island. The Wanganui Chamber of Commerce called for the heather to be eradicated, and the Director of Forestry Services was soon joining in this concern.¹³ When the cautious Wilson asked Cockayne’s advice on importing ranunculus lyalii from the Southern Alps into the park, the famous botanist took his chance to reiterate his earlier pleas for preservation of the ora indigenous to a particular region: I may say that I am greatly averse to any tampering with the natural vegetation of national parks, scenic reserves, etc. It is the natural dressing of the landscape which makes the special character of the scenery of any place. If I go to the Swiss Alps I want to see the blue gentian and it[s] accompanying plants growing wild, but the Rocky Mountains’ yellow columbine would be out of place. So too, had St Paul’s in London been wrecked by bombs, its restoration would be a matter of building it again exactly as before, and not substituting for the present roof one of Marseilles tiles.¹⁴
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Cockayne was even more scornful of a pastiche of scenery in the park when he spoke to the New Zealand Institute: ‘[The park] will not be as nature intended it. We do not want to turn Tongariro National Park into . . . something that does not exist on earth and I trust does not exist in heaven.’¹⁵ Wilson was impatient with these purists and remained immune to suggestions to eradicate the heather. It was meant to spread. He pointed out that legislation did not restrict planting in national parks to indigenous ora. And heather was no hindrance to the park’s becoming a tourist resort.¹⁶ He assured his Minister that fears of heather and lupins were hysterical, while Cullen derided the protesters as ‘nobodies who carry no weight anywhere’.¹⁷
A park for the people While the Tourist Department backed Cullen’s game park and approved of the concept of Tongariro National Park as a tourist resort, its own contribution to development during its period of responsibility between and was minimal. However vital the park was as a North Island asset, developing a playground within a wilderness was an added burden to the problems of maintaining Rotorua, Waitomo and other resorts. Constrained during World War I and the post-war period by stringent government economies and Wilson’s small-scale vision, the Department did little to make the park more popular. In comparison with the thousands of day-trippers who ocked to Arthur’s Pass National Park, Tongariro attracted only a few adventurous skiers, hardy climbers and trampers, and occasional camping groups. One visitor at Easter saw only a dozen others, compared with hundreds at Mt Egmont.¹⁸ After World War I, mountain enthusiasts who hoped to attract young people to winter sports and change the attitude that equated snow with misery and discomfort, needed a North Island base for skiing and a hostel as good as the Dawson Falls Mountain House on Mt Egmont.¹⁹ First the Lands and Survey Department and then the Tourist Department had built huts in the park at Waihohonu, Whakapapa, Mangatepopo, Mangawhero and near Ketetahi Springs. But these were a blight on the landscape – primitive bunk-rooms with crude sanitary arrangements, nothing like the picturesque log cabins and stone cottages of American national parks. Visitors had to bring their own bedding, food and cook-
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Whakapapa Hut, built in . The Chateau Hotel would soon be built to the left. , /
ing utensils, and clean the huts themselves. Wilson knew that a more comfortable hostel was necessary (although he hoped for something less elaborate than the Hermitage), but he kept deferring this project until urgent post-war needs had been met.²⁰ In the meantime he had a larger hut constructed at Whakapapa, hoping this would serve the public for a long time to come.²¹ In the face of protests over lack of accommodation on the Ohakune side of the mountain, Wilson supplied two bell tents with wooden oors in and a year later bought six tents from the Defence Department for Easter. The park’s accommodation satised no one. At a time when government policy required state enterprises to be self-supporting (and the Department’s expenditure of , on tracks and a road to Whakapapa in / brought in return only in rental income), Wilson raised charges for tents and huts.²² Such a policy seemed to defeat the idea of popularising the park and provoked strong reactions. Professor Algie, an Auckland skiing enthusiast who was later to be a prominent politician, protested that the park was now beyond the reach of his students, and Le Roys, the tent-makers, saw customers cancelling orders because they could no longer afford a holiday in a region which had been designated as a ‘people’s park’.²³
3
Moreover, while camping was becoming more expensive for students and working people, the new Whakapapa hut was too simple for the well-to-do, although it stood on the ne site where the Chateau would later be built. With its corrugated-iron walls, sixteen bunks and only two separate compartments, it was adequate for anyone with the ‘scouting spirit’, but as a solution to the problem of accommodation it was the last straw in the eyes of people who wanted to holiday in the park in comfort.²⁴ Dissatisfaction over the primitive character of the Whakapapa hut was exacerbated by the difficulties of the journey in, for the last ve miles of road was still a cart-track through tussock and bush, difficult for motor cars to negotiate.²⁵ There was a strong feeling that the North Island deserved similar facilities to the Hermitage at Mt Cook. In James Gunson, Mayor of Auckland, led a groundswell of opinion that the Tourist Department was killing the park as a tourist resort. As a supporter of the Tongariro Sports Club he held a proprietary attitude to the park, regarding it as the natural playground for Aucklanders who would soon be able to enjoy the Auckland Aero Club’s proposed two-hour ights to the mountain.²⁶ Closely attuned to Auckland’s commercial interests, Gunson pledged funding from Auckland and Wellington city councils if the park was taken out of the hands of the Tourist Department. Others joined the movement for a more progressive approach to the management of the park. The New Zealand Institute led a deputation to Massey asking for the park to be transferred to the Forestry Department or to a governing board that would be unencumbered by the multitude of distractions that diverted the Tourist Department’s energies. The park was scarcely used, yet had the potential to become the ‘great future playground of the North Island’.²⁷ Maori, too, were disillusioned with the Tourist Department’s leadership. When the Department took over the park in and the original Trust Board was disbanded, Te Heu Heu Tukino V lost his symbolic role in its ongoing affairs and felt that his mana had been violated. On the Department’s side, it was felt that the gift was overestimated for, although the mountain-tops formed the most picturesque landmark in the park, the original area was small. There was also some resentment over Ngati Tuwharetoa’s continuing refusal to sell the springs at Ketetahi, which lay within the park’s boundaries. The Department wanted to build bath-houses for tourists there, and sought security of tenure.²⁸ There was little appreciation that the Ketetahi Springs were all the more important to Maori in the region because control of
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Rotorua’s mineral waters had been handed over to the government. Wilson, suspecting the Maori owners of simply holding out for a higher price, described them in as ‘not as guileless as they would appear’.²⁹ Mutual suspicion had replaced the ideal of a park sacred to all. Successful agitation against Tourist Department control culminated in the Tongariro National Park Act , which placed responsibility in a new Tongariro National Park Board. The twin goals of the original park legislation remained: to protect a large estate for the future, and develop it as an attraction for New Zealanders and overseas visitors. But the dominant concept was of a pleasure resort, and Willie Field, MP for Otaki, was alone in his concern to protect the purity of the native vegetation.³⁰ By incorporating state forests and the Defence Department training ground at Waimarino, the park was increased in size from , to , acres. The park without a tree now contained large areas of forest, although Prime Minister Massey remained unwilling to ban sawmilling from tracts of forest on the southern boundaries. The Board’s funding for development was to be derived from hut rentals, donations from local bodies, and the issuing of shooting and shing licences. There was an understanding that government grants could be made from time to time. The membership of the Board charged with managing the park was designed to reect wide interests, from the chiey lineal descendant of Te Heu Heu Tukino IV to representatives of the Lands, Tourist and Forestry departments, the President of the New Zealand Institute, the mayors of Auckland and Wellington, John Cullen (as official ranger), and three other members to be selected by the government. Members included keen developers like Gunson, who was striving for a ‘forward policy’, and Field, an ardent conservationist who helped swing the Board’s vote against Cullen’s continued sowing of heather – although by it was too late for eradication.³¹ The Board’s most important goal was to provide comfortable accommodation, to encourage tourists and bring in vital income. But it soon found itself hobbled by the same problems as the Tourist Department had faced, without even the limited government funding for development which the Department had received. A small bequest was available for roading, but nothing else. Visitors’ fees would provide only a pittance until roads, tracks and attractive accommodation were in place. Erecting its own hostel would give the Board control over park accommodation, but it lacked expertise in hotel management as well as sufficient funds to
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contemplate construction. Instead it asked Yellowstone Park for details of its franchise procedure, and followed the American park’s policy of leasing out small areas and franchising rights for accommodation.³² From the Board advertised for developers, and two years later Rodolph Wigley, the South Island entrepreneur, took up the challenge. His bid for the franchise was accepted. For this development he had formed the Tongariro Park Tourist Company (with several of the same directors as the Mt Cook Motor Company). It is extraordinary that Wilson, as the Tourist Department’s representative on the Park Board, did not voice any qualms, for he had spent the s nagging Wigley for rent and interest payments on the Hermitage. For Wigley, the Board offered an indirect source of government funding for a new venture, as it promised to borrow , on his behalf. In turn the Board felt released from future expenditure.³³ Wigley called his planned hotel the Chateau and soon succeeded in raising an additional , from Auckland shareholders and South Island family and supporters. The Chateau was conceived as a northern counterpoint to the Hermitage. Halfway between Wellington and Auckland, it had a key position in the North Island, near both the main trunk railway line and the tourist resorts of Rotorua, Taupo and Wanganui. The construction of the Chateau was a strategic move, tapping into the larger North Island population and enabling Wigley to cater for skiers who could not afford the time and expense of a trip to Mt Cook, and overseas tourists who wanted to focus on the thermal regions. On a grander scale, Wigley envisaged the Chateau as one link in a chain of hotels on the American model. With the help of South Island staff placed in the Chateau, he aimed ‘to push the tourists down South’.³⁴ The Chateau was designed to appeal to people who wanted to holiday outdoors, but disliked rough huts or camping and could afford to pay to be comfortable. Luxury in a high-altitude wilderness offered an antidote to the nervous strain of city life, an exhilarating alternative to the sea, and a refreshing change from the enervating sub-tropical climate of Auckland. Wigley was a great publicist of landscape as well as hotels. There can rarely have been a prospectus for New Zealand investors with such a literary avour. Wigley drew on the poet Jessie Mackay’s vision of altars of ice and borrowed from D.M. Ross’s ideal of Ruapehu as ‘a sentimental escape to the innite’, ‘a place of pure air and chastened light, a place of terror and glory, where man may walk in cleanliness and uprightness’.³⁵ He also used the words of Alan Mulgan:
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This poster, probably produced in , highlights the Chateau’s place in Rodolph Wigley’s chain of resort hotels. , , 1⁄2
I have long been convinced that many New Zealand dwellers by the sea need for their physical and spiritual welfare not a seaside holiday, but one in the uplands such as these. Future generations will bless the foresight and generosity of those who made this superb playground possible. It has spaciousness, loveliness and grandeur. I shall remember especially three things about it. The way the light comes through the beech trees, the sight of Ruapehu rising up in a ne morning radiant and majestic against a brilliant sky, and the glory of the sunset light upon the tussock of the plains.³⁶
Wigley’s spiritualisation of the landscape and commercialisation of the wild outdoors was typical of the North American model of national park development. New Zealand had followed the United States in pursuing a vision that rated popularisation of the parks as highly as preservation of their natural character. There was far less concern in
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The Chateau Hotel, .
36
the early twentieth century than in later decades with keeping the virgin qualities of wild areas intact and private enterprise accommodation out of the parks. To set aside a vast, spectacular area from future land sales was enough of a statement, one conveying high moral purpose and a sense of national good. The role of the government was to exclude the worst extremes of speculation, land sales, milling and settlement, and to make nature accessible and pleasurable to tourists and ordinary citizens. The introduction of a grand hotel into the park was a fullment of this policy.³⁷ In Auckland Wigley was applauded as a genius, and his proposal welcomed as a step towards creating a tourist paradise. Wellington’s Dominion voiced concern that, between the extremes of a palatial hotel and a rough hut, the ordinary New Zealander would have nowhere to stay.³⁸ The Chateau was begun in February and built in haste. The Fletcher Construction Company had men on site to get the hotel ready within a few months for the winter sports season. By August competitors in the New Zealand ski championships were sleeping in the unfurnished hotel.³⁹ The Chateau’s neo-Georgian design combined elements of public and domestic architecture. It was built for pleasure-lovers and a special
feature was the lounge of , square feet, with a parquet dance oor and large plate-glass windows looking out on Tongariro and Ngauruhoe’s volcanic cone. Next to the lounge was a dining room for , and upstairs bedrooms and bathrooms provided luxury unmatched in New Zealand. The steep attic roof and dormer windows gave an intimate quality to the grandeur of the building. There were modern amenities below: a cinema and children’s playroom, a gymnasium and alpine equipment rooms, along with a barber’s shop, cafeteria and photographic room. With the installation of hydro-electricity, central heating made the whole hotel warm and comfortable. Out in front a ne eighteen-hole golf course was under construction, and tennis courts, bowling and croquet greens were planned to heighten the appeal of Tongariro as a national playground.⁴⁰ From the beginning ‘it was really something to go and stay at the Chateau’. Joan Banks, a young accounts clerk at the Chateau in , recalls the pleasures of life there – even as one of the staff. The place was beautiful and staff worked in the mornings, then skied or rambled in the afternoons. Young women on the staff were treated as daughters of the house, encouraged to play golf, learn to ski and waltz with
Arriving in style. Chauffeurdriven limousines bringing Malolo cruise passengers from Auckland to the Chateau, .
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the guests in the evenings. Banks was excited to come from Hamilton to work in such a ne setting, and blithe about the -mile walk to the skields and the dangers of skiing on rocky terrain: ‘We were venturesome to do it at all’.⁴¹ To other New Zealanders, a grand hotel seemed out of kilter with the egalitarian ideal of a park for the people. Outdoor enthusiasts were mixed in their response. Members of the Ruapehu Ski Club were jubilant that years’ planning for better accommodation had reached fruition. Its members welcomed the comfort and sense of celebration that accompanied major winter sports events on the mountain, and the opportunity to dance on a parquet oor to the music of an orchestra instead of stumbling over the boards of an old hut to a gramophone record. For the Tararua Tramping Club, the park’s isolation had been the lure that brought them north and they were loath to see tourists and motorists turning it into a rendezvous. They preferred their old huts as a base from which those who could not afford hotel luxuries could enjoy the wonders of a national playground.⁴² The Chateau’s luxury was deceptive, however. Opened in November , the hotel was threatened with closure fteen months later. The Depression was a tough time for the hotel business, and Wigley’s cavalier style of taking on one hotel after another left him without reserves as the crisis deepened. By the state of the Tongariro Tourist Company’s parent company, the Mt Cook Motor Company, did not augur well for the Chateau. In the Hermitage’s rent and interest payments were late again, and Wigley asked for an interest-free loan to improve its hydro-electricity system.⁴³ Treasury joined the Tourist Department in blaming the Chateau’s failure on Wigley’s ‘extravagant, wasteful management’ of hotels over the previous few years. New Zealand Truth’s nancial columnist criticised Wigley for a naive faith in the protability of tourism and for undertaking a project too grandiose to succeed.⁴⁴ As creditors became impatient with the Mt Cook Company in the south, Fletchers pressed its claims for payment on the Tongariro Company. On February , Wigley agreed to liquidation.
The doors should not close When ownership of the Chateau passed from Wigley to the Tongariro National Park Board on February , Treasury encouraged the Board to keep the hotel open.⁴⁵ The Board acted quickly, cutting the
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Staff and guests at ease on the Chateau’s deck.
guest tariff by . per cent and reducing staff numbers – the weekly wages and salary bill was cut from to .⁴⁶ Richard Cobbe, the Chateau’s manager, wrote articles for city newspapers and invited national organisations to consider it as a conference venue.⁴⁷ G.W. Clinkard, who now headed the Tourist Department after Wilson’s long period at the helm, was more enterprising than his predecessor. He saw that the Chateau needed more of a boost than any other resort in New Zealand, and backed Cobbe’s publicity efforts by sending an enthusiastic Tourist Department officer on a two-month tour of the North Island to foster the idea of group parties to the Chateau. This was a more aggressive promotion than the Tourist Department had undertaken for decades. The publicity officer gave lectures in which he highlighted the signicance of visiting a national park – ‘the people’s own resort’. He also arranged window displays on the park, and ran lm screenings in the staff luncheon rooms of large companies like John Courts in Auckland and the DIC in Wellington, as well as in secondary schools, YMCAs and YWCAs, and the hotels where he stayed. In Auckland people blocked the footpaths to watch evening screenings in the Government Tourist Bureau’s window.⁴⁸ The publicity drive was successful. Although the Depression was a tough time to get people moving, the ‘National Park Holiday’ idea looked like catching on.⁴⁹ The
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Chateau was full in August, with up to guests a day. Cobbe and his wife were at their wits’ end, offering Clinkard a mattress in a bath if he wished to visit.⁵⁰ At Labour weekend an excursion train from Auckland carried passengers, compared with the year before, and the hotel turned hundreds of potential guests away. The Tongariro National Park Board had neither the funds nor the expertise to manage the hotel, and in November the Chateau was transferred to the Tourist Department, a burden which Clinkard shouldered reluctantly.⁵¹ It was an odd reversal of earlier policy. The Department had released the Hermitage to Wigley ten years before and was now forced to take responsibility for his failed Chateau. While its resort at Waitomo had prospered during the s, the Chateau was more vulnerable, for it was expensive to run and the Depression was worsening; it would not be protable for some time. The Tourist Department had accused Wigley of extravagance and now had to prove it could do better. Meanwhile, Wigley was objecting to state involvement in the hotel business. Clinkard cited the examples of the Canadian National Railways’ hotels and state-run hostels at the Jenolan Caves, Mt Buffalo and Mt Kosciusko in Australia to show that the New Zealand government was not alone in catering for tourists. An official American study had shown that state involvement in tourist hotels was the norm overseas.⁵² Despite increased numbers, the hotel lost , over the summer of /. The Tourist Department costed the idea of closing the Chateau for the winter, but this would pose difficulties both for the Post Office and telephone exchange based there and for Webbs Transport Company, which linked the Chateau with the main trunk railway line and Wanganui. A closure would also undercut the extensive publicity the Department had given the Chateau overseas, and exclude the wealthy tourists who were beginning to arrive on the new Matson Line steamers.⁵³ In , when the government was cutting back on all expenditure, Treasury put , on the supplementary and Public Works estimates to pay off the Chateau’s liabilities and keep it open.⁵⁴ The hotel stayed in business under spartan conditions, with the heating turned off for several hours each day and Cobbe claiming that staff worked to hours a day.⁵⁵ Despite these difficulties, Clinkard urged the Minister of Tourism to keep the Chateau in government hands. After the experience of leasing the Hermitage to Wigley, he felt that the government could be left with
40
nancial responsibility for the hotel but no voice in its administration. And , the height of the Depression, was not a good year to lease out a luxury hotel – the prospects were continual requests for rent reductions, loans and subsidies. With careful management Clinkard hoped that the Department could at least pay the interest on the capital invested in the Chateau. His main strategy was to reduce the standard of service and number of staff in a hotel where cleaning the plate-glass windows could keep one person busy all day. He also aimed to attract a wider range of people and keep the Chateau full, because numbers were essential to carry the overheads of such a huge building.⁵⁶ Further initiatives to publicise the Chateau were successful. The Labour weekend excursions to the hotel that Cobbe organised became the most popular excursions in New Zealand. On other special occasions – at Christmas, New Year, Easter and during the winter sports festival – visitor numbers increased dramatically. By the Chateau was bringing in per cent of the Department’s total revenue and accounting for per cent of its increased business.⁵⁷ The hotel won accolades from widely travelled visitors, with Sir Cecil Day, Secretary to the Governor-General, praising it as the best accommodation in Australasia and Hon. Alex Shaw, Managing Director of P & O Steam Ship Company, claiming that it surpassed Europe’s mountain resorts. Cobbe, however, was soon exhausted and distraught, working seven days and hours a week, coping with burst pipes and machinery that broke down regularly, and managing a large number of inside and outside staff.⁵⁸ A short-tempered, disputatious man, he was soon at odds with head office for its lack of consultation on tariff issues, and also with the Audit Office and Webbs Transport Company. It was difficult to retain staff at a remote hotel where they were cooped up together, working long hours and living in the same building; relationships became intense and volatile. When the chef ’s wife ran off with a kitchen hand, Cobbe found it even harder to keep the place functioning efficiently. Casual labour was scarce and rarely provided the level of service demanded by exacting customers. With the relief camps as a backstop for male workers, Cobbe felt that staff were not afraid of dismissal for off-hand treatment of guests. Alcohol exacerbated Cobbe’s problems with staff. Although the King Country was an unlicensed district, sly-grog was smuggled into the hotel for staff by one of Webbs Transport workers. Cobbe complained that it was ‘terrible stuff and two drinks would turn an ordinary man
4
An English visitor, Lord Barnby, with Chateau staff members in . The hotel manager, Richard Cobbe, is standing at the left.
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into a maniac’, and threatened that the culprit would ‘not walk out of the Park, but will go out on a stretcher’. Within a short period he had to deal with his engineer ourishing a hammer at anyone who would not drink with him, a reman brandishing an iron bar at staff, and a female staff member parading down the road in a singlet which did not reach her waist.⁵⁹ The guests could be equally unmanageable. At a hotel like the Chateau in an unlicensed district, visitors were entitled to bring in drinks to consume in their rooms, but this system was open to abuse: visitors arrived with suitcases weighed down with bottles, and furtive drinking led on to wild parties. By there were rumours that the Chateau was becoming a rough-house. Cobbe, fearing a public scandal, complained to head office of drunken guests in a room, and naked men and scantily dressed women parading the corridors.⁶⁰ Riotous behaviour at night exhausted staff who had to patrol the hotel, and was likely to make other guests leave. It was particularly difficult for Cobbe to moderate behaviour by guests of high social standing.⁶¹ Among the worst were shipping company heads, who stayed free as guests of the
Department. Things came to a head late one night in September when a rowdy group of guests (including Sir Standish O’Grady Roche, a member of the vice-regal staff ) attempted to bribe night porters to allow them to keep partying. When Cobbe intervened, he was knocked unconscious and hospitalised for some time. He then resigned.⁶² To popularise the Chateau after these misdemeanours, L. Bayfeild, the next manager, tried to improve the evening entertainment. Although dance orchestras were expensive, Bayfeild made a more regular feature of live music on special occasions – at Christmas and New Year, and during Easter and the winter sports championships, when the wireless would be drowned out by the crowd. A small group like Steel’s Orchestra, with its saxophone, violin, trumpet, piano and clarinet, made all the difference to the number who joined in the dancing, and to guests’ enjoyment of the evening. When the Department, reluctant to increase expenditure, suggested playing new dance records in place of the orchestra (especially after the Labour government raised the award rate for musicians), Bayfeild argued that the number of guests was rising steeply and a dance band helped the balance sheet.⁶³ The Tourist Department was cautious about spending initiatives, perhaps because the hotel buildings needed extensive repairs. The Chateau still looked elegant from a distance, but both the exterior and interior were becoming shabby. The hotel had been built in haste and faults in its construction were exacerbated by the stormy alpine weather. The corrugated-asbestos sheets of roong had been laid without enough overlap. When severe winds lifted them, lashing rain and powdery snow drove inside. A new iron roof was needed. Water also drifted between the hollow walls and window frames. By there was so much leakage on the top oor that the water had made holes in the ceilings and the plaster walls were stained and cracked on every oor. The ceiling over the lounge had too few nails and poor quality timber, and sagged over the billiard table; in the lounge and dining room, the gilding and varnish had dulled. The foundations were insecure because poor timber had shrunk and left the sleeper plates hanging almost in mid-air. Huge areas of the hotel needed renovation. Treasury agreed that , of the Tourist vote could be spent on repairs, but leakage remained a problem and by the walls were stained again.⁶⁴ Bayfeild knew that a hotel alone did not make a resort, and encouraged the Tourist Department to foster the idea of Tongariro National Park as a playground for city people by popularising winter sports.
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Kristian Revfeim (centre), a popular ski instructor in , was succeeded after the Depression by Ernst Skardarasy.
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Ruapehu could become the prime mountain resort of New Zealand, for the terrain was ideal, offering every degree of slope and kind of snow. As a comparatively new sport, skiing would need some impetus if visitors were to ock to the Chateau. Enthusiasts told the Department that ski instructors were needed. Major N.H. Secker, a well-travelled skier, explained that without proper training ‘the fascination fades, the sport degenerates’, but with tuition skiing could become an exciting sport, as exhilarating as ying or shooting. Bayfeild saw that guests who became procient skiers were much more likely to return to the Chateau, and urged the Tourist Department to import an expert ski instructor.⁶⁵ One of Austria’s top ski instructors, Ernst Skardarasy, who had established a ski school at Kosciusko in New South Wales in , inspected the skields at Mt Cook, Mt Egmont and Ruapehu in . He claimed that New Zealand’s slopes were better than Australia’s and
as good as any in the world, and offered his services to the Chateau. He had spent three European summers setting up the Kosciusko ski school and was sure that a school at the Chateau could be as successful, and protable for the Tourist Department. A ski school was a mark of progressiveness that added cachet to any mountain resort, as well as making good nancial sense, for people improved their skills, became enthusiasts, stayed longer and returned with their friends. And with skiing instruction there were far fewer falls and accidents.⁶⁶ The Tourist Department invited Skardarasy to establish a ski school at the Chateau for an experimental season in . This was a coup for the Chateau, for Skardarasy was among the top skiers in the world. His arrival both linked New Zealand to exciting modern trends in alpine sport and encouraged tourism at the Chateau.⁶⁷ By September the hotel manager could boast that the winter season had been extended from four to six weeks to three months; over this period ski hire at the Chateau had doubled and hotel fees had risen from , to ,. Much of this was due to Skardarasy’s presence.⁶⁸ Skardarasy was surprised at New Zealanders’ indifference to the new sport when skiing was on a rising wave of popularity worldwide. Skiing should not be conned to an élite, he argued, but become a sport for the masses.⁶⁹ This argument appealed to a new Labour government that had shortened the working week, closing factories and offices on Saturdays, and was actively promoting the ideal of a healthy nation by establishing a National Council of Sport.⁷⁰ Frank Langstone, the new Minister of Tourist and Publicity, saw the potential for encouraging tness at Ruapehu while also developing the Chateau and park as a successful tourist venture. He pointed to the way skiing was gaining popularity in Australia and had become a national sport in the United States, with hostels springing up all over the country, and envisaged the expansion of New Zealand’s mountain resorts along similar lines.⁷¹ Although government policy favoured development, there was no funding to spare in years while huge investments were being made in state housing and social security. Yet Ruapehu still needed improvements to put it on a level with Continental resorts. Skardarasy’s report to the Tourist Department at the end of the season pointed to future needs. Chief among these was easier access to the snowelds. The long-promised -mile road from the Chateau to Scoria Flat (the Top o’ the Bruce) had been begun but was incomplete, which meant skiers still faced a daunting walk uphill carrying -pound skis at the beginning
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of the day. There was no snow plough to clear the completed section of the road for motor cars. And, whereas in Europe many resorts had a funicular that sped skiers effortlessly up the slopes with time for a cigarette on the way, at Ruapehu there was no ski lift or tow. Walking uphill again after each run, skiers could manage only , feet of skiing a day compared with , feet of downhill runs on European elds. A funicular at Ruapehu would be the rst in the Southern Hemisphere, a drawcard for Australians and a great advertisement for New Zealand’s Centennial in .⁷² Other simple improvements were vital to the enjoyment of a day in the snow. There was no toboggan run or skating-rink at the Chateau. The corrugated-iron Salt Hut at Scoria Flat, which serviced skiers during the day, was a harsh contrast with European facilities, and the tins of pineapple, sandwiches and cups of tea served there were spartan fare for skiers. Skardarasy argued that the hut should be replaced by an attractive stone cottage offering hot meals and providing beds for people who could not afford to stay at the Chateau or wanted to be closer to the skield. The nursery slopes could be improved easily by removing the scoria boulders that hampered skiing when the snowfall was light, shortening the season.⁷³ He promised rewards for government investment in the resort: the hundreds of skiers would become thousands, and wealthy Europeans who wandered the globe all year in search of snow would soon be crossing the Tasman from Australia’s newly developed mountain resorts at Kosciusko and Mt Buffalo. There was also a chance that competitors in the winter Olympics would visit Ruapehu for last-minute practice.⁷⁴ Skardarasy was aiming high at a time when even in the United States skiing facilities were only just being established at Yosemite and Colorado, remote skields were rarely protable, and experiments with winter carnivals, rudimentary rope tows and snow trains had taken place only a year or two earlier.⁷⁵ No money was available to replace the Salt Hut at Scoria Flat, which was simply extended at one end to shelter more people at lunchtime. Queues grew as people waited for their skis to be tted. Although the simple ski tow installed in revolutionised skiers’ prospects, the idea of a funicular was deferred. The same year war in Europe clouded New Zealand’s distant snowelds, just as it had blighted the development of skiing at the Hermitage in .
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During the s the Railways Department continued to encourage tours combining travel by rail and motor car. , , 1⁄2
By the pink sheen of heather, the pleasures of the Chateau and the development of skiing had all contributed to the growth of a playground where Pakeha and tourist pursuits predominated. Only a few people had concerned themselves with the loss of the indigenous nature of the wilderness or the risk of obscuring the park’s Maori heritage. Bayfeild was an exception when, soon after his arrival as Chateau manager, he tried to make the Maori role in the park more visible and won the Tourist Department’s approval for the erection of a sign on the site of the warrior Te Kooti’s last fortied stronghold.⁷⁶ But the Department was less sympathetic to his desire to have a copy of Tukino’s deed of gift available in the hotel for visitors who asked about the park’s history. The new General Manager of the Tourist Department, L.J. Schmitt, told him to avoid controversial discussions and to refer any questions to the Tongariro National Park Board – which in turn was unwilling to supply Bayfeild with a copy of the deed.⁷⁷ In Tukino reasserted his rights to a more prominent standing in the park by leading a deputation to the Board to request that a memorial to his ancestors be erected in
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A brochure published in advertising the services provided by the Tourist Department’s bureaux. , --
accordance with the original deed of gift. The outbreak of war dashed his hopes.⁷⁸ There were no other tourist initiatives in the s as splendid as the Chateau. Built by a rash entrepreneur in hard times, it survived the Depression under the management of the Tourist Department. As a resort in the spectacular outdoors it was much closer in style to national parks in the United States than to the nostalgia for the urban parks and promenades of England and Europe that had dominated the early development of Rotorua. The Chateau added to the variety of North Island attractions, lured overseas visitors to stay longer in the thermal regions, and exacerbated the ongoing resentment felt by South
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Islanders that their beauties were ignored by government and visitors alike. Apart from the Chateau itself, which had been thrust upon the government, the development of skields, huts, roads and tracks was minimal, and Tongariro National Park was still far from the people’s playground of the north. Yet, as the s ended, the prospects for tourism were improving dramatically. In /, visitor numbers were per cent higher than the year before and for the rst time over , tourists entered New Zealand. This increase did not yet mark a worldwide shift of interest towards New Zealand: per cent of these tourists came from Australia as that country’s primary and secondary industries began to boom again after the long slump and P & O’s cruise ships crossed the Tasman more often. The number of visitors from Britain remained static, and only a few hundred more took the long, luxurious, -day return voyage from the United States than had done so in earlier years.⁷⁹ Wide oceans remained a barrier between travelling Westerners and a small island nation in the South Pacic.
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In the modernist style of the Centennial Exhibition buildings in Wellington offered a new cosmopolitan image of New Zealand. , , //
By the People, For the People –
W
by rail, their arrival was dramatic. In an American reporter described the unusual approaches to the city: ‘In your ship, you swing from the turbulent waters of Cook Strait . . . into a splendid deep-water harbor seven miles across, and you may see the city apparently tumbling down into the water from the crests of surrounding hills. By rail, you rattle down a series of grades through one tunnel after another and then burst out at the sea edge on much the same view.’ As the capital, Wellington also had a more cosmopolitan air than other New Zealand cities.¹ Through the summer of / New Zealand’s Centennial Exhibition highlighted the sophistication of Wellington and made the city a carnival mecca for New Zealanders.²
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Ever since the rst international exhibition at the Crystal Palace in London in , such exhibitions had generated great public excitement. Often constructed in spectacular settings, they combined symbols of modernity with huge displays of commodities and novelties from distant, exotic places.³ The Centennial Exhibition which opened in Wellington in the spring of was the centrepiece of New Zealand’s celebration of its progress since the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in . The whole project was an act of bravura by a Labour government willing to spend , on a modern, urban image of New Zealand that would embody the government’s forward-looking political programme and emphasise the country’s place in the western world.⁴ It would both unite New Zealanders in an understanding of their past, and provide a springboard for the government ‘to leap off into the future’.⁵ Designed for New Zealanders rather than outsiders, it reected national pride and purpose more than traditional tourist appeal. This was the rst international exhibition to be held in the North Island and was expected to attract four million visitors, surpassing the three million who had visited the New Zealand and South Seas Exhibition in Dunedin in –.⁶ The exhibition, built in the suburb of Rongotai, became a miniature city within a city. Its stylish exhibition halls and spectacular, articial landscape marked a shift away from the celebration of New Zealand’s mountains, rivers, thermal waters and wilderness. The streamlined, modernist style of Edward Anscombe’s designs for the exhibition buildings symbolised how far a young nation had come. His stark facades, the impressive central tower, the reecting pools, airy interiors and uncluttered vistas presented visitors with an ‘idealised view of the new modern world’.⁷ The cream-coloured buildings gained a surreal aura at night thanks to the vivid changes of colour provided by the greatest lighting scheme ever seen in the Southern Hemisphere.⁸ While Joe Heenan, the Under-Secretary for Internal Affairs, was the driving force behind the overall vision and planning of the exhibition, the Tourist Department was responsible for publicising the centennial abroad. The Department’s silk-screen artist, Leonard Mitchell, produced striking, colourful posters and a postage stamp of a Maori woman in traditional dress boldly superimposed on shimmering exhibition buildings. The Department also produced a book of photographs entitled New Zealand Centennial – to be sent overseas to attract visitors to the exhibition. But the major overseas promotion was to be
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a lm produced by the Department to encapsulate years of Pakeha settlement and the country’s ‘March to Nationhood’. Heenan intended the lm to be shown overseas six months before the exhibition to publicise the occasion, but as time ran short the original goal was forgotten and it took on the role of helping twentieth-century New Zealanders interpret and celebrate their past.⁹ The medium of lm had been an important element of the Tourist Department’s work since the s. After the arrival of ‘talkies’ in , the Department began to harness the new technology of sound and colour, although staff cuts through the Depression meant that new lms were a patchwork of old black-and-white scenic excerpts with new sections in colour. The Department’s major lm project was the production of Romantic New Zealand, a scenic lm with a commentary written by Nelle Scanlan and spiced up by the popular humorist Ken Alexander.¹⁰ It made the most of colour and sound in its Rotorua section, showing Maori women dressed in traditional garments amidst the steam, while the new Blue Baths were included to provide a symbol of modernity and a colourful spectacle. It was a huge success in New Zealand cinemas. The inclusion of old lm with new was received with mixed feelings in Australia and cynicism in more sophisticated London, where simple travelogues were outdated.¹¹ In the government had bought out the struggling Filmcraft Company at Miramar to strengthen the Tourist Department’s publicity, lm and photographic work. With full control of production, the Department could now produce lms more cheaply, and within a year the Government Film Studios had turned out , feet of lm.¹² The inuence of state ownership was reected when the Department began a series on industries and national projects, from dairying to the Plunket Society. In the view of government representatives overseas, however, such subjects lacked the ‘snappy’ action and glamour needed to interest an international audience.¹³ Convinced by overseas officers that travelogues had lost their appeal, the Department had begun to incorporate a story-line and human interest into its productions, although the plots remained a fairly simple excuse for landscape promotion. On the Ball, a feature on the / All Blacks, showed each player in the region he came from. After Pan American Airways lmed Charles Lindbergh ying over its South American routes, the Department considered using heroic gures like Jack Lovelock or Jean Batten to provide a connecting story-line as they
This Tourist and Publicity Department advertisement both sought a scriptwriter for feature-length lms and publicised its travel bureaux services. , , /, .
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toured the country. Batten had agreed to the project in after her solo ight from Britain to Australia, but the Department decided that her news value would vanish before production could be completed.¹⁴ The Tourist and Publicity Department had not yet integrated demands for more story and liveliness in its publicity lms when it was given the challenge of producing a centennial lm in which scenic pleasures would form no more than a backdrop to the drama of colonial struggles. Rather than mountains and rivers, this lm would show ‘a New Zealand full of people, people who are busy building a part of the British Empire . . . and who are slowly evolving a culture and atmosphere of their own’.¹⁵ Its historical theme made it the most ambitious lm the Government Film Studios had yet tackled. The government received offers of help from Australian and British lm-makers who hovered wherever money seemed available, and at rst Heenan thought it essential to use overseas expertise.¹⁶ By , however, the country was facing a foreign exchange crisis and Heenan asked the Tourist Department to do the job itself.¹⁷ Herbert Bridgman took on the task of producer and Cyril Morton became editor. Both had years of experience in tourist and publicity lms, but this was their rst attempt to create a drama and interpret history. Faced with the problem of condensing years into a continuous story-line, the lm-makers considered basing the lm on Nelle Scanlan’s Pencarrow saga of three generations of family life. They soon settled on a plan to link snapshots of founding moments, archetypal scenes of pioneering life and a summary of contemporary achievements.¹⁸ New sound equipment was imported from Hollywood, along with stock negatives of bush res and sailing ships in stormy seas. An amateur cast was drawn from repertory companies.¹⁹ The lm-makers paid close attention to the historical accuracy of period costumes by checking with the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich and Anglican and Roman Catholic authorities; they even chose members of the clergy to play early missionaries, so that the roles of Henry Williams and Bishop Pompallier would be conveyed with dignity.²⁰ Making a virtue out of necessity, the government claimed that using inexperienced actors and clothes and props contributed by ordinary New Zealanders made the lm more characteristic of the country than a large studio production would have been. In overcoming a lack of resources and equipment, the staff were recreating the rugged, makeshift nature of colonial life.²¹
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One of the screen-printed posters designed by L.C. Mitchell for the Centennial. Figures from the Department’s historical lm, One Hundred Crowded Years, are blended with contemporary modes of transport and urban architecture. , , /
The lm was very clearly a celebration of Pakeha history. Although Maori gures had been appropriated to decorate centennial stamps and posters, they were largely effaced from the centennial lm, just as they were from most of the scholarly centennial surveys.²² In One Hundred Crowded Years they found a place at the Treaty of Waitangi, then as a threat to the pioneers and as an epilogue. The lm opened with a dedication: To New Zealand’s Pioneers – Who came forth from Britain’s ordered ways to the wildness of an untouched land. Through trials and dangers they toiled and struggled to hew from the wilderness a fair heritage for their children – and they fullled their purpose. One hundred years have passed, and we who come after remember with grateful pride those brave men and women – our Pioneers.²³
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The story began with discussions of annexation in London in , then moved to the Treaty of Waitangi, Captain Hobson’s negotiations with the Maori, and English emigrants leaving the fog of London for a land of fresh air and hard work. The value of their European heritage was captured in the melodies of violin and ute on board ship and the poignant reading of the rd Psalm on arrival as seagulls circled above a windswept beach. The plot followed the adventures of a young, romantic couple hewing out a home in virgin forest, sowing the ploughed land, experiencing the birth of their rst child in a slab cottage, and eeing before erce Maori warriors who came down ‘like the wolf on the fold’. Gold rushes led to railways and public works, the conquest of distance with axe, dynamite and sleepers. The nineteenth century concluded with the innovation of shipments of refrigerated meat to Britain. The culmination of pioneer progress in the twentieth was more like the ordinary publicity lms of the s, with glimpses of life in the cities, the modernisation of agriculture and the assets of a good state: social security, state housing, education and health services.²⁴ The centennial lm had been envisaged as a foretaste of the Centennial Exhibition, but imports were restricted and members of the lm crew left to enlist on the outbreak of World War II. Production was delayed. The Centennial Exhibition went ahead despite the war. The countries of the Empire still occupied large exhibition courts, and the funfair of Playland and the nightly cabaret drew thousands of visitors. The spectacle and excitement gave people the sense of entering a new era after the fearful years of the Depression. One civil servant who went along reluctantly was surprised at his enjoyment: ‘It was . . . a relief from the drabness of war, but it also, I felt, gave a sense of belonging, of a common heritage, a common community’.²⁵ Rather than publicising the centennial to the world, One Hundred Crowded Years ended up tailing the celebrations and being subsumed in the larger war effort. Its themes of courage in hard times and its honouring of the contributions of ordinary people tted well with the wartime crisis. Contemporary scenes of battle were rushed from England to make a tting climax to the lm. When it nally appeared on screen at the Tivoli in Wellington in November as the centennial year was drawing to a close, audiences applauded as the Maori Battalion and other troops were shown embarking for overseas.²⁶ The lm was handed to the National Patriotic Board to be used in its fund-raising for the war effort.
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‘Humanity at large as well as nature run amuck’ Film remained a vital element of publicity during the war years, taking a new direction when the government gave the Tourist and Publicity Department the task of rallying the nation, creating a cohesive community and educating people on their wartime responsibilities. This new programme began with the remodelling of the Government Film Studios as the National Film Unit in . While the Tourist Department retained responsibility for the mundane management of the Film Unit, its policy was directed by the Prime Minister’s Department under the leadership of J.T. Paul. Stanhope Andrews, editor of the journal National Education, became the producer and led a young, able team in a relentless programme of producing a lm a week in the publicity ‘factory’. He enjoyed the sense of having his nger on the pulse of political action and of involvement with a national purpose. His insistence
The mm printing room in the National Film Unit at Miramar. , /
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on taking orders only from J.T. Paul, the Prime Minister, Peter Fraser, and the Cabinet contributed to the sidelining of L.J. Schmitt and the Tourist Department from wartime publicity work.²⁷ The separation of lm production from tourist interests was all the stronger because Andrews wanted to develop a different kind of lm from the Tourist Department’s focus on scenery. Inuenced by John Grierson, the famed British documentary lm-maker, Andrews shifted government publicity lms away from empty landscapes to the portrayal of working lives – to ‘humanity at large as well as nature run amuck’. He aimed eventually to produce full-scale documentaries that would gain their emotional power from portrayals of real people and convey a sense of cinema produced ‘by the people, for the people’.²⁸ The National Film Unit’s most important task was to produce a series of news items encapsulating the contribution of ordinary people to the war effort at home and abroad. This Weekly Review was shown throughout the country to a nation of keen cinema-goers. One of the unit’s rst lms was Country Lads, produced in to portray the troops at the moment of leave-taking. The camera followed the faces of ordinary individuals intently, with long shots of the faces of marching men in the streets and women on the wharf. The only landscape in
From each instalment of the National Film Unit’s Weekly Review was shown to some , New Zealanders in cinemas around the country to rally support for the war effort. , , ,
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Country Lads was conveyed in the narrator’s litany of well-loved places by the sea that these New Zealanders were leaving behind – the surf at Muriwai, the pines at Sumner, and ‘the scarlet carpet of pohutukawa petals on the road to Ohope’. The departure for the battleeld was an occasion to highlight the freedom inherent in this land of beaches and fresh air, and continued the centennial celebration of New Zealand as home to adventurous pioneers ‘who came looking for elbow room, men and women who couldn’t be shut in against their wish’.²⁹ By the National Film Unit was unable to meet increasing demands for longer documentaries to be sent overseas, and it was clear that modernisation of the outdated technology and premises at the Miramar lm studios was necessary. Cabinet set aside , to buy property to enlarge the studio site and to send Andrews overseas to purchase modern equipment, inspect modern lm processes and assess trends in documentary making.³⁰ His visit took him to Washington, to Toronto to learn from the expertise of Grierson’s team, to New York as the newsreel hub of the world, to Chicago to meet equipment manufacturers, and to Hollywood to study production methods.³¹ He returned to New Zealand with , worth of equipment and a heightened vision of the role of government lm-makers. Andrews felt more strongly than before that beautiful scenery was less interesting than a way of life in which individuals had a unique dignity. This was the image of New Zealand he sought to portray in the following years. It was reected in lms such as Polish Children, which documented the arrival in Wellington of Polish refugees at the end of a long journey that had started in Cracow, Lublin or Warsaw years earlier. The moving narration highlighted the plight of adults and children, many of them with shaved heads, shabby clothes and scanty luggage tied in parcels, ‘the people whom war uproots and casts aside’. The camera tracked their journey from Wellington to Pahiatua, showing the warmth of New Zealanders who ocked from offices and schoolrooms to wait on station platforms to welcome the newcomers with ice-creams and owers. As women tucked the night-gowned children into bed, their security became a symbol of the domesticity that would ourish after the war. New Zealand would become a haven where children could dream in peace, for this was home, ‘the end of their journey.’³² Andrews argued that a lm such as Polish Children could not be made in fascist countries but resulted from a democratic government. He and
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Paul shared the optimism of Fraser and his deputy, Finance Minister Walter Nash, at the prospect of remaking the world at the end of the war, and aimed to retain a signicant public role for the National Film Unit in educating the public in civic virtue and the need for humanitarianism.³³ Of the nine goals the National Film Unit listed for its post-war programme, only two related to tourism. The politics of kindness was to remain more signicant than spectacular landscapes: Occasional ‘pretty’ pictures will be acceptable, but where the object is to secure a lasting impression in the minds of audiences, mere prettiness must compete with millions of feet of similar prettiness from all over the world. Despite wishful thinking, New Zealand scenery is very similar to scenery in many other parts of the globe. It is only the attitude to life in general, and the placing of accent on unique aspects of New Zealand habits of life that raises our product out of the rut.³⁴
These ideas had implications for the administration of publicity and tourism, and robbed the Department of the signicant role it had developed in lm production.³⁵ Because democracy was a national issue (and because Andrews could not tolerate the Tourist Department’s cautious approach to experimentation and funding), he aimed to establish a new structure for the National Film Unit. Publicity would become a centralised, independent unit, still responsible to the Prime Minister’s Department but detached altogether from the ‘dead hand’ of the Tourist and Publicity Department. The unit’s producer would be closely involved with government policy and build an independent team of creative, skilled staff free from the customary public service ranking and salary structure, better paid and given room to be free (if not free-wheeling).³⁶ The National Film Unit would be responsible for publicity and lming for all government departments, serving tourism in the same way as any other agency. Nash and Fraser found this vision convincing, and at the war’s end the interests of tourism were separated from the National Film Unit and the Department was once again named the Tourist and Health Resorts Department.
Tourism in cold storage While Andrews hijacked the publicity wing of the Tourist and Publicity Department, Schmitt spent the war years concentrating on the survival
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of the hard-hit tourist industry and planning for the post-war bonanza everyone expected. A month before war broke out, the rst British passenger air service had been due to y travellers from Britain to New Zealand on a -day journey that would conquer the vast distances that separated Europe from New Zealand. Then war was declared and travel for pleasure from Britain was halted completely. Only a trickle of visitors kept arriving from Australia and America. Troopships ploughing across the Pacic carrying men to war replaced cruise ships bearing tourists to New Zealand. Moreover, although the Pacic was less dangerous than the Atlantic while the war remained concentrated in Europe, the German sinking of the Niagara off Northland in made tourists reluctant to travel by sea. The few American liners to maintain their routes saw twothirds of passengers cancel their bookings as travellers turned to Canada, Mexico and South America.³⁷ A year later, when the American Express Company tried to organise a summer tour party to New Zealand, the Tourist Department provided a short burst of publicity but only seven travellers took the journey. Matson Line’s de luxe ‘Far Harbour’ cruise drew four. The encouraging growth in tourist numbers and spending that New Zealand had seen in the late s fell off quickly. Overseas visitors to New Zealand had reached a peak of , in /, but their numbers dropped to , in / and , in /. At the lowest point, /, there were only arrivals.³⁸ For a brief period New Zealand became a haven for people from India, Malaya, Japan and China who needed to escape the tropics on furlough but were unable to return to Britain. Then the advent of war in the Pacic in late cut off the ow from Asia, and Australia restricted travel to those on urgent business. New Zealand’s Tourist Department officers in Australia gained new responsibilities, assisting with defence supplies and negotiating with shipping companies for the transport of metals and goods for the war effort. They felt they were marking time while international tourism went into cold storage.³⁹ The tourist business had always been precarious, but the war was a critical blow, bringing the loss of both international and domestic tourism. During the s families had travelled around the country as cars become the most popular way of touring. As soon as war broke out, petrol was rationed and, although drivers were resourceful, this and other restrictions reduced the possibility of visiting distant places. Some people bought a second car, however dilapidated, to gain entitlement to
6
more petrol coupons; others thinned out their petrol with kerosene or turps, or burnt charcoal or coal in gas burners they attached to their car. New tyres for cars or bicycles became precious commodities. One driver recalled the limitations of wartime travel: Sometimes you’d adventure out in the car without a spare, so if you got a puncture you’d stuff the tyre with grass from the side of the road to get you home. You only had two gallons of petrol. We’d go for a Sunday drive and put one gallon in the tank and drive until it ran out. Then we’d put the other gallon in and head for home wherever we were.⁴⁰
Even possessing a car became more difficult as imports were restricted. On top of all this, long-distance travel was denied to people who could not prove that their journey was necessary: at times travel in the North Island was limited to a distance of miles and in the South Island to miles. Hoteliers in remote locations became desperate. The Department saw one after another of its resort hotels in difficulties or requisitioned for other purposes for the duration of the war.⁴¹ The Milford hostel and Milford Track were closed for the six years of the war, during which oods damaged the track. The manager at the Chateau, L. Bayfeild, felt that he had turned the hotel into a success story by and hoped that the war would not be a long one.⁴² In the early years of hostilities the Chateau became more popular thanks to the nearby army base at Waiouru. Then in the role of the Chateau was suddenly transformed when an earthquake damaged the mental hospital at Porirua and patients needed a home. Skiers were sidelined to mountain huts for the rest of the war as the Health Department took over the government’s nest hotel. The smaller resorts leased from the government found that the war exacerbated their usual difficulties. The Lake Hostel at Waikaremoana, with only beds, had always been unprotable, and expensive repairs to the old wooden building meant that it was overcapitalised. During the war its summer season was shortened to four months because the manpower authorities could not staff the place fully. In the South Island petrol restrictions made travelling to Te Anau by road impossible. The Te Anau hostel had been owned by the government for decades and leased to a manager; when he was unable to make ends meet by , the government took over the management but saw takings fall from the normal –, a year to ,. The Waitomo hostel, where the
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visits of American servicemen swelled the prots from cave tour fees, became the only government accommodation house to remain protable during the war.⁴³ These were critical years for Rodolph Wigley at the Hermitage. At the start of the war his Mt Cook Motor Company seemed on the verge of success after weathering a decade of misfortune.⁴⁴ The outbreak of war was the last straw for Wigley and by the end of he was facing ruin. If the government allowed the company to go into liquidation, it would have to either take over the Hermitage or abandon this landmark destination. The Tourist Department spent the next three years tussling with the ‘much-vexed question’ of what to do with the Hermitage while Wigley red a volley of funding proposals at the government. Soon after war broke out Wigley asked Nash to guarantee the Mt Cook Company’s bank overdraft and extend the Hermitage lease be-
The Glacier Hotel in its remote setting at Franz Josef Glacier was one of the hotels that suffered most from the wartime restrictions on travel. , /
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yond ; this would enable the company to increase its borrowing from the Bank of New Zealand and keep its motor services and two hotels in Queenstown. A little later Wigley offered the Hermitage, along with his staff and other hotels, to the government for war purposes – as an inland refuge for women and children if they needed to be evacuated, or as convalescent homes for returned servicemen.⁴⁵ Other alternatives were that the government defer the rent, subsidise the hotel or buy it out completely. Later he suggested that the government and his company could share management and capital across the whole range of his tourist ventures.⁴⁶ As and the end of the lease approached, the Cabinet concluded that to have the Tourist Department manage the hotel with a skeleton staff during the war would be more expensive than subsidising Wigley to continue on a system of part-rental, partsubsidy.⁴⁷ The lease was ended a few months early in and Wigley was asked to continue managing the hotel free of rent for an indenite period. The swift resolution of Wigley’s cash crisis saved the Mt Cook Motor Company and enabled his other interests to survive.⁴⁸ A year later, when the government auditor showed that too many of the company’s friends were enjoying free accommodation and alcohol at the Hermitage, Schmitt called a halt and, with the support of Treasury Secretary Bernard Ashwin, persuaded Nash that Wigley’s cavalier management should not continue.⁴⁹ The end of the war seemed nearer; the number of visitors to the Hermitage had doubled in and Schmitt could envisage the Hermitage being in great demand again. He felt that it should never have been taken from a Department with years’ experience of operating hotels, and was keen to see it back in the fold so that he could full his own vision of an extended chain of government hotels throughout the country. Cabinet agreed, and in January the Hermitage was handed back to the Tourist Department. After tough years, Wigley was happy to kiss the place goodbye.⁵⁰ Meanwhile, at the Glacier Hotel at Franz Josef on the West Coast, the Graham family faced a similar crisis. Since the Grahams had given their lives to pioneering a tourist enterprise in this isolated spot, miles by road from Hokitika through dense forest. Their hotel was an old-fashioned family accommodation house, standing in stately quietness in front of bush and mountains. In the early s it had become one of the rst resorts in the world to provide an airstrip. The combination of splendid scenery and the charm of Peter and Alex Graham drew visitors from around the world.⁵¹
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Peter Graham, the owner of the Glacier Hotel in the s, when wartime losses forced him to sell out to the government. , , 1⁄4
Even more isolated than the Hermitage, the Glacier Hotel was hit hard by the wartime restrictions on petrol, tyres and railway travel, particularly in the / Christmas season when new prohibitions were introduced unexpectedly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Only a handful of visitors came as far as the glaciers that summer, and over the next year turnover fell by half. The Grahams had just spent , on the construction of an annex and a new electricity system, and were wondering how they would pay the interest on their loan. Unable to extend their overdraft after this season, they asked for government assistance for the rst time. Aware that the Hermitage had been helped through these difficult years, they requested an interest-free advance of , for the duration of the war.⁵² Both brothers were ageing and in poor health, demoralised by unpredictable events and the difficulty of getting more funding for development, and wearied by the problem of attracting staff to stay in a lonely place at a time when women and girls could take highly paid jobs in city factories. It was frustrating to pay up to in fares to bring out servants who disappeared back to the city on a passing truck at night.⁵³ The Grahams’ request for assistance soon turned into an offer to sell, and Schmitt spent the rest of the war trying to negotiate a purchase price.
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Another private establishment struggling to survive was the Wairakei Hotel. Like the Chateau, this was taken over by the Health Department to house mental hospital patients after the earthquake struck Porirua.
‘The citizen of tomorrow will be travel-minded’
As ordinary New Zealanders began to travel around the country again at the end of the war, local councils and progress leagues rekindled pre-war publicity attempts to attract visitors to their region. , ,
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Although the Tourist Department’s role had narrowed, it shared the government’s optimism about the prospects for tourism in the postwar world. New Zealand offered a refuge from the nightmares of war-torn Europe, and advances in aviation technology were expected to revolutionise the ease and speed with which travellers could cross the long distances from England and America. The war had also brought distant countries emotionally closer to New Zealand. Thousands of New Zealand servicemen visited Britain or met British soldiers in the theatres of war, and New Zealand airmen training in Canada were good advertising agents for their country. American soldiers who had found themselves in ‘a green and pleasant land’ were expected to draw their parents back after the war to enjoy New Zealand’s hospitality and picturesque sights. The Department was condent that ‘the citizen of tomorrow will be travel-minded’.⁵⁴ Tourist earnings before the war had been estimated to be worth . million to the country, and Schmitt predicted they would reach at least million after the war and possibly rise to – million within a decade. The capacity for extending the tourist trade was inexhaustible. ‘What a vast transformation of everything will take place’, Bill Parry, the Minister, told a meeting of travel interests in Timaru in .⁵⁵ Although the skies would soon be no longer clouded by war, few realised how long it would take before people could travel the world again purely for pleasure. All travel from Britain was taken over to transport servicemen, war brides, prisoners of war and refugees. Steamers that had been requisitioned during the war and survived were retained in government service to bring the troops home from Europe, and it would be months or years before materials and labour became available for them to be repaired and retted for tourist travel. Many passenger ships had been sunk: the Niagara was lost from the Vancouver–Pacic route and the Awatea from the Sydney–Auckland crossing. It was almost impossible for tourists to secure a booking on the Wahine, the only steamer plying the Tasman, because these were restricted to business executives, government officials and people travelling on urgent com-
passionate grounds. And, in the face of excitement about the potential of air travel, shipping companies were cautious about acquiring new vessels.⁵⁶ Plane ights were just as restricted. Throughout the Western world ghter pilots had to be retrained for passenger services, warplanes had to be repaired, and new equipment and aircraft bought from the United States. BOAC, Qantas and TEAL (owned jointly by Britain, Australia and New Zealand) were ying out of Sydney, but their aeroplanes held only – passengers and were booked two months ahead by people travelling for government or business purposes. Even when tourists had booked to y, they could be off-loaded with no guarantees about when they would be able to travel.⁵⁷ In , only , visitors entered New Zealand.⁵⁸ Few of these arrivals were genuine tourists; most were businessmen or New Zealanders returning home, or in J Force men who had been stranded in Australia. The Australian agencies for the New Zealand Tourist Department found it embarrassing to advertise and then have to disappoint their clients, and the Department was similarly reluctant to resume publicity efforts in the United States. In New Zealand was poised to recapture the tourist growth it had seen in the late s, unaware that the limbo of the war years was to continue.
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The Glacier Hotel at Franz Josef in ruins after the re of . AUCKLAND WEEKLY NEWS,
The Cinderella of Industries –
J
,
Franz Josef, was fond of whisky, and one Saturday evening in August she bought two bottles from the house bar and took them upstairs to her room. While a storm raged outside she drank a glass of whisky and wrote letters before undressing and placing her imsy organdie slip on a chair beside her window. At . she slipped out to visit Charles O’Donnell in the male staff quarters. Expecting to return soon, she left her heater on and the window half-open. A few hours later she was found in O’Donnell’s bed, asleep and intoxicated.¹ It was no ordinary West Coast storm that raged around the remote Waiho settlement and the wooden hotel. During the day the easterly gale had reached miles per hour on the glacier and swept sand from the riverbeds into clouds of dust. By night it was blowing at –
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miles per hour, wrenching trees feet in diameter from the ground and tugging the verandah off the Harihari Hotel further north. At Franz Josef the wind gusted through Josephine McCormack’s bedroom window and spun her underwear onto the burning heater, setting the room alight. When the night porter went outside at . am to check whether kea were getting into the garbage bins, he saw ames above his head. It was too late to arrest the progress of the re, for the wind had blown leaves and twigs into the water supply intake and the hoses worked inefficiently. Debris had also disabled the power supply, putting the re alarm out of action, and the heat melted the wires of the emergency battery-operated alarm. The manager and porter had to rouse the staff and guests by shouting.² With no chance of saving the old hotel, the reghters could hope only to prevent the blaze from reaching the new wing. But, with the diminished water supply and the wind whipping the ames, efforts to contain the re were hopeless. By . am both the imposing wooden hotel and its modern wing were in ruins. All that remained were seven gaunt chimneys and the lounge replace, and a tangle of twisted wire, blackened chromium furniture and carpets. The only unscathed buildings lay on the periphery of the grounds: staff cottages, the garage and petrol pumps, the liquor supply, equipment room and sawmill.³ While no one had died in the re, the destruction of the whole hotel and the loss of accommodation for visitors was a severe blow. The disappearance of the hotel that the Graham family had turned into a famous landmark ended a romantic saga of pioneering, guiding and West Coast hospitality. It created a signicant gap for the Tourist Department, as the Glacier Hotel had been a focal point on the tourist route since the turn of the century. Since the government had purchased the hotel in the buildings had been upgraded, the kitchen retted, the shabby patchwork of carpet replaced, and the new wing of rooms added in to accommodate guests. This had seemed the beginning of a new era. The Department had been determined to keep the wheels moving all through the year on the West Coast by introducing ve-day winter package tours from Christchurch to Franz Josef and Fox glaciers at bedrock prices. Film and press publicity and the popular radio announcer Aunt Daisy had been promoting the clear, crisp air of the West Coast in winter and the comfort of the new hotel.⁴ The National Airways Corporation (NAC) had begun regular services to South Westland, and was competing with Southern Scenic Air Trips
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to take Franz Josef tourists on joy rides over the Southern Alps.⁵ When it burnt down, the Glacier Hotel was almost fully booked until the following March.⁶ After the re, the nearest accommodation in the region was miles away at Fox Glacier, where the hotel was a smaller, simpler establishment unlikely to meet the expectations of overseas visitors. In , when international travel was again becoming possible after the war, every bed in a ne hotel was an asset to the nation. The loss of the Glacier Hotel was yet another setback at a time when the lack of suitable accommodation was the chief barrier to rebuilding New Zealand’s tourist industry. Moreover, the re at Franz Josef was not the only conagration of the s. Throughout this decade the government was constantly on the back foot, extending and restoring hotels and then being forced by res to rebuild them again. With funding directed at the restoration of ruins, little progress could be made on constructing the new hotels that were needed for the future.
Post-war reconstruction In the decade before the re at Franz Josef, the Tourist Department had done its best to purchase failing hotels and restore its own. The hardship that hoteliers faced during the war years had strengthened the government’s conviction that the Tourist Department must stay in the tourist hotel business because no one else could afford to. General Manager L.J. Schmitt’s enthusiasm for takeovers had paralleled Labour government policy and, when the mental hospital patients were evacuated from Wairakei in , he took the opportunity to draw another hotel into the Department’s chain of resorts. The Department also purchased the Glacier Hotel at Franz Josef to pre-empt private purchasers (especially breweries) from taking over this strategic spot.⁷ The oddest government acquisition during the s had been the Tokaanu Hotel at Lake Taupo. This was a shing lodge near the Tongariro River which gained most of its income from a thriving bar trade. It was the only licensed hotel in the King Country, a rowdy place serving a clientele of anglers and Maori mill hands that was known for sly-grogging and after-hours drinking.⁸ The Tourist Department became involved when it appeared that the construction of the Arapuni hydro-electricity works would raise the level of Lake Taupo and threaten the sewerage system. The Health Department insisted that the
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Maori community and the hotel (on land leased from Maori) be shifted to a higher site. Tokaanu’s poor linen supply and sanitary arrangements, with stagnant drains and sewage oating on the lawn, meant that the hotel was far below the standard of the government’s rst-class hotels. Pig-sties and rubbish dumps surrounded the hot pools and geysers. Nevertheless, Schmitt had taken on this hotel enthusiastically, foreseeing the transformation of this central area with its mineral waters and superb shing into a new playground of the north that would link beautifully with other tourist areas.⁹ By government rescues of struggling hotels had brought four more into its chain of hotels. The Tourist Department now controlled nine: Waitomo, the Lake Hostel at Waikaremoana, Wairakei, Tokaanu and the Chateau in the North Island, and the Hermitage, Te Anau, Milford and the Glacier Hotel in the South. The Auckland Star commented that ‘the Tourist Department is in the hotel business in a very big way’.¹⁰ Unable to construct new hotels because of the priority given to housing, the Department instead renovated all nine hotels after the decades of neglect during the Depression and war. The most dramatic undertaking was at the Chateau. At war’s end, just as Schmitt was asking that the hotel be returned from the Health Department, Mt Ruapehu erupted spectacularly. The eruption spread tons of ash per acre over the mountain in the rst hours, and coated the ski slopes, the golf course and both the exterior and interior of the Chateau with a layer of dust as abrasive as carborundum.¹¹ Seven feet of ash fell on the Whakapapa Glacier, the source of the stream that drove the hydro-electricity plant. The silt-like quality of the ash not only damaged the plant but contaminated the hotel’s water supply and rotted the electrical wiring inside the building. It was months before a full power supply was restored – and then heavy rains dislodged more ash, fouling the water supply and putting the electricity plant out of action again.¹² The eruption hastened the exodus of the hospital patients, but left the Chateau a ‘ghostly and cavernous place’ that was entered only by the caretaker and geologists.¹³ After the damage wrought by the eruption and the wear and tear of three years of institutional life, the Chateau no longer looked like a rst-class establishment, and needed major restoration. The cost of this work was put at ,; building a new hotel would cost ,. Cabinet gave approval in January for work worth ,, but the Public Works Department was busy with other projects and it was not
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until August that the Chateau opened again for business as an efficient and luxurious hotel. The Wairakei Hotel also underwent major reconstruction before it was reopened as a hotel at Easter after a gap of seven years. Its rst guests were a Texan physician and his wife who typied the clientele that the Department aimed to appeal to.¹⁴ The Tokaanu Hotel remained little more than a beer house. The Tourist Department’s idea of building a new hotel lost impetus when Maori resistance to shifting from ancestral land slowed the move to Turangi, and it appeared that the lake level was unlikely to rise after all. By the hotel manager was complaining that the buildings were dilapidated, and the condition of the staff quarters made it clear why staff were difficult to retain – the fourteen live-in staff still had to share one bathroom and one tiny sittingroom.¹⁵ Visiting tourists were often shocked by the drunkenness of locals and resented having been directed to Tokaanu by the Department’s tourist bureaux.¹⁶ In the South Island, the Hermitage was upgraded and returned to its earlier role as a grand hotel before Wigley had started to pack in the holiday-makers. As annual visitor numbers rose from , in to , a decade later, many guests had to be turned away.¹⁷ Further south, the Milford Track was cleared and reopened in , and work on the Homer Tunnel connecting Milford and Te Anau, which had been abandoned during the war, was resumed. The only extra beds provided in the s at Milford were at a camping ground constructed by the Southland Automobile Association. This encouraged a new trend in touring, with elderly New Zealanders travelling there cheaply by car, lured by the dream of ‘seeing Milford before you die’.¹⁸ The hostel at Milford, built by the government in , could cater for only guests. When re destroyed one wing in , this number was reduced to and the post office had to be converted into a dormitory.¹⁹
‘Cinderella playing a lone hand’ Despite the post-war restoration of government hotels, the gaps in hotel accommodation remained as signicant as the achievements. Throughout the next decade the tourist industry would struggle to solve its desperate accommodation problems and to lift the standard of hotel service to match that of the rest of the world and please free-
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Milford track-hands hiked miles to deliver an electric generator by wheelbarrow to Pompolona Hut, . , FREE LANCE ,
spending Americans. In the new National government’s need for American dollars gave a brief impetus to addressing the tourist industry’s requirements. Tourism was ‘in the red’, one of the prime examples of the country’s trade imbalance: while funds earned from tourists visiting New Zealand totalled ,, New Zealanders travelling overseas spent million. Tourism’s potential was waved anew like a magic wand: ‘we have something that we can make them want’, in the words of E.C. Fussell, Governor of the Reserve Bank.²⁰ To make Americans want to see New Zealand, however, was a difcult challenge. The number of visitors from the United States had never been high, and it climbed very slowly in the post-war limbo
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years, from in / to in / – two-thirds of the who had come in /.²¹ Fred Doidge, the Minister of Tourist and Health Resorts and of External Affairs, saw that the Tourist Department could not face these problems alone, and drew together experts in the tourist industry to survey needs and pool ideas at a ‘Conference of New Zealand Tourist and Travel Interests to Expand the Dollar-spending Trade’. The contributors were hand-picked for their direct investment in tourist services. There was one representative of the local bodies associations, while others represented national interests. These included Fussell as Governor of the Reserve Bank and Bernard Ashwin as Secretary to the Treasury, transport industry leaders J. Newman, F. Tebay, Harry Wigley and Sir Leonard Isitt, director of NAC, TEAL and British Commonwealth Pacic Airways. Ken Myers, H.J. Kelliher, Sir William Perry and others represented breweries and hotel proprietors, and there were leaders of the Hotel, Restaurants and Related Trades Union, representatives of shipping lines, Thomas Cook and Sons, and the Automobile Association (AA). The three-day meeting, held at the Chateau in March , came at a symbolic moment, the mid-point in the twentieth century and years since the formation of the Tourist and Health Resorts Department. Both Fussell and Ashwin saw the country’s scenery as a product that could be enjoyed without being depleted. This notion appealed to the banker: ‘Picture to yourselves some American visitors sitting in the Hermitage enjoying the beauty of Mt Cook by moonlight, getting eyefulls at a dollar a look, and it is still there.’²² Ashwin, too, had come to understand this principle in Hawaii, where the island earned million ‘off a patch of sand’.²³ It became clear at the conference, however, that tourism remained ‘the Cinderella of industries’, shrinking on the sideline of the nation’s economic life – ‘a Cinderella playing a lone hand’, in the words of one delegate.²⁴ To the public and many members of the government, an export industry meant butter, meat or wool, and tourism was a frivolous, inconsequential business. Above all, the Chateau conference claried the ways in which the tourist industry had been weakened by the government’s restrictive policies. After Labour’s long period in power, New Zealand was ‘a tight society’ with a raft of building, labour, import and liquor licensing regulations inhibiting any renewal of hotel accommodation or improvements in service – the major needs of the tourist industry.²⁵ In post-war building regulations still gave priority to urgent national works
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The view of Mt Cook through the Hermitage windows, . It was this view that inspired the Governor of the Reserve Bank to point out the economic advantages of the tourist industry: landscape was a product that could be sold again and again without needing to be replaced. AUCKLAND WEEKLY NEWS,
– housing, hydro-electricity and factory construction – rather than hotels, which had an average age of to years. As Doidge commented, it was time for the ‘the atmosphere of aspidistras’ to be banished. Many hotels were clean, simple places, but could hardly be called modern.²⁶ Through the s AA inspectors had noted the introduction of hot and cold water into hotel rooms, but it was uncommon to nd the amenities Americans took for granted, such as air conditioning, central heating and insect screens.²⁷ Few single rooms were provided, so that even at
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rst-class hotels guests were sometimes expected to share rooms with strangers. At hotels in the country, toilet and bathroom facilities were often primitive. The manager of Thomas Cook and Sons described the experience of half a dozen men queuing in a communal washroom for one basin, and visitors trying to shave with towels wrapped around their waists and nowhere to put their shaving gear.²⁸ For people in the hotel business, improvements were not worth making. The most damaging government regulation was the continuation of price control on hotel tariffs, which had been held close to pre-war levels despite steep ination in the late s. The inability of hotel owners to raise the charge for a room removed all incentive to construct new hotels or upgrade old ones.²⁹ The only source of prot for hotels was the sale of liquor, which meant that they relied on their bar trade to subsidise losses on accommodation or dispensed with the latter altogether (although this was illegal). The situation was made worse because most hotels were owned by the breweries, which had little interest in providing accommodation. Hotels were becoming beer houses where ‘the greatest qualication for a hotel manager’, claimed the Thomas Cook delegate, ‘was the ability to make a high prot in the bar trade’. Managers were often retired All Blacks or other sportsmen who fostered a matey culture of rugby, racing and beer.³⁰
‘A national calamity for the tourist trade’ It also became clear at the Chateau conference that a major factor in making hotels unappealing to Americans was New Zealanders’ attitude to working in a service industry. For many, the concept of service was too close to servility. The post-war generation of young people preferred to work in factories rather than hotels and disdained the idea of a career in what seemed like domestic service. Hotels were staffed by a few of the old brigade who understood the meaning of good service, but also had to rely on untrained girls on sightseeing holidays, who shifted from hotel to hotel around the country or left work to marry.³¹ The rst joint effort by the government and the industry to set up a training school failed for lack of applicants. There were strong pleas at the Chateau conference for the government to encourage the entry of more immigrants or displaced persons who were skilled in the hotel trade.³² Employment legislation contributed to a situation where labour conditions in the hotel trade seemed to employers to be the most oner-
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ous in the world. Hotels were required to comply with the same -hour week and high overtime rates as other industries, although their normal working day spread over the -hour stretch between breakfast cups of tea and clearing up after dinner. All North Island hotels had staff working overtime every day, and leading hotels in Auckland and Wellington were paying staff for - to -hour weeks.³³ To accelerate service, guests were grouped at tables with strangers, rather than being permitted to sit at a table for two. Too often meals were rushed through in a few minutes because the waitress and kitchen staff were due to go off duty. As a result meals were conned to a rigid timetable that appeared absurd to overseas visitors who liked to linger with their companions or discuss business over dinner. A young bride from Melbourne staying at Wellington’s Waterloo Hotel was shocked when surly waitresses wearing starched uniforms like nurses rushed her through dinner by seven. Anglers at Taupo had to choose between shing at the best time of day and eating dinner.³⁴ Tourists travelling from one city to another faced the same problem of restricted meal hours at hotels. The only alternatives were often scruffy eating-places like the Hamilton bus depot. Travellers resented having to eat sandwiches when tourist itineraries read: ‘Refreshments: Own Arrangements’.³⁵ The AA commented that throughout New Zealand ‘facilities for food leave very, very much to be desired’. Another critic claimed that ‘there was no enjoyment in public eating in New Zealand’.³⁶ An off-hand attitude to service and ignorance of the standards expected in other countries were reected not only in the timing of meals but in the quality of the food. The AA claimed that per cent of complaints it received were about service and indifferent cooking, and called the quality of meals ‘a national calamity’ for the tourist trade. Fred Young, MP, formerly of the Hotel Employees’ Union, claimed that he would like to give Aunt Daisy’s Cook Book to most of the chefs he saw, and noted that the only trained cook in the country was a ne Dalmatian chef at the Trans-Tasman Hotel in Auckland. Import restrictions limited the variety of wines, spirits, liqueurs and food; even bay leaves were unavailable. American visitors were surprised at the monotonous diet of traditional roasts, and the difficulty of getting sh or steak grilled for dinner. They missed having iced water, coffee, salad and fruit at every meal, and were reduced to carrying around packets of Nescafé powdered coffee. When questioned by the Department,
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the Waitomo Hotel manager explained that no hotel in New Zealand served percolated coffee, the fashion of the day.³⁷ There were other frustrations for hoteliers in a highly regulated society. Import restrictions limited the quantity of carpet and furnishings available to improve the environment of hotels. Passport, visa and nger-printing regulations made arrival in the country a trial and often held up visitors for half a day in Auckland, with the rst call the police station rather than setting off for Rotorua’s sights.³⁸ While on the one hand the new Licensing Commission was demanding a higher standard in hotel buildings before granting liquor licences, the price controls rendered such improvements unprotable.³⁹ The conference produced a set of recommendations for the government, whose rst response was to try to convey the signicance of tourism to sceptical New Zealanders by designating the last week in November ‘National Tourist Week’, with slogans such as ‘Make Visitors Glad They Came’ and ‘Tourist Business is Everybody’s Business’. But the sense of urgency expressed at the conference bore little fruit.⁴⁰ The National Party had come to power in preaching the virtues of private enterprise, and this remained its catchcry in the face of calls for action. Despite Doidge’s attentiveness at the Chateau conference, his government made no major policy shifts to ease the development of tourism. The price controls, import restrictions, building restrictions and employment regulations inherited from the post-war Labour government remained in place. While precedents were being set in Tasmania, Eire, Britain, France and other places where governments were assisting hotel investors with tax relief, loans and the waiving of import restrictions, New Zealand’s government remained impervious to increasing demands for help in preparing for the harvest ahead.
Everything to attract the tourist except a place for him to sleep As ights became more regular after the post-war limbo, it was clear that there was a vast market to be tapped. By Pan American Airways Stratocruisers were ying direct to New Zealand, while Canadian Pacic Airlines had extended its services with de Havilland Comets ying a circuit linking Sydney, New Zealand and Hawaii with Canada. In cruise ships returned, and by the Oronsay, Orcades, Orion, Himalaya and Orsova were each bringing to , passengers at a time to Auckland and Wellington.
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Queenstown saw the rst test of National’s policy on tourist accommodation. By the town epitomised the worst problems of nongovernment resorts. During the rst half of the twentieth century it had been a small, charming, lakeside holiday town lacking the cachet of Mt Cook, Franz Josef or Milford. It retained small-town problems, with only – ratepayers struggling to fund its infrastructure, and was unable to cater for a large inux of visitors.⁴¹ Tourists en route from the Hermitage and Milford were unwilling to accept the service and conditions they found in Queenstown, where there were only four licensed hotels in , all old. Single rooms were rarely available and visitors were forced to share twin-bedded rooms (and even double beds) with strangers. Visitors were indignant when they had booked in advance but arrived to nd themselves staying in private homes. Moreover, no hotel in Queenstown had a bedroom with a bathroom attached, and hot water was sometimes scarce. Staff who were poorly housed themselves were reluctant to provide comforts for guests and often left suddenly, causing hotels to cancel up to bookings at a time. Three to four thousand visitors were turned away each summer.⁴² Bill Parry, the Minister of Tourist and Health Resorts in , had agreed to construct a government hotel in the town, but now Doidge asserted that no promises had been made and that accommodation in Tourist Arrivals 922–52
Numbers are to March each year. There appears to have been little change in tourist arrivals between (when records were rst collected) and , although the – statistics are incomplete. The steady growth that followed the slump in arrivals during the Depression was interrupted by World War II, after which tourist numbers recovered quite quickly. : New Zealand Official Yearbook, –
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Queenstown was a local or provincial concern. Government involvement in the construction of a hotel would set a precedent that other townships would be keen to emulate. The government’s policy was to operate only the hotels it already owned, and leave hotel investment and construction to private enterprise.⁴³ An impasse resulted, for there was no prospect of private enterprise building at Queenstown under the price-control regulations.⁴⁴ The government’s policy was in keeping with years of restricting government ownership to isolated places of signicant interest to tourists for whom no suitable accommodation was available. The problem in the s was that, in places like Queenstown, Rotorua and Auckland, price controls had made the tourist business as daunting a prospect as the wilderness areas of the Southern Alps or Tongariro National Park. Auckland faced a similar accommodation crisis. No rst-class hotels with an adequate number of bathrooms had been built in the city for years, and there was none in keeping with the status and size of the city. As overseas airlines increased the number of ights into Auckland, the hotel shortage was becoming acute; passengers found the hotels inadequate and sometimes had to try to sleep sitting upright in hotel lounges. When Matson added two new liners to its eet in , the situation would worsen. Because Auckland would become the gateway to New Zealand once air travel increased, it was more likely to attract overseas investment. In Canadian Pacic Airlines, Pan American Airways (through its subsidiary Intercontinental Hotels) and Matson Navigation Company considered entering into a joint venture with New Zealand brewery interests to construct a ‘holding hotel’ to cater for passengers stopping in Auckland en route for tourist resorts. Bill Mullahey from Pan American investigated sites in Queen Street, Greys Avenue and Hobson Bay. There were several problems to face. Trained staff would have to be imported from Canada and the United States. With New Zealand’s building costs high, the hotel’s tariff would need to be equally high and New Zealanders would not be able to afford to stay there. And there was no recent precedent of a rst-class hotel making a prot without relying on huge bars. There would be no guaranteed return on investment for several years.⁴⁵ It was impossible to attract private capital within New Zealand, and Treasury was cautious about government involvement. A joint venture would be unusual for the Crown and could set a precedent. There were
8
also issues of control, for if the government bought shares in a new hotel its nancial involvement would have to be reected in the membership of the board of directors. Treasury concluded that the government was already heavily enough involved in capital development in Auckland industry and in the expensive plans to reconstruct the Franz Josef hotel.⁴⁶ With no guarantee that the government would lift price controls, the overseas companies lost interest. In Pan American’s Intercontinental Hotels tried again, forming a company with Dominion Breweries and New Zealand Breweries to assess the feasibility of building a hotel in Auckland. Negotiations began to buy acres of Crown land near the Savage Memorial on Bastion Point. Mullahey brought a model of the proposed hotel to the Travel Association’s conference – it was to be an - to -storey building with beds, a banqueting hall, shops and a skyline cocktail bar with dramatic views of the harbour. But the Americans insisted that they would not come until government restrictions were waived, and a modern Auckland hotel remained a pipedream.⁴⁷ While private enterprise stalled, the Tourist Department continued to spruce up and extend the government’s resort hotels. The most dramatic change was at Milford, where the destruction wrought by the re was an opportunity to completely redesign the old hostel and add on a new wing. Rebuilding was slow: it was difficult to transport materials, and gales and snow stalled the work in the winter of . Finally in the new Milford Hotel was opened, valued at , and providing rst-class beds as well as twelve beds in the old wing for trampers. The new hotel had a contemporary feel, with ‘glass, glass and more glass’ used to gain the most from the spectacular views of Mitre Peak and Milford Sound. The double bedrooms were more luxurious than usual, each having a bathroom with a terrazzo-lined shower and toilet.⁴⁸ Other features of the hotel highlighted New Zealand’s pioneer past and South Pacic identity. This was the rst time that a government hotel had been designed to reect New Zealand’s distinctive character. Striking tartan carpet imported from Scotland symbolised the nineteenth-century initiatives of two Scottish Highlanders, the explorer and hotelier Donald Sutherland and the surveyor Quinton McKinnon. The four replaces in the lounge were built of greenstone from a neighbouring bay. A -square-foot mural designed by a Christchurch artist, Russell Clark, blended a medley of motifs from
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Maori, Solomon Islands and New Guinea art. For the rst time in two decades the government lifted hotel tariff controls, allowing a night to be charged. At the opening-night celebrations Bob Marshall, now the Tourist Department’s General Manager, spoke of his hopes that the new Milford Hotel would be the ‘spark plug’ that would inspire further hotel construction.⁴⁹ The problem of Milford’s remoteness remained, however. Far from any town, the Milford Hotel was the most extreme example of the difficulties faced by the Tourist Department in running hotels in wilderness areas. It had had to construct and maintain an independent village with accommodation for staff, and set up facilities taken for granted in an urban area: water supply and drainage, a power supply, re-ghting equipment. This infrastructure brought in no income in the off-season, when the dangers of avalanches, oods and slips cut Milford off from the world for ve months each year, when the only visitor was the oyster boat from Bluff. Supplies were brought a long distance, with non-perishable goods shipped in to Milford Sound twice a year and perishables railed to Lumsden for delivery by truck. Catering supplies for the three huts on the Milford Track were carried in by packhorse.⁵⁰
A contemporary feature of the new Milford Hotel in was its wide plate-glass windows. , ,
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The interior of the Milford Hotel with its replace built of local greenstone from Anita Bay at the head of Milford Sound and Scottish tartan carpet. , 1⁄2
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The new Milford Hotel added a touch of class to the South Island tourist route and was lled to capacity for most of the season. But the re at Franz Josef in the same year negated the benet gained by the increased number of beds at Milford. In terms of hotels, the Department was one up, one down. In some regions there were fewer beds than years earlier; in Wellington hotels were being converted into offices. In both cities and rural areas hoteliers were unable to attract private investors. As a stream of pleas for assistance came in from small hotels around the country, the Tourist Department insisted that government loans were necessary for development and suggested that mortgages from the State Advances Corporation should be made available to the hotel trade.⁵¹ The directors of State Advances were unwilling to change direction and lend for commercial ventures, and held to their priorities of housing and farming development.⁵² Treasury was opposed to the
risk of investing where development was not viable for anyone else, and wary of attracting criticism for competing with private enterprise. Government inaction in the face of the acute shortage of accommodation made these frustrating years for the Tourist Department. Year after year Bob Marshall expressed his impatience in his annual reports to Parliament. He pleaded for a change of policy – time was running short. The Department was doing its best, but tourist hotels had reached ‘saturation point’ and decline would follow.⁵³ Government assistance made sense when investment was needed to catch the lucrative business of the future. It was useless to boast that New Zealand’s scenery was sufficient in itself when people were no longer prepared to be uncomfortable when they were away from home.⁵⁴ The Tourist Department’s anxiety was intensied in when Treasury produced an economic survey crystallising its opposition to
Bob Marshall, General Manager of the Tourist Department, looks on while the directors of the Department’s Australian bureaux play a game of cribbage at Milford in . , ,
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government investment in tourism. The blithe optimism of Ashwin and Fussell at the Chateau conference in seemed to have evaporated. Treasury now claimed that the tourist industry’s earnings were negligible and unlikely to improve, and denied that New Zealand was on the threshold of a new era. It believed that the sudden increase in / to nearly , tourist arrivals was an anomaly; further growth would be static or slow, reaching , a year at most and earning million by the end of the decade. The only viable alternative to primary production (still the source of per cent of New Zealand’s overseas exchange earnings) was likely to be the new pulp and paper industry. Treasury could not foresee tourist earnings reaching similar levels, and concluded that there was no case for giving priority to investment in tourism at the cost of diverting funds from other industries. George Wood, the Government Statistician, supported this bleak forecast. He saw New Zealand as ‘the end of the road’, too far from centres of population and lacking the civilised alternatives to scenery such as music festivals, antiquities and trade fairs which drew visitors to other countries.⁵⁵ The Minister, Dean Eyre, attempted to refute Treasury’s pessimism with his own report, insisting on a future of expansion. He refused to accept that New Zealand differed from trends overseas and argued that the country lay not at the end of the road but ‘en route’; the only problem was that there was nowhere to stay. Eyre maintained that Treasury had underestimated the growth ahead by basing predictions on the past rather than the current upward trend, and overestimated the cost of investment in hotels. Beds could be added more cheaply than at , each if they were in extensions to existing hotels or motel units, which would suit New Zealanders and leave space for visitors in hotels. Eyre demanded a comparative study of tourism and the rival forestry industry: it seemed unlikely that meeting the needs of tourists would cost as much as planting and logging forests and transporting timber.⁵⁶ The New Zealand Herald backed the Tourist Department in an attack on Treasury’s ‘unqualied no-men in swivel-chairs’ who had damned the future of tourism. In the face of these competing visions of the future, Cabinet’s tourist policy statement at the end of accepted the Department’s minimum requirement of , for the reconstruction of the Franz Josef hotel, plus , to provide , new beds over the next three years. Once again the government hoped that private enterprise and the breweries could be spurred into action.⁵⁷
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The Tourist Hotel Corporation There was growing dissatisfaction in the early s with the role of the Tourist Department – a feeling that it was doing the wrong job by competing with private enterprise in managing hotels and selling travel arrangements. These criticisms were a foretaste of the issues of the s. There was a widespread feeling, too, that a government department was an inappropriate body to run hotels: staff could move up the ladder from selling tickets to stores officer to managing a hotel without any work experience in the hospitality industry. This unrest came to a head in with the founding of the Travel and Holiday Association, the rst association formed to represent the broad diversity of companies with interests in tourism. Its goals were to attract nancial support to lobby the government and inuence the public on the needs of the tourist industry. The Association’s rst chief executive was Neville Lobb, who had joined the Tourist Department as a cadet in , and knew from experience in its Sydney and Melbourne offices of the desperate shortage of accommodation that made organising package tours for Australians a nightmare. Both Lobb and Morris Clark, the founder of the Travel and Holiday Association, were convinced that the tourist business could not progress unless both the government and the breweries upgraded and expanded their hotels and improved their service. Lobb persuaded a young National MP, Eric Halstead, to work on the idea of taking the specialised eld of hotel management out of the Department’s hands and transferring it to a separate entity. A corporation would be released from the hidebound ethos of the public service and its regulations concerning staff and purchases; the government could replace bureaucrats with businessmen able to act vigorously and decisively.⁵⁸ There were precedents for separating management from government departments in the National Airways Corporation, the Dairy Produce Marketing Commission and the State Advances Corporation, all of which had been set up to provide expert administration in specialised elds. The idea of a corporation was attractive to a National government hostile to state interference and prone to idealising the world of business. Because of the signicance of the assets which would be handed over to it, the proposed Tourist Hotel Corporation would be required to heed government policy. But it was hoped that, as a semi-independent body, it could gain the best of both worlds, with more freedom than a government department but the advantage of
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government funding. Losses would be met from the Consolidated Fund, to which prots would return. When the Tourist Hotel Corporation Bill was debated in Parliament, Halstead, who was now the Minister, claimed that the new Corporation would promote development for the benet of New Zealanders and tourists alike, although the government’s main interest was clearly in overseas tourists and American dollars. Opposition attacks focused on both the tourist industry itself (and even the coining of the new term ‘tourism’) and the construction of hotels that few New Zealanders could afford to enjoy. This went against the grain of the New Zealand family holiday at the beach. Although the burst of car ownership in the post-war years meant that motels were spreading like wildre as an alternative to camping and baches, hotels had never been part of the shared experience of most New Zealanders. They were ‘the rich man’s territory’. Despite Halstead’s insistence that a rst-class hotel simply had spacious, clean bedrooms with bathrooms, good heating and exible meal hours, the Opposition conjured up images of the wanton luxury of palatial hotels in Bermuda, Florida, Paris, and Hollywood movies.⁵⁹ Labour members advocated a tourist policy which would serve New Zealanders rst, and reinforce the tradition of beach holidays in which families escaped the city to camp or stay in motels at places like Coromandel, Waihi, Ohope and Whangamata. There was a strong feeling that the country and its scenery should be kept for New Zealanders, with claims that ‘the best tourists are our own New Zealanders’ and ‘we want our own kiddies to see our own country’. The economic advantages of encouraging larger numbers of tourists meant little to those who viewed tourism as an industry which intruded on ordinary New Zealand life, demeaned New Zealanders with expectations of servility, and led to the loosening of legislation on liquor, gambling and entertainment.⁶⁰ Nevertheless, the government was determined to introduce a new style of controlling its hotels, and the bill was passed. The establishment of the Tourist Hotel Corporation (THC) by the Act brought about a dramatic transfer of the government’s chain of hotels. Suddenly the Tourist and Publicity Department was bereft of the national landmarks that it had fostered as tourist drawcards for much of the century: the Chateau, the Hermitage, Waitomo, Milford, and the other smaller hostels. Without this major area of work – ‘the backbone of the tourist industry’– the Department was now conned
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to publicity and policy, its own travel bureaux and a range of smaller responsibilities.⁶¹ An extreme example of the span of the Department’s roles was the ‘Special Publicity’ unit, a secret sideline of its publicity work. This took the Department into the political arena to assist the government in discrediting communism. New Zealand’s involvement with other Western countries in publicity efforts to thwart the ‘unarmed aggression’ of communism was formalised in , when the Director of Information Services in the Tourist and Publicity Department was charged with keeping in touch with international trends in communism, and disseminating material to counter communist inuence in New Zealand. Within a few years the Special Publicity unit was disseminating to imported pamphlets and books a year, in total about , copies.
The growth of motels in the s (like this one in the Bay of Islands) developed the tradition of informal holidays for New Zealanders and contributed to suspicion of a government policy that seemed to favour overseas visitors by providing more luxurious hotels. . , , ,
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These went to anyone of inuence in the community: trade union ofcials and clergy, MPs and members of Federated Farmers, academics and newspaper editors. At the same time the unit helped organise the visits of overseas speakers who could offer a critique of communism and tried to ensure them a hearing on radio and in the press. Once a year a staff member toured the country to encourage newspaper editors to balance any left-wing bias in reporting with an anti-communist line.⁶² The Tourist Hotel Corporation’s broad function was to encourage the development of the tourist hotel industry in New Zealand. This meant not only assuming control of the Tourist Department’s hotels but encouraging the construction of new hotels in co-operation with private enterprise, whether by buying shares in joint enterprises or by guaranteeing mortgages. The Act empowered the Corporation to advance money to hotel developers if this would benet the tourist industry. The THC was also required to provide amenities and control recreational facilities on its properties for the use of both tourists and the public.⁶³ The government’s goal in selecting members for the THC’s Board was to nd people who were experienced in business management and the commercial world, but not directly involved in the hotel trade or brewery interests. The rst members were drawn from different regions of New Zealand: Duncan Cox, past president of the Auckland Chamber of Commerce, A.M. Satterthwaite, a Christchurch company director, J. Swann, a retired hotelier from Taupo, and Sir Leonard Wright, a company director who was Mayor of Dunedin. Although Bob Marshall had lost the battle to retain his hotels, he had insisted that the Tourist Department have a statutory involvement with the new Board, of which he became chairman.⁶⁴ One of the Board’s rst actions was to select Eric Colbeck as General Manager of the Corporation. He was an entrepreneurial Yorkshireman with eighteen years’ experience of hotel management in South Africa. At their rst meeting, board members drew up policy guidelines reecting the new ethos they hoped to build into hotel management. The Board aimed to turn hotel work into a vocation, and intended its hotels to convey a sense of ‘Mine Host’ and goodwill to visitors – the feeling that ‘we cannot do enough for you’. The Board also expected THC hotels to be run efficiently, instituting checks on returns and statistics and replacing administration from head office with the use of local public
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accountants. Its other goal was investment in new accommodation ventures.⁶⁵ However, the Department’s hopes were more restrained. Dean Eyre, Minister at the time of the THC’s establishment, had bluntly ordered the THC to ‘get its head down’ and reduce the losses made by the hotels it was already operating.⁶⁶ The THC Board brought new faces and a new freedom from constraints to the vexed problem of providing protable hotel accommodation for tourists. But neither a new management structure nor new people could easily transform the task it inherited. As one of the THC’s administrators was to comment two years later, ‘there is no magic formula for turning losses into prots’.⁶⁷ Bob Marshall had warned the THC of the difficulties of managing hotels as self-supporting units in remote locations without the infrastructure that city hotels could draw on.⁶⁸ The Board’s rst report claried the challenge it faced in providing these essential services. While the book value of the THC hotels was ,,, the capital tied up in staff accommodation, electric powerplants, water supply and drainage works, and the provision of boats, bridges and hire equipment totalled ,.⁶⁹ Moreover, these essential services required their own staff (over and above the actual hotel staff ) who had to be housed and fed: resident electricians and engineers, mountain guides, ski instructors, guides and ski-lift operators, and so on. As the Department had found for decades, freighting provisions into remote hotels was also costly.⁷⁰ And, although price controls had been lifted from ve-star hotels, the THC was still subject to the risky, seasonal nature of the hotel business. For its rst three years the Tourist Hotel Corporation’s priority was to look after its own establishments and accelerate the upgrading of hotels that had been going on since the war. Bunks were replaced by beds at Te Anau, Tokaanu and in the cheaper wing of the Hermitage, and more bathrooms were added to bedrooms at several hotels to meet the requirements of American tourists. Facilities as well as hotels were modernised: at Ruapehu a popular café and ski-hire centre was built at the Top o’ the Bruce. Eric Colbeck began a quiet revolution in raising the standards of meals and the professionalism of staff. He understood the sophisticated pleasures of eating and drinking, and under his management à la carte menus were introduced in place of the traditional overcooked peas and pud, monotonous roast meat and simple choice of soup – ‘thick or thin?’ He redesigned the Ruapehu Room at the Chateau to enable buffets, and
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Cocktails at the Chateau Tongariro. By most of the THC hotels had introduced cocktail bars. , /
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added cocktail bars at several other hotels. Colbeck had contacts around the world, and one of his rst moves was to attract overseas chefs and maîtres d’hotel to the THC’s hotels – although his fondness for French titles and terminology meant that hotel managers were unsure what role new staff were to play until they arrived.⁷¹ Colbeck himself was precise and quick, and gave a huge impetus to raising the standards of service. He organised training for all his hotel employees – from managers to kitchen hands – and urged hotel managers to expect more of their staff. He telegraphed managers every Monday morning to boost their morale and keep them on the ball. Receptionists ‘should be like an encyclopaedia’, able to guide visitors to service stations, bus connections, -hour laundry facilities and picnic venues. Waitresses were to be instructed in the art of making a good
pot of tea. Sandwiches were to be elegant rather than tram-stoppers. Barmen should attend to details, taking care to warm the cognac glasses, and serve crushed ice with crème de menthe and fresh cream with Tia Maria. Within a few years the old government hotels were transformed into the benchmark for private-enterprise establishments. ‘Even the breweries followed.’⁷² At the same time hotel managers gained more independence, free from the restriction of petty regulations. Lawrence Dennis, the manager at the Chateau, appreciated the contrast with the earlier days within the Department, when he could not choose the hotel’s grade of toilet paper and was rebuked for leaping the import queue and purchasing a Fergusson tractor from Todd Motors instead of going through the process of tendering through the Government Stores Board.⁷³
Formal service was provided at the Lake House Hotel at Waikaremoana. , , ,
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Melancholy years
Fire destroyed the Hermitage Hotel in . , 1⁄2
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In its second year of operation, the Tourist Hotel Corporation’s hopes of adding new hotels to the chain were sent reeling by disaster when the Hermitage Hotel was razed by re on September , just after renovations had been completed. Not only was the re a devastating loss for the THC, tripling the previous year’s loss on the Hermitage to ,, but the hotel was a vital link in the tourist chain and, like the Franz Josef re in , its destruction complicated travel around the whole South Island, especially for coach tours.⁷⁴ After the re both sides of the Southern Alps were without a government hotel. As one newspaper put it, the THC was ‘like a one-armed paper-hanger who is required to undergo a further amputation’.⁷⁵ In the same year storms and torrential rain ruined the summer season in most of the South Island resorts. Lake Wakatipu overowed into the streets of Queenstown; of the parties which walked the Milford Track set out in heavy rain. Milford’s
aerodrome was ooded – and the season had already been shortened by avalanches. The THC could only hope that disasters would not recur so frequently.⁷⁶ The Hermitage re provided the opportunity to construct a contemporary hotel that would set an example for the whole country. Because the THC had organised its own insurance, it did not need to wait for government funding and contracted the Fletcher Construction Company to begin building immediately. Builders worked -hour days through the worst weather in years. The directors’ blithe approach made them unpopular when the insurance payout was overspent and reconstruction had to be completed with government assistance. Labour’s arrival in power in was followed by severe restraints on spending and by the ‘Black Budget’ in of the Minister of Finance, Arnold Nordmeyer. To save face after accusations of extravagance,
The lookout point at the new Hermitage, which opened in May . , 1⁄2
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the THC Board transferred Dennis, the most experienced THC staff member, from the Chateau to manage the Hermitage and ensure its success. When the new Hermitage was opened in May , it won the approval of Nikolaus Pevsner, a leading authority on European architecture, who described it as one of the nest buildings in New Zealand. Although Nordmeyer vowed he would never set foot in the new hotel, the Hermitage became a magnet for travellers once more.⁷⁷ The era of res was not yet over. In , the privately owned hotel at Wanaka burnt down, and on September part of the new Milford Hotel was destroyed by re, nine years after the hostel had burnt to the ground and ve years after its reconstruction. This time re gutted only the guests’ and staff dining rooms and the kitchens – but these were essential to the hotel staying open. The THC acted swiftly, calling in Fletcher’s to get the rooms rebuilt before Christmas. The reconstruction broke records for speed. The , building was ready to meet the contract deadline of seven weeks at a time when a standard house took nine weeks to build. The night before the reopening, new tartan carpet imported from Scotland was rolled out across the public rooms. The new dining room was styled the Lobster Room; decorated with shing nets and lobster pots, it was soon renowned for the fresh craysh on its menu.⁷⁸ Halstead had earlier promised that acquiring a hotel in Queenstown would be the THC’s rst task.⁷⁹ The Corporation took action by buying the small, old Eichardt’s Hotel with the intention of enlarging and modernising it. This was an unpopular move, opposed by the Borough Council and others who called for a hotel modelled on Canadian resorts such as Lake Louise and Banff, where beautiful surroundings contributed to the hotel’s charm and a relaxed atmosphere. The only advantage of the cramped downtown site of Eichardt’s was the likelihood of a ourishing bar-trade.⁸⁰ The position became worse when the slump made hotels even less protable, and Nordmeyer’s dour control over the Budget from to postponed modernisation. Although Eichardt’s Hotel remained popular with commercial travellers and tour parties, the THC had saddled itself with a white elephant and Queenstown’s problems were no nearer solution. Meanwhile, the government procrastinated over rebuilding the Franz Josef hotel. West Coasters felt resentful when nothing was done after the ruins were cleared and the site was prepared for building – particularly when they saw the speed with which the Hermitage
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was rebuilt. When Colbeck visited the site in , he found the village deserted and desolate and the airstrip in a terrible state. Only a small pub remained open. The THC Board hesitated to spend up to , on a new hotel which was not likely to be protable until the Haast Pass road was completed.⁸¹ The off-season glacier excursions initiated by the Tourist Department in the early s continued, with the parties staying at the Fox Glacier Hotel and making a return trip over the tortuous road to Franz Josef. People enjoyed the novelty of a winter holiday, but the glaciers began to recede during these years and could no longer be walked on easily. The Department’s publicity did not mention the dramatic changes in the landscape, and people felt cheated when they had to view the glaciers from up to a mile away.⁸²
The series of disasters continued when re gutted the kitchen and dining rooms of the Milford Hotel in . , , .
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While the Hermitage and Milford Hotel were rebuilt swiftly, the construction of a new hotel at Franz Josef had to wait until the road across the Haast Pass was completed. For a decade visitors made do with a simple pub. , 1⁄2
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Without its famed hotel and easy access to the glaciers, Franz Josef was losing its allure. Despite Colbeck’s dynamism, the benets from forming the THC were uncertain. The notion that it was free from bureaucratic control was an illusion when the General Manager of the Tourist Department chaired the Board and it was necessary to gain Treasury approval for special appropriations. One hotel manager felt that the calibre of board members could have been higher: they were political appointees to a post which was sought-after because it took them to ne hotels where they found a bottle of whisky in their room on arrival. He observed them come to meetings without reading the agenda, and sometimes fall asleep. And the THC could not change the basic problem that it was liquor rather than accommodation that made prots. As Colbeck
argued after the nancial struggles of these melancholy years, ‘it’s not the Tourist Department or the THC at fault, it’s the hotel business’.⁸³ By the THC had succeeded in maintaining its estate and restoring two hotels destroyed by re; and it had begun turning losses into prots. In the face of Treasury’s persistent opposition to supporting tourist development, however, it had been unable to either construct its own new hotels or assist private enterprise to do so. Treasury held to its antagonistic stance when the THC presented a detailed ten-year development plan in . In the following year, at least, Treasury expected the THC to be content with carrying out minimal maintenance.⁸⁴ There was still no answer to the question that A.M. Satterthwaite, who was soon to become Chairman of the THC, noted in his diary, ‘Where are we going to put people when the jet planes come to New Zealand?’⁸⁵ In preparation for the arrival of jet aircraft, the Pacic Area Travel Association and the United States Department of Commerce contracted Checchi and Company in Washington to survey the prospects for tourism in seventeen countries around the Pacic and its rim. The investigators saw more contradictory forces in New Zealand than anywhere else: spectacular scenery, but restrictions which hampered any development; a high tourism budget, but far too wide a focus. Their ndings conrmed that there had been few changes since the Chateau conference in . New Zealanders remained sceptical about the presence of tourists, their general attitude to complaints being summed up in the rhetorical question, ‘If you don’t like it, why did you come?’ The Tourist Department needed to change the public attitude that tourism was ‘close to being immoral’. Worse, this antipathy towards tourism was reected at the highest level of government.⁸⁶ In addition, the government restrictions on labour, prices and imports that still affected the hotel industry severely needed to be lifted. Above all, taxes on hotel construction should be removed so that liquor was not the only source of prot. The investigators cited as evidence a recently built hotel with seventeen bedrooms, ve full-sized bars, two bottle stores and an outdoor beer garden. This was not a hotel in the sense of the word accepted internationally. Government restrictions also made life as difficult for overseas visitors as for New Zealand developers. Everywhere tourists turned, they were beset by regulations. They were unable to eat what they wanted, drink in restaurants (or anywhere after six in the evening, except in their own hotel), or dance and drink on the same premises. With nightlife almost non-existent, lms
The idea of group tours originated in the Tourist Department’s district office in Christchurch in the s, where they were named Tiki Tours. The Department expanded this idea, organising and marketing a major programme of low-cost tours through the government hotels. By the end of the s the Newmans and Guthries bus companies were developing their own package tours. This early brochure emphasised the relaxing nature of group tours, with luggage and accommodation taken care of. , -
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In the post-war era Harry Wigley continued the visionary tradition of his father Rodolph by installing ski lifts and opening a new ski eld at Coronet Peak, near Queenstown, and pioneering the development of ski-planes with retractable skis able to make scenic ights onto southern glaciers. This photograph shows Wigley (on the right) and the Auster ski-plane that made the rst landing on the Tasman Glacier in . , , ,
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and most other activities banned on Sundays, and the country focused on outdoor sports or sightseeing, tourists were bored. Nothing in the inspectors’ tour of seventeen countries had been as thrilling as ying through the Southern Alps and landing on a glacier near Mt Cook, but at the splendid Hermitage there was nothing to do but ski.⁸⁷ The New Zealand government’s tourism budget was the highest of the seventeen countries surveyed, but much of it was spent on work unrelated to tourism. The Checchi Report criticised the Tourist Department’s being saddled with the protection of reserves (which consumed a third of its budget) and a publicity function, two-thirds of the funding for which went on general information or servicing the needs of other government departments. Whereas most of the Department’s
energy was spent on maintaining its travel bureaux, the report argued that this business activity should be handed over to a semi-independent corporation. If New Zealand was to gain from the opening up of the Pacic by jet airliners, the Department’s focus should be on attracting overseas travellers and co-ordinating government policy to give them what they wanted when they arrived: beds, good food and a range of pleasures. Otherwise New Zealand would be bypassed by tourists speeding from the United States to Tahiti, Fiji, Australia, Hong Kong, Manila or Tokyo.⁸⁸
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One of Air New Zealand’s rst two DC-s that began ights across the Pacic in . In the new DC-s as well as the DC-s were repainted with a koru motif on the tail. , EVENING POST ,
The Jet Age
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O
ew into Auckland from Los Angeles aboard a DC- jet, one of three new aircraft that had recently been delivered to Air New Zealand from the Douglas Commercial works in California. These passengers were lucky to be on one of the inaugural ights celebrating New Zealand’s entry into the jet age and introducing the South Pacic to West Coast Americans. As the travellers dined on toheroa soup, Coromandel craysh, Canterbury lamb, pheasant, venison and cheeses, they were surrounded by images of the Pacic. A mural portrayed the ‘great migration’ of seven waka which Maori were thought to have navigated across the Pacic centuries earlier, the stern-post of a waka stood in the rst-class compartment and panels of polyplastic fibre were patterned in the image of tropical rain. The lure of the
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Pacic was highlighted in shades of teal, aqua and gold throughout the interior – the colours of sea and sun. The DC- swept across the Pacic in hours and minutes, arriving at Auckland International Airport after landing in torrential rain at Honolulu and on the steamy tarmac at Nadi.¹ Its arrival heralded a new era in which New Zealand would gain from linking the glamour and speed of jets with a renewal of exotic images of the South Seas. Long-range jets made this the time for tourism in the South Pacic to ourish. Airline publicity boasted of the jet aircraft as a ‘fabulous tool’, conceived so that ‘distance would become meaningless and time in the true Einsteinian sense would become “relative”’. Travel gained a new aura of excitement. People dressed in their best for international ights – women wore suits, hats and gloves. More signicantly, jets could travel a longer range than propeller-driven aircraft; they ‘shrank the world’ and dramatically reduced New Zealand’s isolation.² When TEAL came under joint Australian and New Zealand ownership in it had still been limited to the small radius of Australia and close Pacic neighbours. When New Zealand bought out Australia’s shares in and changed the airline’s name to Air New Zealand in , its own agship company could span the Pacic, reaching Singapore, Hong Kong and Los Angeles, cities far apart around the Pacic rim. As Air New Zealand became a truly international airline, it could attempt to counter the American trend in Pacic travel to focus overwhelmingly on the northern centres of Hawaii, Japan and Hong Kong. Air New Zealand’s DC-s were not the rst pure jets to bring passengers to New Zealand. BOAC had extended its Comet service from London in to link New Zealand directly with Britain, the Middle East, India, Singapore and Malaya. Before the construction of pure jet engines, airlines had relied on aircraft such as the Electra with piston engines that could not y at high altitudes without decreasing their speed. The switch to the gas-turbine engine of the pure jet brought huge gains in efficiency which meant that planes could y above turbulence and provide faster, smoother, quieter travel. The ying time from New Zealand to Nadi and Sydney was reduced by an hour, and by three hours on the Nadi–Honolulu haul. The DC- also held more passengers than the Electra, with in economy class and in rst class. With fewer working parts than piston engines, the new jet engines also had less to go wrong and were more reliable. One navigator who joined Air New Zealand at this time remembers the difference from the old
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days when departures were regularly delayed by engineers’ calls to taxi back again for further repairs. ‘Ninety-nine percent of the time the DC-s worked properly. When you shut the door, with the passengers seated, you were pretty sure you were off.’³ When the rst DC- was delivered to Auckland International Airport in , the occasion marked the choice of Auckland as the gateway to the Pacic. Making Auckland the major link with the world was a turnaround in government policy. Harewood in Christchurch had been favoured initially because it could be easily and cheaply upgraded. Auckland’s old Whenuapai airport was inadequate for jets: its site was shared between military and civil aircraft, and the upper reaches of the harbour limited extensions to the runway. Auckland’s local bodies had been unable to offer a united plan to provide the per cent share in an airport which the government demanded, while city councils in Hamilton, Christchurch and Dunedin competed to offer sites and funding. It was only when Pan American and the French company TAI threatened to cut New Zealand out of the Pacic loop, and dismissed Christchurch as too distant and expensive, that Sir John Allum, Chairman of the Auckland Harbour Bridge Authority, persuaded Auckland officials to ‘cut the cackle’ and join the government in
The arrival of jets on the Pacic routes stimulated a new interest in the exoticism of the South Seas. This mural of a pre-European Maori canoe was placed in the rst-class compartments of Air New Zealand’s DC-s in the s. It could be ipped over to make a movie screen. , EVENING POST , .
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This Herald cartoon highlighted the overcrowding at Whenuapai Airport and the need for a new international airport as ights attracted increasing numbers of travellers and spectators. NZ HERALD,
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funding an airport at Mangere.⁴ Once the government had decided that Auckland was the logical gateway to the Pacic, construction began at Mangere in and the airport was ready for action in . Jet passengers no longer needed to transfer to piston-engined aircraft in Nadi or Sydney for the nal stage of their journey. The purchase of jet aircraft, construction of facilities and recruitment of extra airline staff involved huge capital expenditure and marked a major government investment in facilitating trade, promoting New Zealand’s identity and expanding the ow of overseas tourists to New Zealand. The airport required the construction not only of concrete landing-elds at Mangere, but new operational facilities costing million and providing hangar space, workshops, an engine-testing cell, ight kitchens and a training school. Mechanical servicing shifted to Mangere from Mechanics Bay, where seaplane ights had been pioneered.⁵ The Tourist and Publicity Department predicted a rich harvest from jet travel, and put considerable effort into organising tours and accompanying the overseas tourist agents and publicists who were granted a free trip on the inaugural ights in the months after the airport’s opening. The Department allocated , in the tourist vote for its publicity for inaugural ights in /, as well as obtaining maximum concessions from tourist airways and coaches and hotels.⁶ It found these occasions formidable undertakings.⁷ Publicists and tourist agents were often critical, independent travellers who did not like to work to rule or
Chefs at work in Air New Zealand’s ight kitchen at Mangere. Air New Zealand’s chefs, trained in the classical Escoffier style, prepared different menus with a focus on foods from New Zealand and Pacic countries served by the airline. , ,
feel over-organised, and needed plenty of time at resorts to gather material and interview key people such as the guides at Whakarewarewa or the engineer at Wairakei. And it was hard to juggle the interests of journalists who represented such diverse institutions as the BBC, the Singapore Straits Times, the Canberra Times or Australia’s Pix magazine.⁸ Most publicists arriving on inaugural ights were own around the country. In the South Island the Mt Cook and Southern Lakes Tourist Company would take them to Queenstown and Mt Cook, and Southern Scenic Air Services to Milford. The success of these ventures depended on the weather. Clouds around Mt Cook stopped the ight to Tasman Glacier planned for Air New Zealand’s inaugural party from Los Angeles, and a storm left them staggering uphill at Coronet Peak in surplus army greatcoats. But a day later these sophisticated visitors were stunned by a -minute ight through the steep ravines of Milford. Helga Wall wrote to the Department: ‘New Zealand scenery is more than scenery – it is an emotional experience.’⁹ The San Francisco Sunday Examiner and Chronicle carried her report on this ight where ‘time stopped, endless. It seemed the morning of the world.’¹⁰
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From Skyline Enterprises’ gondola took visitors high above Queenstown for panoramic views of Lake Wakatipu. The gondola was to become one of New Zealand’s most popular tourist attractions in the following decades, and was often shown by the Tourist Department to visiting journalists. , EVENING POST , .
Flying was still a luxury that few could afford. International fares were set by the International Air Travel Association (IATA). With its jets not yet full, Air New Zealand took a prominent role in persuading delegates at the IATA meeting in Hawaii to allow fare reductions on Pacic routes. As a Qantas spokesman argued, ‘the more you drop the fares, the bigger the potential market’.¹¹ Air New Zealand wanted to see the kind of dramatic growth on the Pacic route that had followed when Airconomy off-season winter fares cut per cent off the standard Australia–New Zealand price in . The company gained IATA approval for signicant reductions in economy-class round fares for tourists from the West Coast of the United States to New Zealand from . Excursion fares reduced the normal economy rate from to and were available for most of the year. At the same time special youth
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fares (at a reduction of per cent on normal fares) encouraged those under who held an Australian or New Zealand passport to y to Britain and Europe for their working holidays rather than go by sea.¹² When charter companies attempted to introduce further fare reductions in the Pacic region, New Zealand’s Civil Aviation Authority followed Australia’s rigorous stance of opposing competition to its national air carriers. Like other regular carriers, Air New Zealand was obliged to purchase new types of aircraft to remain at the forefront of the business, and maintain a regular timetable and expensive organisation through good times and bad. Cut-throat charter companies could roam the world when they had aircraft to spare, and needed to y only when they had a full load.¹³ They raided tourists from scheduled airlines and were likely to undermine Air New Zealand’s progress. Once BOAC, UTA, Continental Airlines and United Airlines gained licences to run additional services across the Pacic in , it was going to be hard for Air New Zealand to make a prot if chartered airlines were competing too. The Tourist Department was more interested in the expansion of tourism than the protection of the national airline and would have preferred to open the door to charter companies.¹⁴ As its Travel Commissioner in San Francisco argued, however much they irked the scheduled companies, charter companies were there to stay. Their inuence was already clear on the Atlantic route, where, as soon as IATA allowed scheduled fares to be reduced in , charter companies announced fares of – per cent lower. With the competition of cheap fares across the Atlantic, the South Pacic was back where it had started, unable to compete with the American trail to Europe.¹⁵ However, the Department could not ignore its relationship with Air New Zealand and the indirect publicity it received from the airline.¹⁶ As jets made travel speedier and New Zealand became one segment in a sweep around the Pacic, tourist stop-overs became shorter. In the mid-s per cent of Americans arriving in Auckland were continuing on to other South Pacic countries.¹⁷ Matson Line and P & O cruise ships followed a similar pattern, allowing a brief stay of one or two nights in Auckland with quick forays to see scenic highlights. Small, privately run airline companies emerged to service these wealthy tourists and y them wherever they wished to go. Fred Ladd ew visitors to Waitangi for lunch, and Tourist Air Travel took passengers to Fitzroy House on Great Barrier Island for a weekend’s shing or up north for a
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day in the Bay of Islands, with a stop at Zane Grey’s old shing lodge at Otehei Bay. Cruise-ship visitors no longer had to choose between Waitomo or Rotorua, but were whisked by plane to Rotorua, then to Te Kuiti to catch a taxi to Waitomo and back. In the South Island, Tourist Air Travel and Ritchies Air Services competed with trips from Te Anau to Queenstown and Milford Sound, or more expensive ights up the West Coast, with a landing on Fox or Franz Josef Glacier, and then on to Mt Cook and Mt Aspiring, returning over lakes Hawea and Wanaka to Queenstown. Visitors could pay extra to land at Milford Sound or the Hermitage (although they had to be weighed before embarking on some of these imsy planes).¹⁸ In Mt Cook Airlines was granted rights to y from Rotorua to Queenstown, so that for the rst time tourists in a hurry could hop directly from North Island to South Island resorts. The trip from the United States to Tahiti or Hawaii, Auckland, Rotorua, Queenstown and Milford became the pattern of the future. The advent of wide-bodied jets in made the most dramatic difference to a country on the edge of the world. It has been claimed that Air New Zealand’s transition from DC-s to DC-s and Pan American’s use of the jumbo Boeing s were as signicant to New Zealand’s late twentieth-century economy as the introduction of refrigeration in the nineteenth century.¹⁹ These huge aircraft, with cavernous interiors capable of holding up to passengers and travelling at – miles per hour ( per cent faster than earlier jets), ew at a lower cost per passenger and meant that airline companies could reduce prices accordingly. After Air New Zealand’s introduction of its rst DC- in February , its passenger numbers jumped per cent. As bargain fares became more common and traditional fare structures were ‘rudely shaken’, airports were thronged with people who had never before dreamt of ying internationally. Air travel was transformed from a glamorous occasion to an everyday activity – ‘as normal as using a phone’ in the words of one travel journal.²⁰ The cost of larger jets meant higher government investment in air travel, with the new planes costing million in comparison with million for DC-s a decade earlier. Further outlay at Mangere was also needed, as larger hangars and new engine overhaul equipment were required to deal with an engine three times the size of the DC-’s. Air New Zealand’s head office moved into a nineteen-storey skyscraper on Auckland’s waterfront. The government’s investment became more risky when the OPEC nations doubled the price of oil in . As fuel
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prices soared and worldwide ination pushed up Air New Zealand’s costs, the company walked a tight-rope between raising fares and attracting new passengers.²¹ The Tourist Department remained undaunted. It had entered the jet era condently quoting Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: ‘there is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the ood, leads on to fortune’. In overseas earnings from tourism had grown by per cent in two years, and by the South Pacic had become the fastest-growing travel destination in the world.²² In , when international travel was rising at the rate of per cent in one year, visitors to New Zealand increased by . per cent. Numbers had doubled between and , and a year later American Airlines entered the Pacic with two ights a week from the eastern seaboard of the United States to New Zealand. In Air New Zealand’s DC-s and Qantas’s Boeing s were increasing the
The Travelodge Hotel at Queenstown was one of the hotels constructed under the government’s Tourist Accommodation Development Scheme. , /
2
frequency of ights across the Tasman and to Los Angeles and back. Although Air New Zealand’s fares rose per cent in January after the oil crisis, and a further per cent two months later, J.E. Hartstonge, the General Manager of the Department, claimed that people were so accustomed to the pleasure of travel that they were no longer susceptible to the ‘chill breath’ of price rises and hard times.²³ In the decade to December , New Zealand’s average visitor intake increased by . per cent a year compared with an international average of . per cent.²⁴ Much of this growth in the early s came from Australia, where discretionary incomes were rising under Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. Many Australians could go overseas for the rst time and experimented with travel by taking economical -day coach tours around New Zealand. These tourists were not high spenders and Tourist Department staff complained that ‘Australians came with a clean shirt and a ver, and changed neither’.²⁵ The Auckland Tourist Department office took on the role of allocating motel rooms to Vacation Holidays, Newmans and Tiki Tours to smooth the way around the country. With tours spending two-thirds of the time in the South Island, Christchurch became the major tour centre; in the mid-s the number of coaches available grew from to in three years.²⁶
Jets and beds go hand in hand The arrival of jets forced the government’s hand, and from the Tourist Hotel Corporation built a series of new small hotels: Waitangi Hotel in the Bay of Islands, and Wanaka and Franz Josef hotels in the South Island. Waitangi was seen as a valuable alternative to Rotorua with its beaches, historical sites, big game shing and long summer season. The other two hotels replaced ones burnt down in the s. In the THC bought the Hotel International in Rotorua as well. In the National government’s introduction of the Tourist Accommodation Development Scheme marked a turnaround in government policy and a break-through in hotel construction. For decades governments had resisted proposals to assist private enterprise in the hotel business. Under the new scheme the government set aside several million dollars over the following years to be used as loans or guarantees for hotel construction in the major centres. It also added incentive tax deductions and a depreciation allowance for approved hotels. The scheme was to provide for overseas tourists only, and its criteria
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reected travel patterns at a time when fast-moving tourists were set on seeing the highlights of New Zealand on a brief stop-over en route around the Pacic. Hotels were eligible for assistance if constructed at the key entry-points or major tourist resorts; they had to be of rst-class standard, providing a ne restaurant and or more beds in Auckland or Wellington, in Christchurch, in Dunedin and over in more remote tourist resorts. The rst few years of this scheme were dominated by the problem of Auckland, where a ‘feeder hotel’ was desperately needed for in-bound visitors. Hilton (Cementation Ltd) pressed the government to sell Crown land on Bastion Point for a ranch-style hotel, but Pan American’s Intercontinental hotel chain seemed the most likely to commit itself to Auckland. After protracted negotiations between Pan American, the government and the nancier Renouf, construction on the Intercontinental Hotel went ahead in Princes Street. The fourteen-storey hotel (with no thirteenth oor) and its Top of the Town restaurant brought an unaccustomed glamour to the city, even though a swimming pool, balconies, grill room, beer room and tower block for professional offices had been eliminated to cut costs.²⁷ When the hotel opened in along with the New Zealand Breweries-owned South Pacic Hotel, the two added rst-class hotel beds and made a dramatic difference to New Zealand’s major gateway city.²⁸ Both were supported by the Tourist Accommodation Development Scheme. Others followed in the next few years: Travelodge hotels in Wellington and Queenstown, the James Cook Hotel in Wellington, Noah’s Hotel and the White Heron Lodge in Christchurch, and the Southern Cross in Dunedin. The government could boast that the scheme had succeeded in ‘priming the pump’ of hotel expansion.²⁹
Islands of illusion On the threshold of the jet age, the lure of the South Pacic had been highlighted in the Cinerama lm South Seas Adventure, where the Pacic became the romantic backdrop for a couple of lovers who wandered the beach at Waikiki, watched Tahiti’s dancers and swept on to Tonga, the New Hebrides, New Zealand and a kangaroo hunt in Australia. Narrated by Orson Welles, this popular travelogue made the outdoors impressive through the use of a triple camera, a gigantic screen and stereophonic sound that aimed ‘to scoop you out of your theatre seat
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The introduction of younger Maori guides and the revival of Maori crafts were among the government measures to romanticise Rotorua for jet travellers. Hinemoa Haira observes the art of taniko. , /
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and whisk you across the blue Pacic to the Islands of Illusion’.³⁰ The South Seas title hinted at a vanished romantic past, and the sense of otherness which tourists were crossing the Pacic to discover.³¹ With interest in the South Pacic growing, the Tourist Department set about restoring the unique, exotic qualities of Rotorua and reviving its earlier role as the showpiece of Maori life and culture. The illusory world that tourists were seeking in the ‘otherness’ of indigenous culture was one in which the people, places and performances were aesthetically pleasing. In the Department’s early years, Donne had invested in measures to highlight the picturesque qualities of Maori life, but this impetus had long since been lost. By both the model pa and the living village at Whakarewarewa were decrepit, and Rotorua itself no longer a t setting for romance. As cruise ships and aircraft brought more tourists to the country, criticisms of Rotorua and
Whakarewarewa escalated. The popular journalist Robert Gilmour decried Rotorua as a ‘milk-bar and sh and chips town’ where the only music came from the line-up of juke-boxes. He heard tourists complain that concerts were badly rehearsed and souvenirs were of poor quality, and that they had been misled by Tourist Department brochures of Maori maidens in traditional dress. There was no museum of Maori artefacts, no demonstrations of weaving and carving, no Hawaiianstyle feasting. The reality of Whaka was a poor substitute for the exotic glamour tourists expected.³² The assertiveness of Rotorua’s guides was also drawing the town into disrepute. These women had carved out a profession from the beginnings of tourism, and some – like Bella Papakura and Guide Rangi – had gained worldwide renown. Most of them lived at Whaka and ‘had been their own masters for years’.³³ Theirs was a privileged position: women who took on this work were selected and granted a licence by the Tourist Department and usually had to be approved by the Komiti Marae, the governing body in the village. They formed a link between Maori and the wider world and were responsible for the impression tourists gained of Maori.³⁴ In the post-war years the number of guides had dwindled. Bella Papakura became bedridden; others were ageing, and younger women found work elsewhere. Those who were left resisted the Department’s efforts to systematise their attendance; if they were needed by their families or the weather was poor, the women tried to ll in for one another, but their nonchalant approach troubled tour operators and the Tourist Department. And the rivalry among the guides was disconcerting for visitors: Those old girls would just about haul people out of their cars, they were really bumptious old girls, and the rows they used to have! Accusing each other of stealing tourists. . . . It got really heated: ‘Aai, you took my pakehas.’ ‘They were mine’. ‘No, I asked them rst.’ And they’d have a dingdong go right in front of the pakehas, and it was so embarrassing.³⁵
Tourists also complained about the comic ‘vaudeville’ style of some of the older guides and their appearance in ordinary dress.³⁶ The Department had never insisted on traditional dress, and Guide Rangi felt impatient that visitors were disconcerted to nd that Maori were modern people. Only if critics were prepared to wear the traditional dress of Old
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Guide Rangi, famous for decades for her work at Whakarewarewa, was a controversial gure in the s. , /
England was she willing to wear traditional Maori costume. The Tourist Department District Manager agreed that tourists should recognise that Maori had joined the modern world and argued that, if traditional dress were worn every day, it would lose its appeal on ceremonial occasions and on the concert stage.³⁷ The guides’ forthright comments became another reason to avoid Rotorua. Americans and South Africans felt they were being deliberately insulted by the outspoken commentary of guides who compared New Zealand’s political culture with the colour bar in the tourists’ home countries. The ringleader was Guide Rangi, an old woman by this time but still the most ebullient of Rotorua’s guides – a spirited woman who wanted to make a mark on the world. After repeated complaints, the
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Tourist Department threatened to revoke her licence, although it knew that many overseas visitors had heard of her fame and requested her company. The Auckland Star weighed in, claiming that ‘guides . . . are efficient only as picturesque and informed functionaries’. The Tourist Department could only advise its overseas offices to divert Americans from Whaka, or at least from Rangi’s services.³⁸ In spite of departmental orders that guides refrain from controversial discussions on politics, race or religion, Guide Rangi remained irrepressible.³⁹ The Tourist Department had realised the level of dissatisfaction with Rotorua at a tourist conference at the Chateau in , when the New Zealand manager of Matson Lines claimed that his company discouraged passengers from visiting the town. Although it had more thermal activity than Yosemite Valley, it was less clean and appealing. The New Zealand Herald highlighted these comments and warned that the tourist industry existed ‘to serve and please others’ or New Zealand would see them go elsewhere.⁴⁰
The showpiece of Maoridom Criticisms of the run-down, carefree atmosphere of Rotorua stirred the authorities to action. The Rotorua City Council and business interests were driven by the principle of pleasing tourists; as Truth was claiming, ‘we must coddle our tourists or lose them’.⁴¹ The Tourist Department’s approach was more complex: it wanted to highlight the best of New Zealand and harness the resurgence in Maori arts, but also to control tourist activities to make the Maori presence in Rotorua more attractive. This meant no visible poverty or forthright comments and the provision of regular guiding and cultural performances when required. The Department had no control over Whaka village because it did not own the land, but it took an innovative step to deal with all the other issues at one fell swoop. Its idea was to create something new and breathe life into the static model pa by establishing a Maori cultural centre on this site as ‘a showpiece of Maoridom’. The Department proposed a Maori Arts and Crafts Institute where carvers and weavers would demonstrate their craft and entertainers perform regularly. The Institute would not only enhance Rotorua as a tourist centre and integrate cultural attractions with the sights of the thermal valley, but preserve Maoritanga. It would also take over the control of guiding and ensure that high-quality crafts were available for sale.
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Rotorua City Council’s introduction of young Maori meter maids in traditional dress in provoked further controversy over the role of Maori in the town’s appeal to tourists. , /
Ron Odell, soon to become General Manager of the Tourist Department, seems to have been the driving force behind this project. He wanted to restore the town as a drawcard for overseas visitors and New Zealand holiday-makers.⁴² The idea of a crafts centre drew on the precedent of the earlier School of Arts and Crafts established by Apirana Ngata at Rotorua in , and seemed tting in a period when Maori condence in the arts was reviving. The Tourist Department won over the Maori Affairs Department, the Rotorua City Council and Whakarewarewa’s tribal committee to a plan that required little direct nancial input from the government. The resulting Rotorua Maori Arts and Crafts Institute Act reected the three major purposes of its planners: to train Maori and preserve traditional arts and crafts; to create a centre where arts and performances were regularly on view; and to enable the Institute to administer the government’s thermal reserve. They aimed not only to encourage a high standard of arts and performance but to regulate its availability, so that visitors could be certain of seeing carving, weaving, music and dance under favourable conditions at regular times. To enable the Institute to be self-funding, the Tourist Department would lease acres of the thermal valley to it at a peppercorn rental. This area includ-
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ed the model pa and the spectacular Pohutu geyser and main thermal sights, but excluded the area belonging to Whakarewarewa village. The government’s chief contribution would be the land leased to the Institute, which could be used as security on the loans needed for buildings and staff, and to maintain the Institute until its earnings outweighed expenditure.⁴³ The Institute would be permitted to charge entrance fees to the reserve, where visitors had wandered free of charge for decades unless they hired a guide. This income would be expanded by concert fees, the sale of craft work and subsidies from the Rotorua City Council. If this nancial plan worked, it would solve the -year problem of funding the development of Maori and thermal attractions in Rotorua. Tourists in turn would gain a ‘total package’: for a s d entry fee they would be able to see a concert group perform, watch carving demonstrations, take a guided tour through the model pa and thermal reserve and go on to explore Whakarewarewa village. If the project had been leased to private enterprise, the Tourist Department predicted that the emphasis on Maori culture would be less signicant and the Institute could not be guaranteed to be a rst-class or large-scale venture. If run by the Department, prots would have to be transferred to the Consolidated Fund. Under the administration of a board, the Institute would be able to plough prots back into further development.⁴⁴ Board members would be associated with the groups whose interests were at stake in the project: the General Manager of the Tourist Department, the Secretary of Maori Affairs and representatives of the Whakarewarewa tribal committee, the New Zealand Maori Council and the Rotorua City Council. While Maori Members of Parliament supported the legislation, they were cautious about its implications. As Sir Eruera Tirikatene wondered, it was one thing to transform an area, but what would happen to its people and culture? Although the village at Whaka was not directly affected, its inhabitants were closely involved in tourist activities. Issues which Tirikatene and other Maori Members raised were to resurface later: the lack of ‘nancial teeth’ in the legislation, the role of guides, the lack of board representation for the Maori Women’s Welfare League and the potential commercialisation of Maori culture. Tirikatene argued that ‘the world should know what we have in the way of culture, but I do not believe it should be exploited by having the people merely perform whenever they are called upon to do so. There should be some consideration for what we hold dear.’ In Rotorua Maori
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were sitting on the fence, waiting to see whether the project would founder like earlier dreams.⁴⁵ The appointment of the Director of the Institute was critical. The position needed someone who combined management skills with an interest in Maori culture and an ability to speak in public to enlist support for the project. The rst Director, P.H. Leonard, had been chairman of Te Arawa Trust Board for eleven years, Deputy Mayor of Rotorua for three and a half years and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Bay of Plenty Savings Bank – the rst Maori appointed to such a role. Skilled as an artist, he had carved the desk presented as the government’s wedding gift to Princess Elizabeth, as well as gifts Maori gave to Lord Freyberg and Field-Marshal Montgomery. He was also an ordained Anglican minister and a good sportsman.⁴⁶ When Leonard took up his post in October , his rst task was to organise funding for the Institute’s buildings and activities. The Board applied unsuccessfully to the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council for a , grant to enable it to select and train performers to be ready for the rst summer season. After some qualms, the Rotorua City Council guaranteed a bank overdraft of , to enable the Institute to get established and pay the Director, and State Advances agreed to a , building loan for the rst stage of construction. These were important beginnings, although small in comparison with the Institute’s overall vision – for by the end of the year Leonard’s list of necessary buildings totalled expenditure of almost ,, including headquarters, an arts and crafts centre, cafeteria, caretaker’s accommodation and architects’ fees. He hoped for a meeting house and museum in the future.⁴⁷ Before handing the thermal reserve over to the new Institute, the Tourist Department had repaired the paths and bridges, laid new duckboards, added lighting and planted ponga to form an archway over the paths. The Board continued this work and by August , , native trees had been planted: kowhai and miro to attract tui and bellbirds, as well as large clumps of rimu and tanekaha, matai, rewarewa, kahikatea and others. Leonard boasted that this would be a scenic reserve without parallel in New Zealand.⁴⁸ To make thermal activity more vigorous and appealing, staff redirected springs of water to keep the mud pools active over the dry summer months.⁴⁹ In February entry fees to the thermal reserve were charged for the rst time in its history and, in spite of the doom-sayers, the crowds of visitors grew. By August the construction of a two-storeyed building was under way.
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While the Institute opened amid high public expectations, it faced criticism from Maori who saw themselves excluded from the new ventures. Until , when the National government established the Maori Council, the Maori Women’s Welfare League had been the only national forum for Maori issues.⁵⁰ Overshadowed in its national role, the League felt aggrieved that it had not been consulted over the establishment of the Institute and protested that, although the Board had two Maori members, the role of women had been overlooked. The League wanted to be involved in the formative stages of policy planning, and pointed to its important role in nurturing Maori crafts – traditionally women were excluded only from carving. The League pressed to have the Act amended to include women’s representation.⁵¹ J.R. Hanan, Minister of Maori Affairs, supported the women’s case and commented that the League had done more to stimulate interest in Maori crafts than many Maori committees.⁵² Dean Eyre, Minister of Tourism, insisted that the Board be management-oriented rather than craft-oriented at this stage, for the project was a major business undertaking, involving the development of acres of land. Subsidiary committees would be formed later to involve those with specialist expertise.⁵³ The League had to wait. There were also tensions close by. The alliance between the Institute and Whaka village was uneasy. Members of the village worked at the Institute but showed little interest in improving their own surroundings to make the exotic environment more attractive to tourists. There would be several bids to take over Whaka in the following decades. The rst was Leonard’s proposal that the Institute lease the village for a -year term at , a year, but this plan was abandoned when Tuhourangi could not agree among themselves.⁵⁴ The Institute’s demands on Maori guides also broke with tradition and increased the villagers’ hostility to the new order. In the Institute introduced a new set of regulations to systematise the work of these independently minded women. It was no coincidence that Guide Rangi, years old, retired at this time. Guides were to wear a new tailored uniform of dark red and white and were to work regular fulltime hours as salaried staff of the Institute. They were no longer permitted to sell their raffia souvenirs to tourists.⁵⁵ Pakeha retailers in Rotorua formed another disgruntled group. For decades they had commissioned local craftspeople. They now saw an end to their dominance of the souvenir market and believed
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they would be overshadowed by a body with the government behind it. This was, they claimed, unfair competition between the state and private enterprise and they wanted the legislation amended to conne the Institute to the wholesale market. The sale of Maori crafts was an important source of funds for the Institute, and it was appropriate that the ne work it intended to produce would benet Maori.⁵⁶ Eyre pointed out that the Institute was a tourist drawcard that would in turn benet the whole town; souvenir sales in Rotorua were more likely to increase than decrease. The Institute intended to sell only goods that were manufactured on site – works that were signicant to Maori art and culture. Tensions between the Institute and different factions exhausted Leonard, and in March he resigned. He was replaced by the Institute’s bilingual Secretary, Kuru Waaka, who was born in Whaka. He had served as a captain in the Maori Battalion in the Middle East, was the chairman of the nance subcommittee of Te Arawa Trust Board and more capable than anyone else of smoothing over resentment in difficult situations.⁵⁷ The Institute forged ahead. With a loan from State Advances it built a large new centre with a carving room, display room, shop and offices on the top storey and utility rooms below. The opening of this rst stage of development in October was an important point in the new tourist venture and a symbolic moment in the renaissance of Maori arts and crafts. Tributes from the local community and further aeld were sent to furnish the new centre. These valuable historic artefacts acknowledged the Institute’s important role and turned it into a showpiece for treasures of the past as well as the present. Among the objects presented were ve priceless Maori cloaks almost a century old, two of them made of rare kiwi feathers. There were ve examples of poupou that had been carved by neighbouring tribes as a token of good will after the Tarawera eruption destroyed the village at Wairoa. There were also weapons, canoe paddles, axe-heads, baskets and mats, and an ancient pataka presented by a local resident.⁵⁸ The publishers A.H. & A.W. Reed donated books on Maori history and culture, and the Tourist Department contributed a facsimile edition of George Angas’s Illustrated New Zealanders.⁵⁹ Waaka boasted that New Zealand had no culture except Maori culture, and claimed that it was the duty of every New Zealander to foster interest in arts and crafts that were unique to the country.⁶⁰
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In the view of Maori, carving was the Institute’s major focus and, with the new building completed, the carving school began. John Taiapa was employed as master carver, working with Tony Tukaokao as assistant carver. In January they took in seven young trainees between fteen and eighteen years old for a three-year course, and paid them carpentry apprentice wages. These boys were drawn from iwi around the country – partly as a political gesture to get wide support for the Institute – and were taught distinctive regional carving styles to prepare them to work in any part of the country. The dual goals of fostering traditional heritage and promoting tourism had seemed straightforward when the idea of a carving school was mooted. But the location of the school within the Institute took the master carver away from his traditional setting and pattern of work; in earlier times carving had been a tapu occupation, surrounded by rituals and prohibitions and carried out away from the presence of women. There were elements of performance about the carving school within the Institute, where
John Taiapa, the rst master carver at the Rotorua Maori Arts and Crafts Institute. He also carved scaled-down replicas of sternposts of Maori canoes for the bulkheads of Air New Zealand’s DC- jets. , /
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One of the rst young trainee carvers at the Rotorua Maori Arts and Crafts Institute. ,
intricate craftwork became a tourist spectacle. A raised walkway surrounded the workshop and oor-to-ceiling windows made it easy for tourists to photograph the workers. Within a few months Taiapa was resenting his dual obligation to tourists and to his own traditions. His vision of the carving school was to prepare students to carry out large-scale works for meeting houses around the country, and he readily took on one commission after another. He felt that boys had been sent to perpetuate crafts for their own communities and, if deected from this work, the ‘whole purpose of the school would be lost’.⁶¹ Tourists, however, enjoyed the atmosphere of industry, admired the ne craftwork they saw being done and wanted to possess samples of it. Taking home ethnic art had become an essential component of the travel experience, and tourists felt cheated when nothing was available for purchase. The carvers’ small works were highly sought after and often snapped up by buyers at the moment
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of completion, so that the Institute had no hope of building up commercial stocks and found it difficult even to supply works for display. It had to resort to buying in wares from outside sources or directing tourists to city retailers, and as a result found it difficult to ensure the quality of goods being sold. Tourist dissatisfaction brought pressure on Taiapa through the Institute Board, which saw a large expenditure on salaries and apprentice wages with few resulting prots. Misunderstandings over the purpose of the carving school threatened the Board with the loss of its master carver. Jock McEwen, the Secretary for Maori Affairs, on the one hand felt that Taiapa should be able to encompass both meeting-house commissions and souvenir production so that the apprentices learnt the relationship between carving and commercialisation, and could earn a certain income from souvenir items after their graduation. Taiapa, on the other hand, felt resentful that he was excluded from board meetings where policy was set and was paid less than when he had been employed by the Mormon Church. Chosen ‘to personify Maori culture’, he saw himself relegated to being ‘the brass monkey on the shelf ’ and felt that the position of Director should be his.⁶² Women’s crafts were included in the Institute from after stockpiles of ax, feathers, kiekie and other materials had been gathered from around the country. Under the leadership of Emily Schuster, teachers presented three-week courses in basket and mat weaving, taniko and piupiu-making. The staff tutored dozens of Maori women and schoolgirls in these arts and revived the skill of weaving cloaks that had been lost in several regions. Rotorua became the centre of a new cottage industry as local women took on the production of craft works at home to meet the tourist demand.⁶³ When the number of women attending the Institute dwindled in , its inuence expanded as teachers took their courses around the country to places as far aeld as Tauranga and Oamaru, Gisborne and Waiouru. Local tourist entrepreneurs became keen to involve their businesses in the success of the Arts and Crafts Institute. Agfa photographic suppliers organised concert parties to take place at set times outside the model pa one Christmas season, as a photo opportunity for ‘y-in y-out tourists’ who aimed to see the maximum in a short space of time and capture their eeting experiences on camera. A local entrepreneur attempted to establish a deer park within the reserve where tourists could wander, feed and pet the deer, and be photographed. One company, BeDe
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Engineering, proposed buggy rides through Whakarewarewa to enable guides to speed up their tour parties, and another, Helicopter Services and Safaris Ltd, wanted to make helicopter ights from the model pa over Rotorua and down past the Blue and Green lakes and Mt Tarawera to Wairakei Hotel and Geyser Park. Yet another group proposed commissioning a famous London designer to produce an animated volcanic exhibition on the Institute’s land to instruct tourists in geology and Maori creation myths. Dick Johnstone, director of Mercury Theatre in Auckland, where George Henare had become a star actor, offered to set up a Maori Performing Arts Company to train Maori actors and form a small nucleus to stage performances at Rotorua and dramatise Maori myths and history at the Institute.⁶⁴ The cost of establishing a performance school seemed too expensive at ,, and few of the other proposals were likely to benet the Institute. Buggies with high-revving four-cylinder motors would add to the noise level and destroy the natural atmosphere of the reserve. Deer would pollute the stream, denude the valley and disturb the residents; besides, being alien to Maori history and lore, they were hardly tting as an Institute attraction.⁶⁵ A proposal to open a kiwi house won the approval of the Institute and the Tourist Department, however, for the kiwi was indigenous and a kiwi house would enable tourists to see New Zealand ‘in toto’.⁶⁶ There were only three kiwi houses in the world: one at the Auckland Zoo, one in Otorohanga and the other in San Diego. Despite strict conditions set down by the Department of Internal Affairs to prevent commercial exploitation of kiwi and defeating its programme for protecting the species, plans went ahead for a nocturnal kiwi house to be constructed by .⁶⁷ As the Institute’s activities became more complex, the legislation was amended in to increase the number of board members and change the title to the New Zealand Maori Arts and Crafts Institute to reect its national role. Lawn and tar-seal had replaced scrub-ridden land and decaying fences on the reserve, and a new large meeting house was under construction within the model pa to become a centre for Maori performing arts. A new block was built in with more space for souvenirs and museum displays. A decade after its founding, the Institute was well established, making a prot and able to spare funds from its own development to support the establishment of urban marae. Demand for the Institute’s craftwork exceeded supply, with overseas visitors prepared to wait two years to obtain high-quality works. The
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Institute’s displays attracted interest far and wide, from the opening of the Sydney Opera House, where transparencies of Maori craft-making were shown, to demonstrations at the Tokyo meeting of the Pacic Air Travel Association, and from the opening of St Lukes shopping centre in Auckland to the Rotorua lakefront for the Queen’s visit in .⁶⁸ As visitor numbers rose steadily, doubling over the rst decade to , in , Waaka claimed that tourists were ‘the life-blood of the Institute’.⁶⁹ While the Institute fostered the preservation of the past, local Te Arawa adapted traditional culture for tourist hotel audiences. The concert stage was a place where Maori who felt disdained in the street could prove ‘we are something, and we have something that we can share’. In the s, these Maori concerts incorporated some of the glitziness that accompanied Maori success in pop bands of the era: performances became fast-paced and livelier; lighting was more sophisticated; the poi balls were iridescent – ‘no-one yawns’.⁷⁰ An older generation of gifted performers found they did not t the ‘tourist’s fantasy world’ in which seductive women were the symbol of the Pacic. Splendid dancers who felt ‘too fat’, ‘too black’ or that they ‘gotta shave my legs’, ‘gotta grow my hair’, ‘gotta get the tats off ’ were ousted from the front row of the dancers to make space for glamorous, pale-skinned, slender young performers.⁷¹
Whetu Tirikatene-Sullivan was the rst woman Minister of Tourism. She is seen here in New York (with Tourist Department overseas officer Richard Bollard on the left) at the opening of the World Trade Center’s No. Tower. At a time when tourist promotions presented Maori women in traditional dress, Tirikatene-Sullivan made a point of wearing contemporary Maori designs on her public appearances overseas. .
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The public face of private lives The village at Whaka remained aloof from this sense of enterprise, and modern tourist development and subsistence living continued to co-exist side by side. Tuhourangi could not afford to reconstruct their decaying village, nor did they desire to become ‘model Maoris’ to provide a spectacle for tourists.⁷² On other Pacic islands the illusion of paradise could be maintained because poor villages were hidden in inland valleys where few tourists ventured. While the housing at Whakarewarewa was typical of many poor Maori communities, the problem for the government and the Rotorua City Council was that this village lay right at the hub of the tourist route. During the economic slump of , when tourism became one way of countering export losses, local pressure grew to persuade Whaka’s residents to follow the policy of renewal that the Institute symbolised, and reconstruction of the village became more than ever aligned with tourist interests. Meanwhile, the Council despaired of changing the nature of the village and the Minister of Tourism bemoaned Whaka’s future as a deserted ghost-town rather than a vital, living centre.⁷³ Villagers who wanted to reconstruct their homes still faced the stumbling block of informal leases and customary ownership of land. Lending institutions remained unwilling to lend on the collateral of multiply owned property, especially on thermal land where properties were tiny sections of sometimes to perches ( to square metres).⁷⁴ Antagonism between traditional village life and capitalist tourist enterprise was made more complex by divisions within the village itself: between those who wanted land reallotted under separate titles, and older members who would lose their source of authority if they shifted from their homes or if land titles were altered.⁷⁵ To those who held power at Whaka, its tribal and ancestral signicance remained more important than its role as a national tourist asset. This was a decade of resurgence in Maori leadership and reassessment of the role of Maori in cities and the nation. Local and central government efforts to control Maori communities were bound to lead to clashes.⁷⁶ In Whaka residents faced a move by the Rotorua City Council to develop the land if they agreed to vest it in the Council. The Mayor’s radical vision was to get in the bulldozers, level the area, landscape it, construct new houses decorated with Maori motifs, and turn what he viewed as Rotorua’s ‘dirty backyard’ into a rst-class suburb.⁷⁷ Twenty-four officials (including representatives from the Maori Land
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Court, the Department of Maori Affairs, the Ministry of Works, the Tourist and Publicity Department and geologists) met with the Whaka villagers to discuss their choices. The villagers resisted solutions based on amalgamating their interests under a single body and enabling the City Council to gain a foothold in the village. A descendant explained: ‘To have a share in the village was to have a place to stand and a right to speak on any issue involving the village. No-one was about to forfeit this right for the sake of legislative house-keeping.’ Through the s Rotorua’s new Royal International Hotel and Geyserland Motel sat cheek by jowl with poor households who had no desire to be integrated into tourist development. As tourist disdain of Whaka persisted, the Institute and town waited for the older generation of villagers to pass away.⁷⁸
Tourism – everybody’s business The surge in tourism numbers in the s and the sudden slump in agricultural export earnings in brought a fresh assessment of the contribution that tourism could make, not only to Rotorua, but to the national economy. At a time when Britain was on its way to join the
An expert poi dancer, Carol Cunningham, was chosen to front Haere-mai Year in . The Tourist Department sent thousands of posters to Australia to present a welcoming image of New Zealand, and also used them to educate New Zealanders in the use of this traditional Maori greeting. Here Cunningham receives a record of Maori songs (with the title song performed by Kiri Te Kanawa) from the foreman of the factory at Petone where they were produced. The campaign stimulated criticism from Maori leaders such as Kingi Ihaka and Hugh Kawharu, who protested that none of the , Maori in Auckland had been consulted about a campaign that was the focus of the Tourist Department’s marketing for a year. , EVENING POST ,
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David Thomson, Minister of Tourism in , farewells members of a dance group who were part of a ‘C’mon to New Zealand’ campaign which aimed to present a more risque image of the country to Australians. It was funded jointly by the Tourist Department, the Tourist Hotel Corporation, NAC, and Air New Zealand. The theme tune, composed and sung by Ray Columbus, was later sung by Howard Morrison in Tourist Department promotions in the United States.
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European Economic Community and New Zealand was experiencing an unaccustomed sense of economic uncertainty, the tourist industry no longer seemed insignicant. With the Minister of Finance, Robert Muldoon, claiming that tourism provided one of the fastest ways to increase overseas earnings, tourism joined manufacturing and forestry as one of the government’s hopes for economic recovery and plans for diversifying the range of products New Zealand could sell.⁷⁹ When the National government organised the National Development Conference in to stock-take New Zealand’s economic resources and plan ahead, tourism was chosen to go under the microscope. The goals of the National Development Conference were to set specic targets for national development and give stimulus to the channels most likely to produce growth in the following decade. The Tourist Department set up a steering committee representing the Department, Treasury and prominent leaders in the tourist industry – people like Geoff Roberts, Chairman of Air New Zealand, Harry Wigley from the Mt Cook and Southern Lakes Tourist Company, Jack Newman from Newman Brothers Ltd. They in turn formed working parties focused on accommodation, transport, promotion, tourist facilities and manpower. The Department used the opportunity to arouse more public empathy for tourism and renewed its publicity slogan of the s, ‘Tourism – Everybody’s Business’. The Tourism Sector Report to the National Development Conference aimed at doubling earnings within ve years, and doubling them again to million within ten years.⁸⁰ Although this sounded dramatic, it was seen as a conservative goal, based on steady growth since jets began ying across the Pacic. There were other signs of progress as well as the increasing visitor numbers. The expansion of the Tourist Hotel Corporation and the encouragement offered by the Tourist Accommodation Development Scheme meant that accommodation for visitors had improved enormously in Auckland and Rotorua, as well as in the growth of motels nationally. Yet expansion was still needed at Queenstown and Wellington, and in regions like Napier and Nelson where there had been no new hotels for years or more.⁸¹ The jet age had its down side, for it meant that travellers stayed for shorter periods and, with the advent of mass tourism, fewer of them were wealthy. Tourist spending per head was declining. The problem was exacerbated by the shortage of entertainment facilities at resorts. Tourists could now reach New Zealand easily and nd somewhere to
stay, but they also needed entertainment; scenery was not enough. As the Prime Minister, Keith Holyoake, commented, ‘people become sated with looking’.⁸² And, from an economic point of view, the industry needed to provide temptations for people to spend. New facilities were needed: restaurants, ski lifts, riding trails and development of hot pools, as well as unprotable, unglamorous amenities such as toilets, wharves and boat ramps. The Tourism Sector Committee urged the government to proceed with its election policy of establishing a Tourist Facilities Development Scheme to boost tourist developments other than hotels.⁸³ The difficulties of facing international competition were exposed by the working party on promotion. Despite increases in Pacic travel, New Zealand was still on a ‘dog-leg’ of Pacic tours – no one’s main destination except Australia’s.⁸⁴ And New Zealand’s overseas publicity was carried out in a stop–start way depending on the state of the economy – it was turned off like a tap in hard times. Even when promotion efforts were heightened, they were drowned out by the advertising budgets of other countries. The committee advocated more consistent marketing
Publicity shot of models on the golf course beside the Tourist Hotel Corporation’s Glencoe Motor Inn at the Hermitage in . , /
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with a budget lifted to per cent of travel receipts, the equivalent of the promotion budgeting of most businesses.⁸⁵ The working party on manpower and training warned the conference not to forget the human factor, even in an age of technology. The tourist’s journey began ‘with the stuff that dreams are made of ’, but turned to dust if people were treated off-handedly. Tourism was a people business, ‘not God’s gift from heaven’, and involved a complex web of different industries, all involved in selling service. In ten years’ time, when tourists were predicted to equal one in every four New Zealanders, visitors would judge the country not by its landscape but by how they were treated. The working party commended the hotel and catering training courses that had been established at the Auckland Institute of Technology and the Central Institute of Technology, and recommended expanded courses to deal with every level of skill.⁸⁶ The Tourism Sector Committee moved outside its terms of reference to add two recommendations that reected dissatisfaction among leaders of the tourist industry and pointed ahead to changes in the s and s. The rst queried the whole role of government in tourism, particularly its involvement in commercial activities such as the THC, Tiki Tours and the Government Tourist Bureau’s travel agencies. The committee argued that these functions had been necessary in the past but were now encroaching on the eld of private enterprise. The second recommendation foreshadowed the formation of the Tourism Board. Urged on by Air New Zealand’s Geoff Roberts, the committee recommended a closer alliance between the Tourist Department and tourism leaders through the establishment of a Tourist Development Council which would co-ordinate planning and advise the government where funding should be directed.⁸⁷ Although it would be some years before the government divested the Department of its commercial functions, it set up the Tourist Development Council in to give business a larger role in policy-making. The Tourist Facilities Development Scheme also went ahead, and helped establish a variety of ventures to entertain visitors. One of the most successful was the Agrodome near Rotorua, the brainchild of Godfrey Bowen, famed shearer, experienced traveller and a great showman. His goal was to display a microcosm of New Zealand farming in an exhibition based on farm shows he had seen in Seattle, using his experience in producing a live display of performing rams for Expo ’. A strong patriot, Bowen wanted to celebrate ‘the bountiful land’ and
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convey ‘what makes New Zealand tick’. His claim for the signicance of ‘indigenous industries’ gave a new meaning to the term.⁸⁸ In establishing an innovative company, Bowen faced the same funding difficulties as hotel developers. After founding Expo Promotions Ltd in partnership with George Harford and gaining the lease of the Rotorua A & P Showgrounds, Bowen was declined funding by three lending institutions and became one of the rst applicants to the Tourist Facilities Development Scheme. The partners won assistance because they were able to provide per cent equity in the scheme, and because their project was sited close to Rotorua and likely to attract large numbers of overseas visitors.⁸⁹ The , assistance granted in enabled them to purchase the best of New Zealand’s livestock – ‘clean, stylish and regal’. Set in a contemporary building designed to display indigenous laminated timbers, with a choreographed exhibition of sheep and rams and black-singleted shearers, the Agrodome packaged contemporary Pakeha rural culture much as the Maori Arts and Crafts Institute nearby encapsulated traditional Maori culture. On sale were woollen goods, craftwork and farmhouse morning and after-
Ivan Bowen, world shearing champion turned tourist entrepreneur and Wool Board promoter, performing at the Agrodome, Rotorua. , /
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noon teas. In its rst year the Agrodome welcomed , visitors, and became the forerunner of projects that gave tourists a chance to sample rural life.⁹⁰
Wider horizons In the Chairman of the Australian Tourist Commission, surprised by New Zealand’s reliance on United States visitors, suggested New Zealand look to Japan and the wider eld of Asia.⁹¹ Expo ’ was the opportunity to take up this challenge. The Japan World Exposition in Osaka in was the rst world fair to be held in Asia; million visitors were expected, per cent of them Japanese. For this technically sophisticated audience who did not speak English and knew almost nothing about New Zealand, the government planned to present a modern, vibrant image of its country and people. Government officials drew on their experience at the Montreal World Fair, where New Zealand’s restaurant and multi-screen lm show had been effective promotions. At the New Zealand Pavilion at Osaka, the Meat Board’s Geyserland Restaurant (complete with geysers) and displays of hand-crafted pottery were popular sites. The highlight of New Zealand’s promotion, however, was the lm This Is New Zealand, produced by the National Film Unit. It was technically complex, making exciting use of three mm projectors displaying separate interlocking lms onto three screens. The result was a fast-moving spin through spectacular alpine panoramas, forests and farmland, with glimpses of active ordinary people. It sent shivers down the spine and drew people back to see it again and again. This Is New Zealand gained huge exposure, with most of the other countries bringing their VIP parties to view it and cruise ships announcing to passengers en route that this was the lm to see.⁹² The Tourist Department’s Overseas Travel Officer at Expo claimed that a tourist office should be established in Japan before the impact of Expo’s vision of New Zealand waned.⁹³ In February the Tourist Department took the opportunity of the Pacic Area Travel Association conference in Tokyo to send David Lynch to open New Zealand’s rst tourist office in a non-English-speaking country. The Japanese out-bound travel market was dynamic, growing per cent in the preceding year. The Japanese government had recently liberalised regulations to allow travellers to take unlimited money abroad, which made this a good time to stimulate tourism to New Zealand. However,
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air fares to New Zealand were amongst the highest in the world: Tokyo to New Zealand fares of compared badly with for Tokyo to Honolulu or for Tokyo to San Francisco. Fares to Europe were also cheaper than the South Pacic. And most Japanese tourists were used to taking their short holidays in countries close by, like Hong Kong and Korea, while honeymoon couples ocked to Hawaii or Guam. New Zealand would need to attract tourists who had already seen other places and wanted something new.⁹⁴ Despite the success of Expo, most Japanese people had no established image of New Zealand and scarcely knew where it was. Because places like Alaska were already promoting their clean, natural environment and wide open spaces, Lynch decided to highlight the similarities between Japan and New Zealand – both island countries, with the matching peaks of Mt Fujiyama and Mt Egmont. New Zealand could be seen as an ideal Japan, where Japanese could feel at home and yet be refreshed in an unspoilt environment.⁹⁵ He also hoped to counter ‘the dark side’ of Japanese tourism that was turning Hawaii beach fronts into a concrete jungle of hotels, and Korea, with its nightlife, into the ‘brothel of Japan’. New Zealand was not yet spoilt by this tourist invasion. An article in the Japan Times offered an escape from Japan’s crowded cities to New Zealand’s West Coast with its snow-topped alps and ocean a long way from the asphalt jungle: ‘The skyscrapers are tall rimu trees, the smog is salt spray, the people have time to talk.’⁹⁶ In his rst years in the Japan office, Lynch accompanied several tour groups to New Zealand and recognised the adaptations necessary to make Japanese tourists feel comfortable. The Japanese found Western food tasteless; although hotels and restaurants could not be expected to go to the expense of providing Japanese meals, he suggested they import a few food items – Japanese rather than Chinese soy sauce and packaged noodle dishes. Menus should be translated, or coloured photographs of dishes supplied for bewildered visitors. Japanese travellers loved to shop and liked their parcels beautifully wrapped ready to present as gifts to their friends and family, rather than bundled up like a parcel of sh and chips. They expected a wider variety of woollen clothes to be available. Lynch also thought training courses should be set up for New Zealanders to become procient in guiding Japanese groups. On the one hand, drivers’ commentaries on tour buses sent Japanese tourists to sleep; if Japanese guides were not available, tapes could be used. On the
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The multi-screeen lm This is New Zealand was shown around the world after being a hit at Expo ’ in Osaka. In the United States the Tourist Department hired ,-seat cinemas for screenings like this one in Columbus, Ohio. .
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other hand, Maori music was so appealing that tourists were still singing the tunes as they reached Hong Kong.⁹⁷ The rewards of meeting Japanese requirements could be great. Lynch found it hard to imagine a group who could spend more than the party of hunting enthusiasts who brought in so much money that the bank at Christchurch airport ran out of funds to change it into New Zealand currency. Despite the oil crisis of , the Japanese tourist trend was continuing to expand.⁹⁸ Long-range jets brought Europe closer, too. The German tourist market was expanding to the point where German travellers were spending more on overseas travel than free-spending Americans. Keen to tap into this growth, the New Zealand Tourist Department set up a tourist office in Frankfurt at the same time as opening the Tokyo office. Like his colleague in Japan, the new tourist officer in Frankfurt undertook a range of initiatives, entering into joint promotions with Air New Zealand, Qantas, British Airways and Singapore Airlines, and with the
New Zealand Meat Marketing Board and the Mövenpick restaurant chain. He accompanied the London Maori concert group around ten German cities, attended caravan fairs and contributed to holiday lm festivals on the Continent. In he used the Tourist Department’s th anniversary to gain extra press and television coverage and surprise Europeans with New Zealand’s long tradition of receiving visitors. But as the rst New Zealand tourist representative in Europe, where New Zealanders were thin on the ground, he felt ‘like a voice crying in the wilderness’.⁹⁹ Meanwhile in New Zealand the Tourist and Publicity Department deed the government tradition of waiting years to celebrate a departmental anniversary by arguing that tourism was not a traditional government activity, and chose to celebrate its th. The Department held a unique position, for nowhere else in the world at the turn of the century had a government established a national body to promote and oversee the tourist industry. It was a tting time to celebrate jet-age progress and publicise the Department’s aims and activities, for Air New Zealand had recently received its rst -seater DC- aircraft; hotels and motels were being constructed and visitor numbers were booming. The Department saw tourism itself as a twentieth-century concept and wanted the occasion to celebrate modernity rather than dated images of the past.¹⁰⁰ Its newly introduced Tourism Design Award highlighted the diverse facilities and infrastructure necessary to make tourism ourish. Winners ranged from the Kingston Flyer to an A-line lodge hotel at Queenstown, air terminal buildings at Mt Cook and Whakatane, the Wakatipu Trading Post and landscaping at the Benmore and Aviemore power projects. The th anniversary celebrations included photo displays, press publicity, lms and a short historical account. But the greatest sign of the times was the number of tourists ying into New Zealand. As the Tourist Department’s representative in Tokyo declared, ‘the growth of the market is so enormous, that it has been compared to a re that once having been lit, is not so readily extinguished’.¹⁰¹
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Mitre Peak, icon of grandeur and solitude: the poster image. , , , ,
An Island Unto Itself –
A
,
rainfall cloaks the forest in mists, and Mitre Peak is a major icon in the marketing of New Zealand’s natural wonders. Amid the sheer crags and millions of acres of unexplored forest in Fiordland National Park, however, only the narrow sliver of land at the head of Milford Sound has been available for tourist development. This was the Tourist Department’s kingdom, ‘an island unto itself ’ where a small independent village and all the facilities taken for granted in an urban area had been constructed for the THC’s Milford Hotel. Before air ights reached Milford, its isolation was heightened in winter when the dangers of avalanches, oods and slips often closed it off from the world and the only visitor was the oyster boat from Bluff. By the s, Milford’s solitude was threatened by the crowds who sped in for a brief
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glimpse of grandeur and by the rowdy commercial shermen who sheltered there. As the numbers of jet-age visitors increased, Milford became the rst tourist site in New Zealand to reach saturation point. At the same time the government’s monopoly over the hotel and launches at Milford was challenged by rival entrepreneurs intruding on its domain. The get-up-and-go of the Fiordland Travel Company would become a symbol of the ascendancy of private enterprise and the dramatic reduction in the role of the state in the tourist industry in the years ahead. The rst revolution in tourism had come with the arrival of jet aircraft and masses of tourists ying in. The second revolution would be the shift of government out of its dominant role in the New Zealand tourist industry.¹ Cray shermen who worked the neighbouring sounds and sought a safe harbour at Milford were the rst to provoke the issue of boundaries and use of space there. By the mid-s to shing vessels could be moored in Fresh Water Basin to unload catches and lie up. They crammed into the THC wharf and made it hazardous for tourist launches to manoeuvre in the narrow channel. The shermen’s trucks and refrigerated container vehicles took the parking space for tourist buses, and a clutter of shing gear, oil drums, beer bottles, slops and stinking bait blocked the tourist road to Bowen Falls and made the wharf area unsightly. Oily bilge-water blackened rocks along the shoreline. In the competition for space, the shing boats were winning.² Tourists who had left their working world behind to enjoy pristine scenery were confronted by a rough workplace which could not be sentimentalised in the same way as the Maori craftsmen who were reviving a vanishing form of work at Rotorua.³ Fishermen made both the waters and the hotel their own. The hotel’s public bar was one of the lures that brought men into Milford Sound, where they could also shower and do their laundry, nd liquor supplies, link up with women on the hotel staff and drift to staff bedrooms or back to their shing boats for wild parties long into the night. There were incidents of shermen defacing the hotel buildings, ghting in the bar, damaging the THC launch, threatening to shoot the manager’s dog, and stealing craysh pots or attacking boats to intimidate those who objected to their behaviour. In one of the worst of these confrontations, a sherman attacked and wounded Alec Withington, the hotel manager who also acted as honorary harbourmaster and as the nal authority for everything that happened in the area. He held a
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Fishing boats and tourist launches at the Milford Sound wharf, . , , /––
lonely position nearly miles from the nearest police and medical care at Te Anau and with only one good arm, he was vulnerable to attack.⁴ Some of the shermen enjoyed cutting across the bows of the tourist launches, cat-calling to the women and urinating in full view of the tourists. As Eric Colbeck, General Manager of the THC, complained, this was not the image the Hotel Corporation was trying to project. Marine Department inspectors were said to need protection if they ventured into Milford Sound, and life was becoming unbearable for hotel staff.⁵ The cray shermen were not all violent, but their presence was increasingly disturbing to the overseas visitors who ocked to Milford. Colbeck insisted that ‘tourists and shermen do not mix’. The value of past government investment in tourism at Milford had been huge, with THC expenditure on the hotel alone totalling million, not to mention the construction of the state highway and the Homer Tunnel, and post office and aviation facilities. Yet craysh or rock lobsters were a valuable industry, earning almost half a million dollars a year, and Milford Sound, with its port-side facilities and the only road access out of Fiordland, was a natural refuge for shermen.⁶ A compromise was necessary, and the shermen became the rst focus of planning and development at Milford. At this time planning for the use of open spaces was rare.⁷ In the Minister of Tourism drew
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together an officials’ committee with representatives from those who had an interest in the area: the Marine Department and Fishing Industry Board, Fiordland National Park Board, the Ministry of Works, the Lands and Survey Department and Treasury, as well as the Tourist and Publicity Department. The THC insisted on the complete segregation of shermen and tourists, but faced years of interdepartmental procrastination before this could be achieved. The shing industry provided no facilities for shing vessels; ports were usually funded and supervised by harbour boards, but there was none at Milford and the government was reluctant to set a precedent by investing in facilities for a prot-making industry. As the numbers of day-tourists grew and criticisms mounted, Cabinet was asked to make Milford a special case.⁸ After a decade of friction, new jetties, berths and facilities were established at Deep Water Basin, a mile from the hotel, and the shermen’s working world and their riotous parties were nally separated from the hotel visitors.
An era of get-up-and-go Fishermen were not the only intruders into the quietness of Milford. In Wilson Campbell, the manager of Fiordland Travel, put a large-scale proposal to Dean Eyre, the Minister of Tourism. The company hoped to break into the Tourist Hotel Corporation monopoly at Milford by catering for the needs of travel agents and tour operators who were protesting at the rigid timetabling of launch trips and the lack of tourist facilities. In a resort where little had changed for years, the THC cruises provided minimal commentary and no meals or drinks on board. Fiordland Travel planned to introduce new boats, take over the launch trips, dredge and reshape the harbour, reclaim land for a swinging basin, and provide a terminal building and dry access for passengers who could be drenched with rain as they walked between coaches and launches.⁹ The Tourist Department approved of an idea that could solve major problems at Milford: the hotel would benet from the Fiordland company’s expertise in managing launches, and the hotel manager would be freed from the stressful role of organising daily boat trips. Better launch services would relieve the frustration of growing numbers of tourists who queued in vain for a cruise on the sound. Major development would be difficult for the THC to fund alone.¹⁰ Two years later, however, Treasury was unwilling to see the THC take up shares and form a joint company with a private rm, and the
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THC Board had second thoughts as it saw jets bringing more tourists and soaring launch trip prots in turn. It reversed the Department’s earlier support for the development scheme. In the meantime Les Hutchins had bought out Fiordland Travel and was shocked to nd the joint project cancelled. Hutchins was an innovative tourist entrepreneur, who had introduced the rst jet-boat run in Fiordland and thrived in this era of get-up-and-go. He had expanded the Manapouri and Doubtful Sound Company by servicing the multi-million-dollar power project at Manapouri, where he built up a eet of fast, sleek launches which ran night and day, seven days a week, to transport staff and tourists to the immense underground power project at West Arm. His boats were far superior to the THC’s small Mitre Peak and shuddering old Pembroke at Milford. Heady with the growth of his company, Hutchins looked disparagingly at the THC’s staid, complacent establishment. Its withdrawal from the joint enterprise stimulated his determination to challenge the status quo at Milford.¹¹ Initially thwarted in his expansionary plans, Hutchins soon found a way of participating in the future of Milford.¹² Unable to use the THC wharf and turned down by the Fiordland National Park Board when he requested another site on the foreshore, Hutchins set about ‘Operation Open Up Milford’. He found loopholes in legislation that showed that the Fiordland National Park Board owned neither the waters nor the road to the wharf. He had a prefabricated pontoon jetty constructed in secret and outtted Friendship, a scenic cruiser large enough for catering. At the height of the summer season, on the evening of Boxing Day while the hotel staff and guests were busy in the bar, Hutchins’s launch and pontoon wharf slid ‘like pirates’ into the head of Milford Sound. Fishermen helped him draw alongside and hitch up beside their boats. In the morning the THC hotel manager awoke to nd an interloper at Milford Sound all ready to take passengers on an unauthorised inaugural mid-morning cruise. When the THC urged government coach tours to avoid the rival launch company, it found that New Zealand’s largest tour operator, Trans Tours, had encouraged Hutchins’s new initiative. Although the THC was affronted and the Fiordland National Park Board thought extra services were unnecessary, the Milford Hotel soon introduced morning and afternoon teas on board its launches to compete with Fiordland Travel’s smorgasbord lunches.¹³ In time, Fiordland Travel became an accepted operator at Milford, expanding its eet of launches, adding a luxury bus service, introducing ight-seeing
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between Queenstown and Milford, and contributing to the area’s growing popularity. Milford was becoming less of a government domain.
‘Once natural splendour is destroyed it can never be recaptured’ To meet the needs of rising tourist numbers, the Tourist Department and the THC envisaged land reclamation, the possible addition of another rst-class hotel, cheaper accommodation for coach tours and better accommodation for Milford Track walkers than the old Johnson’s Motel. Restaurant facilities needed to be enlarged and staff accommodation extended. The hotel needed every inch of available land for development and to be able to plan with certainty for the crowds ahead.¹⁴ The Fiordland National Park Board regarded the growth of tourism with suspicion, and clashed with the THC over the size of the aireld and the construction of extra accommodation. No doubt members of the Park Board felt beleaguered as they faced more intrusions into the peace of Fiordland. Deer hunters were swinging down from helicopters into the forests and crew on deer-culling vessels littered the beaches of the sounds and stripped rata for rewood. Tourist operators were gaining concessions for two-hour launch trips into remote arms of the sounds; these fast excursions served the needs of wealthy elderly American tourists, but threatened the peace of the region for hikers. Already the original walk out of West Arm at Manapouri had been replaced by a road and ‘its endless succession of buses lled with glazeeyed tourists’.¹⁵ R.J. MacLachlan, Chairman of the National Parks Authority, recalled the words of Lyndon B. Johnson: ‘Once natural splendour is destroyed it can never be recaptured. Once man can no longer walk with beauty or wonder at nature, his spirit will wither and his sustenance be wasted.’¹⁶ When the Fiordland Board requested advice from the National Parks Authority and a planning committee was set up, the resulting report proposed emptying the landscape as much as possible, limiting the number of tourists who stayed at Milford, restricting air ights into Milford Sound and ensuring that the shermen did not remain at Deep Water Basin for ever. It hoped that the increasing number of day-visitors could be encouraged to use Te Anau as a dormitory centre on the outskirts of the park. The planning committee’s greatest concern was the Milford aireld, which monopolised per cent of available space (when ight paths were included) yet catered for only per cent of visi-
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Most tourists in the jet age experience Milford during a two-hour stopover. Trampers on the Milford Track approach Milford more gradually. Protected by raincoats supplied by the Tourist Hotel Corporation, these trampers pause beside the Clinton River in . , EVENING POST ,
tors. The committee saw aircraft noise becoming unacceptable and advocated eventually phasing out Milford’s aireld. The planners pointed to the trend overseas to keep airelds out of national parks, and even to stop planes from ying over parks.¹⁷ To the Department, tourists were the sine qua non of Milford and the idea of restrictions on ights symbolised the Park Board’s antagonism to tourists. Aircraft had become an integral part of the settlement and in winter, when avalanches could block the road, ying was sometimes the only way in or out. Moreover, ying was essential to overseas tourists on package tours and, with Milford ranking among New Zealand’s ve premier resorts, restrictions on ights to it could deect tourists from visiting New Zealand at all. The Department claimed that ying into Milford was not an evil in itself, for any activity in the area created noise and it was unfair to rule out one source rather than others. The Department also drew on aesthetic arguments: planes provided tourists
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with a fuller experience of the scenery; tourists could gain an intimate experience of the land by taking the road or track one way and a different perspective of it from the air the other way. For those on the ground, the sight of aircraft was appealing, adding interest to a vista and highlighting the monumental scale of the Milford landscape.¹⁸ The aireld remained, but the issue of overnight accommodation at Milford became fraught when the Labour government in introduced a policy of providing cheap accommodation for families within national parks. Plans for A-frame chalets (similar to controversial new accommodation at Mt Cook) were drawn up to accommodate people on THC property. The Fiordland National Park Board was determined to restrict the sprawl of buildings and contain all accommodation outside the park. It argued that a visit of a few hours was enough to absorb the Milford experience. The THC tried to persuade the Board that urban visitors who stayed in the chalets could be educated in park values and return to the cities with more understanding of conservation issues, but the Board was adamant that these values were better enhanced if accommodation remained outside the park boundaries.¹⁹ Although the Park Board won the battle over the chalets, other tussles over the direction of Milford development remained inconclusive. Meanwhile tourist entrepreneurs were proposing more attractions in the park: a ski resort at Mt Luxford, a gondola to carry tourists over the mountains from Queenstown to Milford, and an oceanarium deep within the sound to provide for viewing of black coral and other marine life. These developers felt that they faced Park Board suspicion that anything other than walking tracks must be bad.²⁰ The Tourist Department itself became increasingly impatient with a policy that on the one hand seemed inexibly set against change, and yet on the other provided no ideas on how the Board could cater for public use. The Department reminded the Board of its statutory role (recently reaffirmed in the National Parks Act ) to provide for ‘inspiration, enjoyment, recreation’ as well as preservation.²¹ As air ights into Milford continued and the number of day-trips escalated in the s, no improvements were made to conditions on the ground. Visitors arrived by plane, bus and car, and faced a jumble of facilities. With only one road in, there was a bottleneck of traffic by midday, when most people arrived. Ninety-ve per cent of them were intent on ‘the Milford experience’ of a cruise in the sounds. In a tour operator saw , visitors trying to embark and disembark at
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Milford wharf at the same time, and called the congestion a disgrace that was destroying the image of tourism in New Zealand: ‘The area is absolutely dominated by coaches and diesel fuel is all over the roadway plus there is no cover whatsoever and it is absolutely shambolic. It could only be worse if it was raining, and as you know it rains pretty frequently in Milford Sound.’²²
Project completed Under Roger Douglas’s reform programme of ‘more market, less state’, Labour was rationalising economic policy and setting New Zealand loose into the storms of the free market by removing subsidies to agriculture and industry that had long beneted traditional exporters.²³ The government would soon dismantle tax incentives and depreciation allowances that the National government had provided for tourist businesses. However, Mike Moore, Minister of Tourism, was an old-fashioned interventionist, and managed to transfer some of this support to the government’s tourist activities. As Minister of Overseas Trade and Marketing as well, Moore travelled extensively overseas and mixed in circles where the potential of tourism was well recognised. He took on the tourism portfolio with gusto and promoted the goal of increasing tourist numbers from , a year to a million a year as soon as possible. He saw government intervention in tourism as a catalyst for growth and a solution to regional unemployment in an era when people faced the closures of factories, coal mines, forestry services, railways and freezing works. He strengthened his cause at the Cabinet table by arguing that every increase of twelve tourists provided one extra job for a New Zealander.²⁴ Milford became one of the tourist projects the Labour government was willing to advance. At the same time the Fiordland National Park Board was continuing its quest for splendid isolation by applying for World Heritage status. This was the highest form of international recognition for Fiordland’s scenery and unique ora and fauna, but it was also the best way of advertising the area. If Milford followed the pattern of parks like Mesa Verde in the United States, its new status would be likely to heighten the region’s popularity by per cent and exacerbate the congestion at Milford.²⁵ The coming centennial of New Zealand’s national parks in made the issue of people in parks more relevant than ever. Moore was as keen a proponent of the clean, green image of
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New Zealand as he was of tourist development, and managed to channel funding in both directions on the principle that national parks were a tourist resource.²⁶ To celebrate the national parks centennial he gave a boost to several projects, including , to upgrade huts on the Milford Track and , to fund detailed planning to solve Milford’s problems. At the same time million went to the construction of the Kepler Track out of Te Anau, a challenging route with wonderful lakeside walks at Te Anau and Manapouri. While the Kepler lacked the spectacular views of the Southern Alps and elds of alpine owers that appealed to walkers on the Routeburn and Milford tracks, its opening was one way of diverting people from Milford and affirming the government’s support for conservation. With funding allocated for planning at Milford, in the Ministry of Works and Development led a planning committee to address a wide range of needs – for a launch channel and wharves, a visitor centre, space for traffic and parking, water supply and sewerage disposal, energy supply – as well as the impact of redevelopment on the park environment. Specialist subcommittees involved over consultants and interest groups. The resulting report made a clear case for redevelopment. Milford was no longer simply one of the ve prime attractions in New Zealand, but the major icon of New Zealand’s overseas promotions – as essential as the Vatican City to tourists who visited Italy. The cost of redevelopment was assessed at million, but the planners looked condently to doubled future earnings and a good return on capital invested. An offshoot would be increased GST earnings for the government. If only minimal changes were made to meet safety requirements, Milford would remain an unsightly clutter. The landscape was already modied and could not be returned to its pristine nature; it would be nearer to an unspoilt state if planned improvements went ahead. In spite of large-scale reclamation, there would be little disturbance to vegetation or bird life, and in any case neither was unique to the area of Milford Sound itself. ²⁷ By this time the conditions were worsening. The aireld at Milford had already exceeded peak capacity, with the danger of collisions between craft or injury to passengers. Pressure was mounting from expansion at Queenstown, where Air New Zealand hoped to introduce international ights, and a monorail from Queenstown to Milford was being mooted. The establishment of the Department of Conservation
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(DOC) in with responsibility for national parks and the foreshore delayed decisions. DOC faced a confusing seven proposals and contracted the rm of Murray-North Consultants to give an impartial view of the alternatives. Murray-North suggested a development plan that required only a small area of reclamation, and reaffirmed the principle of retaining Milford as a ‘natural’ experience rather than the ‘wilderness’ experience more typical of the Fiordland National Park. The carrying capacity of Milford was dened as –, visitors a day, with the warning that what was physically feasible might feel crowded to visitors, and restrictions on the number of tourists at Milford would probably be needed from the year .²⁸ Impatient with the lack of progress, the THC and the Fiordland Travel Company turned their back on past rivalry and suggested forming a consortium to co-ordinate development, funded by a levy on their boat passengers. Neil Plimmer, General Manager of the Tourist and Publicity Department, encouraged his staff to persist in negotiations with DOC. Finally in a memorandum of understanding was reached between DOC and the Milford Sound Development Consortium (soon to be incorporated as the Milford Development Authority). The agreement dened the terms under which the consortium would construct and manage Milford’s facilities, and ensured that all reclaimed land would become the property of DOC, which would also approve the colour and design of buildings. DOC waived the traditional concessionnaires’ fees in return for free space within the visitor information complex, and gave the consortium some security by granting it approval and leasing rights over competitors who might apply to join in the future.²⁹ The Department also made good use of the funding measures available under Labour’s pro-tourism policy. At a time when Treasury opposed subsidies to industry, these sums were signicant and reected the vital importance of Milford to the tourist trade. Government funding to the tune of nearly million came from a small DOC injection of , and a large grant of . million from the Tourist Department’s Community and Public Sector Grants Scheme (CAPS). A government guarantee of a further million to back the consortium in taking out private loans allowed construction to begin. The nancial contribution from the developers themselves was a mere , and, as tourist numbers continued to climb, the levies from launch fares saw construction costs paid more quickly than expected.³⁰
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The New Zealand sandy bites viciously and remains the bane of Milford. Elizabeth Thomson’s sculptures of the sandy and the bat-winged cannibal y (which is unique to New Zealand) were commissioned to ornament the interior of the new Milford launch terminal constructed in . These -centimetre gures are made of bronze, tissue paper and shellac.
When reconstruction of Milford as a tourist centre began in , it was the culmination of over years of planning. Reclamation of the foreshore provided space for a promenade and visitor centre, a breakwater and new car parks. The harbour was enlarged to four times its original size and jetties extended to cater for ten sightseeing boats. A new walkway system among trees separated pedestrians from traffic. A stunning visitor centre and launch terminal alongside the wharf sheltered tourists as they queued for boats, and provided room for DOC’s proposed interpretative displays, ticket offices and shops and restaurants. The unconventional design of the visitor centre reected the harsh, unstable qualities of the Milford landscape: the building itself symbolised a fractured boulder left behind by a retreating glacier and split open by frost, and the roofs were shaped to appear like fragile, shifting tectonic plates. The interior was lined with West Coast schist and green marble, and glossy tiles on the exterior reected the watery nature of the site. The notorious Milford sandy was emblematised in sculpture, while , indigenous plants from Milford’s gene stock were propagated in DOC’s nurseries and replanted to conceal the effects of construction.³¹ Water, power and sewerage, toilets and staff facilities were upgraded. Everyone had come to the party: Transit New Zealand gave priority to upgrading the road into Milford as a two-lane, all-weather highway, and the Airways Corporation sold assets at other airports to enable it to enlarge Milford’s aireld with a safer taxiway and extra aircraft parking to win back tourist condence in scenic ights into the sound after a recent tragic crash. A site that was becoming a back alley had been transformed into New Zealand’s ‘shop window’.³² The Milford development project marked an unusual degree of co-operation between sparring government bodies and between government and private enterprise. The Tourist Department’s role as negotiator achieved what private enterprise could not have done alone, and meant that the worst trouble-spot in terms of New Zealand’s tourist capacity and the quality of tourist experience was solved – for the meantime.³³
A witch hunt for obstacles While expansion at Milford was creating problems, elsewhere growth was the driving goal of tourist policy and a reason for expanding the government’s sphere of inuence. The late s and early s showed
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that the boom in visitor numbers resulting from the introduction of wide-bodied jets in the early s could not be taken for granted. In the new direct ights to New Zealand by Air New Zealand and Japan Airlines were a welcome boost, but these were among the most expensive long-haul ights in the world. Australians who had kept the tourist industry buoyant for decades were being lured further aeld by cheap fares to London and the United States. From both National and Labour governments felt that they needed to step up their economic assistance to overseas marketing if New Zealand was to compete with the world.³⁴ In the National government applied export incentives to tourism for the rst time, with a per cent tax rebate on foreign earnings and, more signicantly, a new export grants scheme that funded per cent of new promotions that travel and airline companies undertook overseas. Within the rst few months of Labour’s taking office in , Moore phased out government assistance to private enterprise and raised the Department’s funding for overseas marketing from an annual million to million.³⁵
Staff of local Tourist Department offices and the Department’s Australian offices take part in a familiarisation tour of New Zealand, . , EVENING POST ,
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Now almost per cent of the Department’s funding that was not tied to the government tourist bureaux, the National Film Unit or the National Publicity Studio was directed towards overseas marketing. Activities ranged from opening new offices overseas and bringing hundreds of journalists to New Zealand, to analysing the different segments of the market, and using food and wine events to diversify the tourist image of New Zealand. Within New Zealand the Department undertook highly successful campaigns such as ‘Don’t Leave Town Until You’ve Seen the Country’. During the s the Department led intensive promotional drives in the United States, Japan, Britain, Europe, Australia and South East Asia. Staff in the North American overseas offices joined with key partners such as Air New Zealand, Mt Cook Airlines, Pan American, Newmans and the Travel Industry Association on nationwide tours. These were ambitious road shows, involving a huge amount of work and energy. In the ‘Destination New Zealand’ and ‘Discover New Zealand’ campaigns, trucks carried a dozen entertainers and lm equipment around North American cities over two months. The group would arrive in town in the evening, keyed up to run three events the following day: a press reception at breakfast, followed by a presentation for travel agents and visits to others in the industry, and an evening performance for a crowd of up to , potential travellers. The show included a sophisticated National Film Unit production using multiple screens and nineteen projectors. The Tu Tangata Maori Cultural Group from Rotorua, led by Howard Morrison, was ‘the cream on the cake’ for Americans who liked a glimpse of the history and culture of their planned destination. In New York the Department would hire the grand ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel for a breakfast or evening show, and its staff were delighted to sit back at the end of the session and watch wealthy Americans write out their deposit cheques for agents on the spot.³⁶ Marketing in Japan was closely targeted at a few groups: skiers, young women, the ‘silver market’ of retired people, and honeymoon couples in search of a special, distant location. For the younger audiences, the Department presented travel in novel ways. One of its schemes was an ‘adopt-a-sheep’ programme in which a young couple arrived at a New Zealand farm to nd a cuddly white lamb wearing the name-tag ‘Yumiko’s lamb’ and ready for photographs. Six months later, back home, the visitor received a woollen sweater from her lamb. Richard Bollard, head of the Tokyo office, also built on the popularity of rugby
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A Tourist Department poster designed in to appeal to young Japanese women. .
in Japan by persuading All Blacks John Kirwan and Sean Fitzpatrick to include Tokyo in their overseas tours. A theatre of young people drawn to the showing of a rugby lm would suddenly scream with delight at the appearance of handsome, blond Kirwan on stage throwing rugby balls. By there were more Japanese than British visitors to New Zealand, a landmark point in the swing to new sources of tourists. The Japanese were drawn even more strongly to New Zealand after Prime Minister David Lange adopted an anti-nuclear stance.³⁷ Accommodation shortages were another reason for expanding the government’s sphere of inuence. In the National government reintroduced the Tourist Accommodation Development Scheme, which had been dropped in , and tax depreciation allowances followed in . Desperate to see new hotels in Auckland, the government also established grants in lieu of depreciation for -bed hotels; this made
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The staff of the Regent Hotel, Auckland, on opening day in . The Regent was the most luxurious of several Auckland hotels constructed with government assistance in the early s. Its in-house training and the number of staff employed set a new benchmark for service in New Zealand.
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a signicant contribution towards meeting the expenses of the difficult rst year of hotel business.³⁸ In this grant was extended to hotels in Wellington, Christchurch and Queenstown. The incentives paid off when the Sheraton Hotel opened in Auckland in , becoming the largest hotel in New Zealand with rooms; the Regent followed in and the Pan Pacic later. Others included the Plaza International in Wellington, and the Park Royal and the Chateau Regency in Christchurch.³⁹ Boosts to the government’s role in hotel construction increased under Moore’s ministry from . Mike Hoy, Chief Executive of the Tourist Hotel Corporation, claimed that extensions to THC hotels and building a new hotel at Queenstown would provide construction jobs over the following three years, and permanent jobs for hotel employees. Moore reversed years of government policy on hotel ownership, by which the state had conned itself to remote locations where private enterprise had foundered. In restraints on competition with private enterprise and the days of pioneering in isolated areas were over.⁴⁰ Government involvement did not stem from market failure, but was an entrepreneurial move to participate in a thriving market. Moore argued that ‘state enterprises should not miss out on
The face of change: Wellington MPs meet in to urge Minister of Tourism, Mike Moore (seated centre) and Roger Douglas, Minister of Finance (seated left), to boost tourist hotels and facilities. While Moore had redirected government assistance from private enterprise to government initiatives, Roger Douglas would soon divest the Tourist Department and the THC of their commercial activities. , EVENING POST ,
the tourist boom’. This was a chance to make the THC protable at last, and transfer its gains to reinvestment in the chain’s struggling hotels. The THC’s rst initiative was to undertake co-operative ventures with international chains by managing hotels funded by private investors. It brought in its staff and the most modern computer booking system in the country, without having to provide capital for construction. In the THC took on the James Cook, the largest and best hotel in Wellington, and in the new Airport Inn in Auckland. The most dramatic move was into the Queenstown market, where a ne hotel was urgently needed. Hotels built in the s for the package-tour market blighted the landscape with their unsightly sprawl. Some were constructed of unattractive concrete-block walls, unlined on the interior, with no protection from the noise of guests in neighbouring rooms. By raising money on European markets, the THC could build a rst-class Queenstown Hotel on the lake front, the rst hotel in New Zealand to have a Japanese chef and ne porcelain bowls for its Japanese cuisine.⁴¹ With its involvement in Auckland and Wellington hotels and its hotel in Queenstown, the THC channelled tourists through its own chain from one end of the country to the other. In , for the rst time ever, the organisation was successful enough to return a dividend
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A Japanese couple with their driver on a ‘Safari Tour’ view the clay cliffs near the Lindis Pass, . . , , ,
to the government. The chance of nally becoming protable gave the management new heart. It entered into package deals with Air New Zealand, Mt Cook Airlines and Newmans, and joined the South Pacic Hotel Corporation on marketing trips to Japan, where it highlighted skiing with award-winning lms such as The Big Ice and Ski NZ produced by the National Film Unit. Both the THC and the new international hotel chains in New Zealand had to meet the challenge of catering for more discerning tourists. The upswing in the numbers of Japanese visitors entering the country in the s stimulated special efforts to provide service that was t for people accustomed to perfection. New Zealand hotels did not aim at Japanese-style formality, but made efforts to accommodate Japanese tastes. Kazuo Ohtake was employed at the Hermitage to attend to the needs of six daily coachloads of Japanese tourists who travelled from
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Christchurch to lunch at the Hermitage, then went off on a ight to the Tasman Glacier and on to Queenstown. He provided comforting assurance to people from a generation who had never before travelled in an English-speaking country, and were affronted by the rough manners they encountered. He knew to address visitors individually, rather than bunched in a huddle like the American tour groups, and taught the Hermitage staff how to distinguish Japanese groups from Chinese: ‘look at the middle-aged women, and if they are wearing gold earrings and bangles, they are not Japanese.’ He organised excursions for young people who wanted action they could not have at home – motor-cycle treks into the high country, heli-ski trips, climbing and hunting. He was also employed by the THC to walk the Milford Track and rewrite and translate publicity to assure Japanese visitors of its safety, and later joined the THC head office in Wellington to assist in dealing with the Japanese market.⁴² The industry adapted to the ow of new visitors in other ways: Japanese heads of industry joined with PATA to set up Japanese skill courses in New Zealand, and souvenir shops took on Japanese staff. Some attempts at adaptation were unsuccessful: at the Hermitage the squab baths constructed in shower cubicles left Japanese visitors nonplussed – crouching in a small space with water up to the knees did not t their concept of bathing. And the increasing presence of Japanese tourists left others feeling displaced from the New Zealand they expected: American guests at the Hermitage were sometimes offended when they found American and Japanese ags side by side in the lobby.⁴³ In visitor numbers to New Zealand had broken the half-million mark, and in / grew by . per cent, the highest increase in a decade. Tourism climbed from seventh-highest earner of overseas funds to fth. Moore was keen to maintain the impetus and, naming ‘the year of removing obstacles’, he declared ‘a witch hunt’ on impediments to growth and invited members of the tourist industry to list theirs.⁴⁴ The responses showed that in signicant areas little had changed since the Chateau conference in . Outside a few favoured areas where government incentives applied, it was still difficult to arrange nance for constructing hotels. Local interest rates were threatening to rise from per cent to – per cent, a strong deterrent for local investors, while overseas investors preferred sites like Hong Kong or Los Angeles where tourism and business overlapped and seasonal change had little effect on occupancy.⁴⁵
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David Lange starts the celebrations for the arrival of Air New Zealand’s new Boeing at Wellington Airport in . The purchase of these wide-bodied jets contributed to rising tourist numbers in the s. , EVENING POST ,
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Other trends made life difficult for tourist operators. Several respondents criticised Air New Zealand for its refusal to include competing airlines in its booking system in Asia.⁴⁶ Local authorities’ planning approval processes had become complex and vast. The Mt Cook Company outlined the hearings it faced before gaining permission to construct ski elds in the Remarkables – a seven-year process in which ination added millions of dollars to the cost of the enterprise. Newmans argued that liquor licensing laws were ten years behind public attitudes; although thousands of restaurants and bars now sold alcohol, drinking was restricted on Sundays and not permitted on domestic ights.⁴⁷ The government acted in several of these areas. Moore, for whom nothing could happen fast enough, supported the Town and Country Planning Act to ensure that new projects received a swift response. All district schemes were to provide for tourist facilities and services.⁴⁸ Traditions inherited from a mid-century ‘tight society’ were transformed when more liberal licensing laws were introduced and shop
trading hours extended. Nightlife blossomed in cities and tourist resorts.⁴⁹ As tourism was seen as the key to development in rural areas, the grants-in-lieu-of-depreciation scheme was extended to include all hotels of over beds throughout the country. Regional liaison officers, introduced in , continued to co-ordinate local tourist efforts and give vital advice to naive, enthusiastic newcomers to the tourist industry. At the same time an increasing number of tourists were coming from Japan and the United States on brief tours that restricted them to the ‘blue ribbon route’ of Auckland–Rotorua– Queenstown–Milford–Christchurch and home. These visitors had no time to spare for forays into other regions and the overall upsurge in their numbers meant little on the West Coast or in Nelson.⁵⁰ Funding to assist one-off projects in the regions was provided by the new CAPS scheme. Milford received the most generous grant, but many small, interesting projects were also assisted. One of the largest and most contentious was the redevelopment of Whakarewarewa village, which still appeared dilapidated to tourists who walked through or looked over from the neighbouring Geyserland Motel and the Maori Arts and Crafts Institute. When Jonathan Hunt became the Minister of Tourism in he encouraged the Department to complete its longrunning discussions over the redevelopment of Whaka. Negotiations to place the village under a trust arrangement were bitter and protracted. Although the Housing Corporation and Maori Affairs Department supported the idea of reconstruction, and the Tourist Department provided million for works, there were arguments over design, and no amount of legal negotiations or money could heal long-held hapu divisions. Some of the villagers were keen to see redevelopment and demonstrate craft-making in the front rooms of their homes; others felt that ‘we don’t give a damn if tourists come here’. As the Maori Arts and Crafts Institute reminded one critic, the issue of the ownership and condition of Whaka was years old and its people should be allowed to choose their own destiny on their own land. And a thermal valley was akin to the inside of a volcano and could scarcely be transformed into a Garden of Eden. In the end rusting caravans were removed, power lines went underground and the village was reconstructed in part, but hostility lingered between groups within Whakarewarewa and between Whaka and the Institute.⁵¹ Apart from leadership in the Maori Arts and Crafts Institute, Maori had little role in owning and managing tourist businesses. After the
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Manaakitanga Conference in the Maori Tourism Task Force made a range of recommendations, from ensuring the quality of souvenirs to the employment of Maori as national parks staff and the establishment of a school of Maori performing arts.⁵² But it was the Te Maori exhibition which travelled to New York that did most to raise the mana of Maori culture in the s, both within New Zealand and overseas. It was to be another decade before Maori entrepreneurs would return to their nineteenth-century role at the forefront of tourist enterprises.
Boom and bust In / tourism was New Zealand’s largest foreign-exchange earner and yet there were difficulties in the industry. The oating of the New Zealand dollar in made travel to New Zealand more expensive for Australians. It was cheaper for New Zealanders to visit Australia and the exotic countries that were now offering cheap holidays. Domestic travel slowed dramatically after the stock-market crash, and international travel followed; growth in was only . per cent.⁵³ It was a tough time for tourist operators who had expanded their businesses in the heyday of the mid-s. As interest rates almost doubled to per cent, servicing debt became a major expense – one successful company sold off motor caravans at this time. When the press reported that the thriving resort of Queenstown was facing the ‘boom-town blues’, the new THC hotel was among those in difficulties. A new resort nearby at Walters Peak that had been expected to bring ‘a rush of gold’ into Otago went into receivership in .⁵⁴ The manager of Noah’s Hotel in Christchurch told the Tourist Department that penal rates in the late s made employment costs excessive in an industry that never sleeps: through the night his bakers, porters and front-desk attendants were still at work. New Zealand was pricing itself out of business, and no longer providing value for money for Australians and Americans.⁵⁵ Coach tours became shorter and had no time for the THC hotels at Wanaka and Franz Josef – hotels that were slipping below the high quality expected from the THC. As the government was no longer willing to subsidise failing enterprises, it permitted the THC to sell off these two ‘orphans in the chain’. The announcement in the Budget that the whole THC chain would be sold to reduce government debt – along with eighteen other stateowned enterprises – was a swift reversal of the impulsive expansion of
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the THC from to . The period of waiting for these sales to take place made this a tense time for the hotel staff and the THC’s General Manager, Mike Hoy.⁵⁶
Campervans became a popular means of travel in the s. These travellers have paused by Lake Wakatipu. , , , ,
The ‘sleeping giant’ The s had been turbulent years of highs and lows. The introduction of GST made travel more expensive, and catering for a wider range of nationalities imposed greater demands on tourist operators. A new breed of free-wheeling independent tourists abandoned the package coach-tour companies and made their own way around the country in campervans and rental cars. And, amid all the changes, there were critics who derided government constraints that held the tourist industry as ‘a sleeping giant’ and left the potential for growth untapped.⁵⁷ As Minister, Hunt opened the door to radical institutional reform by proposing that the Tourist Department hold a conference to address
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The range of tourists widened in the s. Young backpackers abandoned the coach tour tradition, and came to be termed by the trade free independent travellers, or ‘FITS’. , EVENING POST ,
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the future. ‘Tourism : Grow for It’ was held at Parliament and attended by invited representatives of a wide range of interests, from conservationists and trade unions to transport companies and hotels. Underlying the meetings was a mood of disquiet about the government’s role in tourism. For nearly a decade the Tourist Industry Federation had considered a new structure, such as a board, that would enable industry players to have a fuller role in policy and marketing. New Zealand was a small competitor on the international scene, and its individual businesses smaller still. Despite joint promotions overseas, tourist operators believed that the marketing of New Zealand was too fragmented. There was a strong feeling that the industry would better manage its own and government resources, and that marketing strategies should be implemented by a joint body with public and private representatives. Moreover, although the Tourist Department was one of the least
bureaucratic of government departments, it suffered from the general tendency of the period to disparage the public service as ‘inefficient, privileged, and in need of a good shake-up’.⁵⁸ Air New Zealand was probably the most restless of these critics. The airline still suffered a sense of persecution after the Erebus disaster of and the subsequent accusation that the company had produced ‘an orchestrated litany of lies’. It had also endured years of friction as it fought to restrict competition and ensure its planes were full while the government moved towards an open-skies policy. At the conference the dominant presence of Jim Scott, Air New Zealand’s Chief Executive, looked to some observers like the opening salvo for a coup.⁵⁹ Change was clearly on the way when the conference was followed by the joint public–private Task Force to draw up plans for the future. It advocated establishing a board to replace the Department, represent the industry and focus on marketing. The resulting report envisaged a
In the Tourist Department initiated and sponsored the Taste New Zealand awards to encourage New Zealand restaurants to use fresh New Zealand food and wine. At the Wellington awards ceremony, , Neil Plimmer, the General Manager of the Tourist Department, is anked by Susan Hanaghan and Vicky Kotkin. NEW ZEALAND TOURISM, /
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board comprised of industry members with funding of million a year, most of it from the government, including the Department’s annual vote of million and another third drawn from the GST earned from tourist spending. As the Dominion commented, this scenario looked ‘like a cheeky attempt to get rid of the Tourist and Publicity Department but to keep the money’. The report also promoted the goal of three million visitors to New Zealand by , a tripling of numbers that Plimmer described as a visionary call to action rather than a rational assessment.⁶⁰ The rst changes to the Department followed the radical pattern of the government’s state sector reform in the s. In several signicant functions were stripped from it. On the principle that the state had no place in commercial activities, the government travel offices that had dealt with visitors since were privatised, and a tradition of service and sales ended. The Department’s publicity wings – the National Film Unit and Communicate New Zealand (formerly the National Publicity Studios) – were also sold to private companies. The Department’s staff was cut from to less than , and the change from the old Tourist and Publicity Department was reected in the simpler title of New Zealand Tourist Department. This was a very different agency from the one that Thomas Donne had led in , when his eagerness to have a nger in every pie drew diverse activities into its web. A similar pattern followed for the THC. Only a few years after its expansion into gateway hotels and Queenstown, the Tourist Hotel Corporation was sold to the American-based South Pacic Hotels Corporation, which had partnered the THC in marketing New Zealand to the Japanese. With its empire sold off, the government’s signicant role in owning and managing some of New Zealand’s most distinctive hotels was over. There was even a chance that the Department would vanish when the State Services Commission recommended that the Ministry of Commerce supply policy advice and that a marketing authority be funded completely by the industry.⁶¹ Fran Wilde had replaced Jonathan Hunt in a quick succession of Ministers of Tourism and met these proposals full on. She argued that the State Services Commission had misunderstood the government’s role by viewing it as a mere back-stop to private enterprise and that the government’s place in tourism ‘was not contestable’. Wilde articulated a more contemporary rationale for government intervention.
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Comprehensive oversight of the industry was necessary because tourism was so all encompassing. The product to be sold was not like any other, for it consisted of the country itself and its people, and the government owned a huge part of the tourist estate in national parks. Furthermore, the experience of visitors included not only tourist products, such as hotels and river rafting, but the totality of the country, from its roading and shops to its law and order. While conceding the need for more sophisticated advertising overseas, Wilde argued that the government was the only appropriate agency to market the country and control the impact of tourism on New Zealanders. What was good for the heads of industry was not necessarily good for the country. Only the government was likely to promote regional development and take a coherent, long-term view of policy; a laissez-faire approach to tourism, as Hawaii had shown, neglected the good of citizens. Any idea of giving up the country’s national tourist office would seem to the rest of the world like desertion.⁶² While keen to see government involvement retained, Wilde wanted to close the gap between the government and the industry, and set up two groups. The Tourism Forum gave her contact with small players and regional groups, while the Tourist Marketing Strategy Group, which would steer policy towards change, was chaired by Jim Scott and composed of leaders from the industry’s giants, such as Newmans, the South Pacic Hotel Corporation and American Express. In a year in which New Zealanders were disoriented by the speed of change, and Labour looked as if it was on the way out of office, some of the Tourism Marketing Strategy Group leaders encouraged the National Party to include the establishment of a Tourism Board as part of its platform for the election.⁶³ By the time National won the election in October , tourist operators were dismayed by the turn in international events. The fuel crisis that followed the Gulf War had reduced Air New Zealand’s trade by per cent; car rental hire fell by . per cent at Auckland airport, and hotel rooms lay empty. Both the Tourist Industry Federation and Scott were keen to see a new structure and impetus in place immediately as a salve to these wounds.⁶⁴ The publication of Destination New Zealand, the Tourist Marketing Strategy Group’s report, became a trigger for action. Scott’s speech at its launch at Parliament a few weeks after the election reected the industry’s impatience with the status quo: ‘We as New Zealanders have to learn to walk with giants. . . . The days of
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tinkering with things at the edges are over. . . . Progress . . . is not about inertia and compromise.’⁶⁵ Many of the activities suggested in the report were already being undertaken by the Department, but larger issues were at stake. Destination New Zealand advocated a new alignment between public and private enterprise through an industry-driven board based in Auckland. The ideal of partnership seemed to mean channelling public funds to a board of tourism leaders. One official wryly summarised the recommendations as ‘supply a lot more resources, give us control, and we will create a Tuatara Dundee campaign that will treble visitor arrivals by the end of the century’.⁶⁶ But, despite the elements of a coup, the Department knew that other countries were supplementing traditional state-run national tourist offices with a board of industry representatives. Some kind of private–public board seemed the way of the future.⁶⁷ The new Minister of Tourism, John Banks, supported the establishment of a private industry-based board, though he demurred on the issue of funding. The million requested was three times the current vote to the Tourist Department, while the million to be contributed by tourist operators seemed minimal. His government faced a daunting level of national debt and was determined not to expand government spending. The most he could agree to was an additional million that had been guaranteed in National’s election manifesto – in the expectation that the tourist industry would equal this amount.⁶⁸ With funding issues still unclear, the Tourism Board Bill went to Parliament in May. In the face of taunts that Air New Zealand had hijacked government policy and that the Board was simply the old Department ‘in drag’, the Tourism Board Act passed quickly, and exactly years after its founding the oldest tourist department in the world was abolished and replaced by two new entities.⁶⁹ Marketing would become the major role of a new Tourism Board, while policy advice, management of grants and Crown Lands and other activities would be handed over to a small policy unit titled Ministry of Tourism. This was located under the umbrella of the Ministry of Commerce where it was set alongside other orphans of former government departments such as NZ Post, Broadcasting and Energy. Plimmer was appointed as Executive Director with a staff of twelve, reduced from . The New Zealand Tourism Board was a crown entity with two functions: to develop, implement and promote strategies for tourism; and to advise the government and industry on matters pertaining to the
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development, implementation, and promotion of these strategies.⁷⁰ The Board was to be composed of a chairperson and eight members of the industry, and stand outside the public service. The former Tourist Department’s budget was divided according to the roles allocated to each body: million to the Ministry and million to the Board. With the challenge of creating a fresh image of New Zealand, the new era of ‘the Board’ was about to begin.
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Extreme New Zealand –
I
appeal for a generation of post-war baby-boomers longing for simplicity and self-fullment, and a return to the world as it used to be.¹ Others went in search of sensation and release. New Zealand became a mecca for adventure-seekers as the countryside was switched onto fast forward and marketed as ‘a place where you can feel free’. Hurtling from the sky, swinging into canyons and scudding through white water, tourists used nature like a trampoline.² The s were turbulent years, too, for the newly established Tourism Board as it worked to market New The introduction of bungy jumping from Kawarau Bridge, Skippers Canyon, helped to make Queenstown the ‘adventure capital of the world’. , EVENING POST , .
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Zealand to the world. The search for fresh images of the country would lead the Board through its own rapids before it reached the calmer waters of % Pure New Zealand. From the s a wave of innovators gave New Zealand a style of its own by using spectacular landscapes as the backdrop for tourists’ adrenaline thrills. These entrepreneurs provided activities that combined one of the traditional elements of travel – the desire to go as far as possible from ordinary life – and the modern yearning for intense experiences. Their inventions were daring versions of the old rollercoaster and Ferris wheel, shifted from the fairground to gain a special aura among ravines, rivers and mountains. The dramatic landscape in turn was mythologised in new ways and ‘Extreme NZ’ was born: fresh, young and exhilarating.³ New Zealand’s rugged landscape had been sought by adventurers early in the twentieth century when alpinists such as Freda du Faur and Samuel Turner tested their endurance and skills on the peaks of the Southern Alps. At the end of the twentieth century physical adventure was packaged in more accessible ways for tourists who wanted to be dare-devils for a day. This contemporary thirst for accelerated pleasures was symbolised in in the descent of Mt Everest by Davo Karnicar in a non-stop skiing venture which took just under ve hours and was relayed to the world instantaneously on the internet: ‘Absolutely every aspect of this event was an acceleration of what and who had gone before’. In New Zealand a similar compression of time and experiences could be found on Mt Cook when wealthy heli-skiers were own by helicopter to virgin snows, from where they swooped down and were airlifted again to the peaks – each time to take a run down a different face of the mountain.⁴ New Zealand was the ideal place to develop activities for thrill-seekers. New Zealanders took it for granted that they could use the outdoors as an extension of their ordinary lives and had already developed skill in training and safety for outdoor activities. Their pioneering knack of making do had developed into a tradition of technological innovation. New Zealand’s system of no-fault accident compensation also meant that tourist operators could undertake seemingly dangerous enterprises without the risk of being sued. It was Queenstown, home of the Shotover Jet and bungy jumping, that became the adventure capital of New Zealand, and indeed of the world. Trevor Gamble was the rst to combine speed, risks, new tech-
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nology and pleasure when he took local inventor Bill Hamilton’s jet boat – famed for its revolutionary internal marine jet propulsion – and adapted it for tourists. Hamilton’s jet boat could be manoeuvred at high speed, spin in a -degree turn in the space of a boat length, and negotiate rivers with a depth of water of only a centimetre or two. In Gamble established the Shotover Jet Company in Skippers Canyon, the rugged gorge where gold had been rst discovered in the Queenstown area. The historic background of the region leant a romantic tinge to modern-day thrills in Shotover publicity about a ‘river of gold, river of history, river of death, river of glory’.⁵ The jet-boat excursions offered a slow glide up the river with stories from the goldmining past, and then an exhilarating ‘hell-for-leather’ return as the boats skated through rocky waters within centimetres of canyon walls. Tourist operators throughout the country followed the Shotover example, and by per cent of visitors to New Zealand were taking a jet-boat ride.⁶ The picturesque landscape around Queenstown and the presence of Shotover Jet made this a good centre for the development of action
A Shotover Jet boat in Skippers Canyon. Shotover Jet claimed that their Hamilton jet boat was ‘the only boat to have conquered the Colorado River both ways’. , , , ,
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tourism. The next novelty was developed after A.J. Hackett was inspired by the members of the Oxford University Dangerous Sports Club who tied elastic bands around their ankles and leapt from San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. They in turn had based their experiments on a traditional ritual in the North Pentecost Islands, where youths tied vines around their ankles before leaping from high towers to mark their initiation into manhood. Hackett transformed the Pacic Island ritual into entertainment, pursued the technical expertise he needed to adapt it for tourists, packaged the idea commercially and created another New Zealand icon: bungy jumping.⁷ In , with a temporary Department of Conservation licence, Hackett began the rst fulltime commercial bungy jumping operation in the world, using the suspension bridge over the Kawarau River near Queenstown as a leaping-off point. The safety of jumpers was ensured by the company’s adoption of a strict code of practice, the use of welltrained staff and a six-monthly audit by the Standards Association. For the , visitors who have taken the plunge, ‘it’s a hell of a thing to have done’. They hurtle towards the river at an intoxicating speed, bounce upwards, oat down again, and relive their leap with a feeling of euphoria: ‘you’ve dominated nature and your own body’.⁸ With a video recording and T-shirt available for purchase only to those who jump, adrenaline junkies can return home with a permanent memento of their courage and status. The sense of challenge is heightened by the element of performance: although only per cent of visitors to Queenstown in took a bungy jump, many others leave their tour buses to watch each attempt. The opportunity to view these spectacles heightened the air of excitement in Queenstown.⁹ For Hackett and his business partner Henry van Asch, the development of the bungy jump was the beginning of a swift journey to wealth. Their initiative also spawned a wave of new ventures that provided tourists with similar experiences of fear and exultation. Some of these were based on outdoor activities that had been enjoyed by ordinary New Zealanders for decades, and were now developed into more sophisticated products for tourists. The Shotover River had seen the rst river rafting in New Zealand when local enthusiasts bought surplus military inatable rafts after World War II. When these wore out they were replaced by truck tyres, and visitors were taken with no life-jackets on trips which ended with a cup of tea and ginger-nut biscuits. New materials for rafts became available in the s, chicken and champagne
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were added to the programme, and prices soared from . in the s to in the s. Souvenir shops sold Shotover outdoor clothing, and white-water rafting became a multimillion-dollar business. With a thousand navigable rivers in New Zealand, there was plenty of scope for rafting to be established commercially throughout the country.¹⁰ Tourist operators developed higher jumps and diversied into new inventions to meet the thirst for fresh excitement. A.J. Hackett provided the ‘Big Jump’ from metres at the Nevis highwire and then erected Sky Swings high above Queenstown. The company went on to construct a jump pod under the navigational span of the Auckland Harbour Bridge. Other small companies invented a range of safe but scary attractions. In the North Island Neil Harrap set up Fly By Wire to propel people at speeds of up to kilometres an hour out of a valley near Paekakariki. At Taupo turbo-powered Fletcher top-dressing planes were adapted by tandem sky-diving operators to take tourists into free fall; dam dropping was introduced in Taranaki. Tourist operators co-operated in joint packages such as the Awesome Foursome, which offered four styles of adrenaline thrill in one day – an efficient way of compressing tourist experience and spending into a short stay in Queenstown.
The German ambassador to New Zealand swings into the air at kph on Fly By Wire, . , , EVENING POST ,
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Some of New Zealand’s older resorts gained a livelier identity through the introduction of adventure tourism. Bungy jumping and jet boating helped to rejuvenate the faded spa town of Hanmer, where an old bridge over a gully was renamed Thrillseekers Canyon; the resurgence of massage and spa therapy gave the town a further boost. Owners of the Agrodome in Rotorua hung the country’s rst Swoop Swing between high poles in the midst of farmland to lure the - to -year-olds for whom conventional farm displays had little appeal. And at Waitomo Caves entrepreneurs developed more exciting ways of viewing the glow-worms by providing black-water rafting and abseiling tourists down into pitch-darkness.
Riding on the back of the whale Some tourists sought quieter outdoor thrills. New Zealand, with its clean green spaces, was ideal for the development of eco-tourism. Kaikoura, where whales came close to shore, became home to one of the most successful of these ventures. Three ocean currents meet offshore at an undersea ravine , metres deep and metres wide, where the rich marine nutrients attract sperm, orca, humpback, right and blue whales to feed at different seasons. Skippers and crew from Whale Watch Kaikoura take boatloads of tourists out to sea to view the animals, with the aim of inspiring as much as informing: their approach blends science with Maori values to make education attractive to people who are curious but nonetheless on holiday. At a time when tourism was replacing dying industries in small towns throughout the world, Whale Watch was unusual in being initiated by the community itself rather than by outside developers.¹¹ The enterprise grew swiftly from its small beginnings when Kaikoura was hit hard by the economic policies of the mid-s. The closing of the railway line and the Ministry of Works depot, along with the government’s withdrawal of farming subsidies and changes in shing quotas, stripped the main forms of livelihood from the small coastal town. Whale Watch was founded after a group including Ngati Kuri leader, Bill Solomon, became worried when unemployment among local Maori reached per cent. The early years of establishing a tourist business without commercial experience were difficult. As one of the company’s mentors has observed: ‘To go to sea with one boat, a few brochures and a lot of hopes . . . as an ordinary commercial venture it
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had nothing. It was what seemed to be a harebrained idea’.¹² The allure of the whales, the community’s determination and the help of advisers in Christchurch all contributed to the company’s success. Whale Watch Kaikoura marketed itself overseas, and was boosted by word-of-mouth promotion in backpackers’ hostels where the whales became the rst topic of conversation. By , , visitors a year were taking the tours, per cent of them international travellers.¹³ Although the rise of Whale Watch Kaikoura is a heroic story, the company’s swift success brought stresses to the area, which soon became a microcosm of the impact of tourist development. While the town’s popularity affirmed local pride, the changes it faced were extreme. Whale Watch’s focus on encouraging Maori self-determination left Pakeha feeling envious, and the success of a Maori community enterprise upset the traditional hierarchy of power in the town.¹⁴ While the tensions this caused slowly dissipated, other changes escalated. Within a decade there were new accommodation buildings and new businesses, and by a town of , residents was hosting one million visitors a year.¹⁵ As tourist buses crowded the streets, people who belonged there could no longer park their cars. Residents were alarmed at the haphazard construction of cheap motels and a welter
A Whale Watch tourist boat near a whale off the Kaikoura coast. , , , ,
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of hoardings that made the town centre look like Sunset Boulevard.¹⁶ Their home town seemed to be turning into another Queenstown when prices for residential properties increased by per cent and for commercial properties by per cent.¹⁷ Proposals for hotel development by outsiders threatened the town with a loss of control. The need to provide improved roading, toilets and rubbish collection meant that Kaikoura’s residents faced one of the highest per capita rate burdens in the country. There have been proposals to introduce a bed tax or to tax boat trips, as at Milford Sound, but the problem of providing the infrastructure for a small town that draws crowds of international visitors remains to be solved. In tourism generated per cent of the town’s income and, if this were to increase, over-dependence on one industry could make the town vulnerable to cycles of boom and bust.¹⁸ The impact on nature has been less dramatic. The business developed so quickly that Whale Watch and the Department of Conservation had to work out regulations together. The governing ethos of Whale Watch Kaikoura combines traditional Maori protectiveness towards sea creatures with good commercial sense. The company sees itself as a long-term player in the region and recognises the need to safeguard the whales to provide for its own future. For the most part the company set its own restrictions, maintaining a xed distance from the whales, keeping the size of the boats no larger than that of a whale, and limiting the number of passengers. Wally Stone, the current chairman of the company, claims that, while the potential for some kind of negative impact always exists, none is evident yet.¹⁹ The impact of tourism on a seal colony on the coast has been more detrimental. Although there are signs prohibiting visitors from approaching closer than metres from the fur seals, some venture as near as possible, throw stones and prod the creatures. Studies have shown that widespread disturbance at the breeding colonies may lead to changes in the vigour of the seals.²⁰ It is a reminder that eco-tourism is often no more ‘natural’ than other forms of tourism in its impact on the environment.
In search of authenticity Although Whale Watch Kaikoura gave Maori tourism a foothold in the South Island, Rotorua has remained the centre of cultural tourism, with three versions of traditional Maori life available to tourists today.
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The chance to view a Maori ‘living village’ has been an enduring theme in New Zealand tourism since the s. One of the most recent – and least authentic – has been constructed in Auckland for cruise ship passengers by Suzanne Paul, a former infomercial entrepreneur. SUNDAY STARTIMES,
Whakarewarewa remains open to visitors but is resolutely less commercial than other Maori enterprises. The most evocative sight in the village is the ponga fence and gate built in to separate Whaka from the neighbouring Maori Arts and Crafts Institute reserve. The locked gate stands as a symbol of rivalry between local hapu and conict with government attempts at control, and as a stark reminder that Maori life is not to be conned to picturesque concepts of the past. On the other side of the gate the Maori Arts and Crafts Institute has survived the Asian nancial crisis in / that took per cent of its visitors; the sale of its craft works continues to fund the tradition of training in carving and arts. The Institute has built up reserves to fund a more sophisticated interpretation of its thermal area; geologists are working on models that will display the natural processes of thermal activity beneath the geysers. Meanwhile, the Institute has heightened the sense of occasion for evening visitors by providing dinner under the stars, with a string quartet playing and the geysers illuminated. The Tamaki brothers have broken away from traditional tourist practices with the intention of enlivening history with ‘cheek and authenticity’. Their Tamaki Tours have transformed the traditions of educational museums, hotel concert troupes and staid coach tours. From small-scale beginnings, when Doug Tamaki sold his Harley Davidson motorbike to buy their rst bus, the company has built up
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a eet of coaches and constructed its own village that comes alive for performances each evening. The coach journey that takes tourists out of town has been made an essential part of the experience. Visitors are involved in the selection of a chief who must represent the group as it is welcomed onto the marae, and the driver draws his passengers together in the suspense of waiting to see how they will be greeted. Tourists are welcomed with bird-song, the sounding of a conch shell and a warrior encounter before moving into a kainga half-hidden in a grove of slender kauri and lit by relight. They are offered a concert, speeches and a hangi, and a chance to purchase craftwork in a market-place designed to appear less commercialised than the shops in the centre of Rotorua.²¹ Tamaki Tours represents a new style of interpretation of culture and heritage. Other tourist companies have associated Maori culture with an appeal to the soul that caters for Westerners who feel bereft of faith. The old problems of authenticity persist, for it is impossible to reconcile authenticity with tourists always in a hurry, and the idea that only indigenous people are attuned to nature and the spiritual world risks marginalising the role of Maori in the modern world.²² In Rotorua, however, the entrepreneurial skills of Mike and Doug Tamaki have made their new Harley Davidsons symbols of contemporary Maori success.
Shooting the rapids While innovators transformed the use of the landscape, the new Tourism Board aimed to make a clean break with the past. When the government relinquished most of its roles in tourism and the control of marketing passed to the Board, it was up to the Board to act. Most of the members appointed in were experienced in aspects of tourism; the Chairman, Norman Geary, had been Chief Executive of both Air New Zealand and Mt Cook Airlines. With per cent of the government’s tourism funding now directed at marketing New Zealand – and more than had ever been allocated for this purpose before – the Board hoped to prove that it was more effective than the former Tourist Department. Ian Kean, the rst Chief Executive employed by the Board, claimed that ‘you cannot make an omelette without cracking eggs’ and encouraged a new style of management.²³ At the Board’s offices, pictures came down from the walls, the tea lady and the chaplain were dismissed, and staff numbers were cut by per cent. With the focus of research narrowed to analysing tourist arrival numbers and visitor spending, some staff
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Two of the people at the cusp of change in the government’s role in tourism: John Banks (left), the new National Minister of Tourism who introduced the legislation that abolished the Tourist Department and established the New Zealand Tourism Board in , and Norman Geary, the rst Chairman of the Board. .
left for elds where they could maintain a broader perspective. Tourist operators, however, were excited to see a pared-down, enterprising culture supplant the more measured approach of the past.²⁴ Because the tourism industry was so diverse and fragmented, with a few powerful companies and hundreds of smaller ones, it had never before been able to achieve a common funding base to promote New Zealand. The Board’s budget was drawn from the million of the earlier Tourist Department vote, boosted by an additional million, which was to be matched by a private sector contribution of million. The amount seemed large but, as Paul Winter, a later Chief Executive of the Board, was to ask, ‘Who in the world cares about New Zealand?’ When the country had the population of an overseas city and attracted a mere . per cent of all international tourists, only the government could fund promotion on a scale that would pack a punch against worldwide competition. And New Zealand’s budget seemed puny when corporate giants like Sony spent up to US million annually on their media budgets. Each Australian state spent approximately NZ million a year on attracting tourists, and rivals such as Canada, Ireland and South Africa were all planning to double their spending over the next few years.²⁵ The Tourism Board took several new directions. First, it decided that New Zealand needed a stronger presence offshore and redistributed its
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staff so that a higher proportion were employed overseas than in New Zealand. Second, it replaced the Department’s generic style of marketing, which had promoted New Zealand as a whole without favouring particular companies. The government’s additional million became the base for a joint-venture scheme in which the Board aligned itself with private companies that were sure to attract many visitors. This was a call to action for the tourist industry. The Board’s overseas staff negotiated packages with airlines, coach and hotel operators to get tourists on their way. By , a year after the government lifted its annual contribution to million, the scheme was covering projects a year: in Japan, in North America, in Australia, and others in Europe and Asia. By the private sector was matching government funding with million annually, and the Board claimed that joint ventures were attracting an extra , visitors a year. ²⁶ The third thrust of the marketing policy was the adoption of the ‘NZ Way’ brand that had been developed by Trade New Zealand (‘Tradenz’) to promote quality exports. The Tourism Board’s strategic partnership with NZ Way was another attempt to raise the country’s prole by joining a co-ordinated scheme – this time forming a company with Tradenz to license a range of high-quality products and services bearing the logo of a green and blue fern, later revamped as a black and silver fern. The Tourism Board incorporated the ‘NZ Way’ logo and brand on promotions ranging from a CD of love songs to attract Japanese honeymooners to ski promotions in Australia: ‘Higher, Deeper, Longer – Ski the NZ Way’. The concept was invigorated by association with sports champions who epitomised New Zealand adventurousness and innovation, including sailor Sir Peter Blake, Olympic skier Claudia Reigler and equestrian Mark Todd. These people became ambassadors for the NZ Way, bearing its brand on their clothing (or their sails) and attending tourist promotions, where the glamour of their success lifted the occasion.²⁷ Meanwhile the Ministry of Tourism survived uncomfortably beneath the umbrella of the Ministry of Commerce, where it was forced to compete for attention among other powerful interests. The small staff had a limited role in policy direction and found it difficult to watch the Board become the public voice of New Zealand tourism. After a parliamentary review in , the Ministry was renamed the Tourism Policy Group and further diminished in status. The Board’s reluctance to share its plans made it hard for the group to advise the government
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A young tourist from Asia at Rainbow Farm, Rotorua, in the s. , , , ,
on long-term issues.²⁸ In the Board itself was subject to review when a parliamentary select committee was set up to assess whether the government was getting value for the money it had invested, and whether prots were commensurate with the surging numbers of arrivals in the country. It also reviewed the Board’s relationship with other government departments. The resulting report commended the Board’s promotions, but reected widespread concern at the target of three million visitors to New Zealand by the year and recommended that increased tourist spending should be the goal instead.²⁹ The Board’s focus on growth remained. It came under further attack as the surging numbers of tourists from the new markets of South Korea, Thailand, Taiwan and Hong Kong brought insufficient prots. The Korean tour operators were the most cut-throat among the Asian companies, bringing in tightly packaged, short-stay groups for which they negotiated the lowest possible room rates in hotels. Korean tour guides, who depended on commissions for their income, tended to insulate their passengers from New Zealand experiences and tourist
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sights by shuttling them between shops from which the guides received kick-backs. This was good for neither the tourists nor the local companies who hoped to cater for their needs. Coach-tour businesses felt that the Board’s marketing had made little difference to their prospects, while other operators criticised its focus on the ‘blue ribbon route’ from Auckland to Queenstown. Despite rising tourist numbers in the s, operators were working in a tough, competitive environment. Newmans sold off its motor homes in , and a year later the whole company was sold. The South Pacic Hotel Corporation disposed of several hotels it had bought from the THC, and Mt Cook Airlines was sold to Air New Zealand. The situation worsened when tourist numbers fell steeply during the Asian economic crisis of /.³⁰ Popular facilities at Rotorua like Rainbow Springs were hit hard by the decrease in Korean visitors, and were impossible to sell in a depressed market.³¹
Fast-forward to By the Board’s star was fading. When a group of industry leaders approached Murray McCully, the new Minister of Tourism, to explain their impatience, this reinforced his dissatisfaction with the Board’s achievements.³² In McCully’s view the niche marketing approach of the joint-venture schemes was too fragmented in dispersing funds over a range of advertising campaigns. The Board’s representatives in offices around the world each ran their own efdom where they could plan individual promotions and hire their own advertising agents; if Qantas and Air New Zealand were both promoting travel in the United States at the same time, this meant a signicant duplication in costs. McCully asked the Board to rethink the rationale for joint ventures and consider a fresh start: what would it do in with million? He preferred a single, unied global marketing campaign that would focus on glamorous upcoming mega-events. The World Cup of Golf in , the Rugby World Cup and the APEC meeting in , the ‘rst light’ of the millennium and the America’s Cup the following year all provided a chance to promote New Zealand on the world stage. McCully’s goal was to withdraw half of the funds held for joint-venture projects around the world and reserve this sum, million, to be combined with additional government funding for the promotion of special events.³³ At the same time, McCully’s decision to incorporate the small Tourism Policy Group in an Office of Tourism and Sport strengthened his arm in deal-
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Countries of Origin of Tourists to New Zealand, 903 and 2002
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: AJHR, , -; www.trcnz.govt.nz
ing with the Board, while also placing neutral policy advice in a more appropriate setting for tourism than the Ministry of Commerce.³⁴ The Tourism Board was sceptical about McCully’s approach to marketing, which would mean withdrawing from ongoing projects, cutting ties with overseas distributors and closing offices in Thailand and Osaka, Japan. And there were qualms about focusing on events like the America’s Cup when overseas evidence showed that visitors to one-off sports events simply displaced other tourists and did not contribute to growth.³⁵ During drawn-out negotiations with the Minister through , the Board was also struggling to set up its rst global campaign.³⁶ This had been placed with Saatchi and Saatchi, one of the world’s foremost advertising companies, led by the charismatic expatriate New Zealander Kevin Roberts. Roberts envisaged marketing New Zealand with a new twist that would heighten the appeal of its distance from other places and excite the world about an empty land, ‘the last undiscovered Paradise’.³⁷ With a focus on people rather than landscape, New Zealanders would be portrayed as a gutsy people exemplied by Lucy Lawless, who was starring as ‘Xena, Warrior Princess’ in the famed television series. Innovative technology would link Lawless’s internet sites to New Zealand’s tourism sites, and put a stream of action-packed tourist scenes on billboards in Times Square and Piccadilly Circus, so that commuters in the heart of great cities could watch skiers swooping down Coronet Peak, ‘reality style’. The Tourism Board was unconvinced by Roberts’s scenarios. Highlighting New Zealand’s place ‘on the edge’ was a risky concept for airlines which needed to minimise
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the sense of distance. It was not clear how Lawless’s success would make admirers travel to New Zealand, and the campaign would have no impact in the key markets of Japan, Australia or South-east Asia, where she was less well-known. Above all, Roberts’s campaign would be extraordinarily expensive, costing – million.³⁸ Early in the working relationship between McCully and the Board broke down. When the Chairman’s resignation seemed the only way to resolve the impasse, the Deputy Chairman resigned along with him. A month later the Chief Executive, Paul Winter, was persuaded to resign so that the Board could begin afresh. Disclosure in the press that large sums of money had been awarded to these men brought an investigation by the Auditor-General into the working procedures between Minister and Board and the legality of the payouts. His report found the payments to the Chief Executive to be appropriate, but required the Board to seek the return of tax-free payments made to two board members.³⁹ The Board’s disarray was attracting public attention. Attacks in the press escalated when the Prime Minister, Jenny Shipley, dined with Roberts, who was also the advertising guru for the National Party and the Tourism Board. In the stories and counter-stories that followed, the intermingling of tourist promotion and election campaigning seemed unwise. While the government won a parliamentary vote of no-condence by a narrow margin, McCully was replaced as Minister of Tourism and Saatchi and Saatchi was dismissed by the Board a month later. After a year in which the Tourism Board had lost its Chairman and other members, its Chief Executive, its advertising agency and its Minister, a new order was needed. The company became Tourism New Zealand. Under a new Board Chairman, Peter Allport, and Chief Executive, George Hickton, a fresh campaign was launched. M. and C. Saatchi, a new company with worldwide offices, was chosen to rethink New Zealand’s image for the years ahead. The brand of % Pure New Zealand was to rise like a phoenix from the ashes.
% Pure New Zealand After the disruptions of /, Tourism New Zealand faced a steep challenge in making an impact on the world as the millennium celebrations drew near. When M. and C. Saatchi took over in March , the
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timetable for initiating a new global campaign was tight. Creative ideas and strategies had to be formulated by April, for ‘if you miss July you’re dead’ in catching Northern Hemisphere travellers booking for the year ahead. M. and C. Saatchi sent a strategy team from Britain and a creative team from Sydney, and asked their offices around the world for ideas.⁴⁰ M. and C. Saatchi chose their theme after research overseas showed that ‘the NZ Way’ lacked any emotional appeal; New Zealand appeared to be a boring expanse of green hills dotted with sheep. Yet people who visited the country came away invigorated by their experiences. This sense of invigoration became the key to the campaign. The ‘new’ in New Zealand could be used to convey both the feeling of an undiscovered land and the advantages of modernity. Maurice Saatchi described his approach: ‘As the world becomes increasingly “manufactured”, the world’s nations have become more and more homogeneous. It’s becoming more and more impossible to nd meaningful differentiation.
A recent poster from the % Pure New Zealand campaign: the setting is Cathedral Cove, Coromandel.
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But New Zealand is different. It’s an authentic country. New Zealand doesn’t come pre-packaged or prepared. New Zealand is real.’⁴¹ The campaign slogan was ‘% Pure New Zealand’. ‘Pure’ was intended to describe the undiluted, intense form of experience that New Zealand provided, as well as suggesting a place untainted by the pollution of the developed world. The use of ‘%’ intensied the image. An officer in Singapore, noting that New Zealand was one of the few countries to have a distinctive shape on the map, suggested using a minuscule outline of New Zealand as the solidus of the % sign.⁴² The strong, distinctive slogan of ‘% Pure New Zealand’, together with uncluttered images and Neil Finn’s music, became the foundation of Tourism New Zealand’s publicity. It was simple to adapt, from ‘% Pure Romance’ for Japanese honeymooners to ‘In ve days you’ll feel %’ for Australians. At the same time, the slogan was ‘not a brand to be slapped on the corner motel’; it could not be diluted for the domestic market or for all-comers, and it would be approved for use by others overseas only on special occasions.⁴³ There was a change from dominant outdoor themes in , when the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra’s programme in Osaka was performed under the banner of ‘% Pure New Zealand’ and Karen Walker’s fashion show in Hong Kong became ‘% Pure Creativity’. The Pure New Zealand campaign was supported by an internet website, www.purenz.com, which in turn linked New Zealand to the websites of media programmes overseas. Striking images of New Zealand’s landscape could be downloaded and sent off as e-postcards, a contemporary version of the Department’s rst postcard campaign in . Travelogues from adventurers like the rally driver Possum Bourne added a sense of lived experience to a website where the average visitor stayed minutes.⁴⁴ Tourism New Zealand later supplied story ideas and bought into global media documentary presenters such as the Discovery Channel, whose own sites were linked to www.purenz.com. The use of the internet was not only inexpensive and far-reaching, but consistent with Tourism New Zealand’s goal of encouraging ‘interactive’ travellers: people who were well-educated, keen to explore, and willing to diverge from the ‘blue ribbon’ route. Ideal tourists such as these were expected to research the internet before travelling, spend freely on their activities and become inuential promoters of New Zealand on their return home. Young or old, they were adventurers with money.
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Loving nature to death In , with tourism providing the government with billion from direct and indirect taxation, the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment decided to assess the system for managing the natural landscape that was the source of this wealth, and investigate concerns that the tourist industry was ‘killing the goose that laid the golden eggs’. He found that a range of government bodies shared responsibility for ensuring the sustainability of tourism; none could deal with the issue alone, and coordination was difficult. The Tourism Board’s focus on marketing precluded wider-ranging objectives, while the Tourism Policy Group lacked sufficient funding or status to give neutral advice to the government. The Department of Conservation was responsible for integrating visitor services with conservation principles within the national parks. The management of the rest of New Zealand’s landscapes lay with the interpretation of the Resource Management Act by local and regional councils – some of which were better equipped for the job than others. The tourism industry itself remained fragmented: per cent of companies employed fewer than ve people, per cent ten or more, and only . per cent more than a hundred. Such small companies lacked research facilities or expertise in environmental issues.⁴⁵ Local councils varied in their approach and sometimes changed direction rapidly as their communities reacted to radical policies. In the mid-nineties, the mayor of Queenstown led a programme of development that embraced high-rise hotels, the establishment of a casino, and suburban-style sprawl over the surrounding stark, distinctive landscape. He was ousted by a conservation candidate when the community decided to resist further inroads on their town. In other regions, however, community groups and Maori were often deterred from involvement by the expense and difficulty of the planning process.⁴⁶ The Commissioner for the Environment concluded that the government should take a larger national role in advising a dynamic industry such as tourism. He advocated a partnership between industry and government to ensure quality in all cases where tourism impinged on the environment. There also needed to be processes established to incorporate the values of tangata whenua and local communities into local policy. ⁴⁷ The transfer of responsibility for the Ministry of Tourism from the Office of Tourism and Sport to the Ministry of Economic Development in was accompanied by an increase in funding to provide a better research base for both local policy decisions and work
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on national issues. The Ministry’s work in high-density tourism areas like Kaikoura and Abel Tasman National Park helped smoothe the way in negotiations between competing interests. Its move to a third foster home in a decade marked an acknowledgement that tourism was integral to economic growth. As an American conservationist has noted, ‘the partnership between tourism and conservation is not a marriage of love but an arranged marriage that must be managed with great care’.⁴⁸ The task of reconciling pleasure, prots and landscape protection is no easier now than when conservationists and the Department of Lands and Survey fought the Tourist Department over its attitude to national parks a century ago. Critics of the runaway nature of tourism have complained that only a major crisis will turn the attention of New Zealand politicians to the issue of sustainable tourism.⁴⁹ One of the challenges of the next decade will be to extend the impetus that was given to the coordinated marketing of New Zealand in the s to coordinated management of % Pure New Zealand’s open spaces.
The stuff that dreams are made of There is cause for condence as the tourist industry embarks on a new century. For the moment, tourism is on a roll. The New Zealand edition of the popular Lonely Planet travel guide has been the company’s global bestseller for two years. In , the number of arrivals in New Zealand rose by nearly per cent to ,,, in spite of the damaging impact of the SARS epidemic between March and June. More signicantly, tourism spending since has escalated more quickly than visitor numbers.⁵⁰ Although dairying is currently New Zealand’s leading export industry, tourism is growing more rapidly and should soon challenge it for top place. The tourist industry remains vulnerable, however. Many airlines are struggling in the post-September environment. And if the Kyoto Agreement were extended to include international air travel, New Zealand could be left out of the loop once more.⁵¹ On the other hand, New Zealand’s isolation has become a boon in an era when tourism has been threatened by fears about SARS and a wave of terrorist attacks. The jet-age rise in tourist numbers has provided the critical mass to make the tourism business a less precarious undertaking than before. Since the government withdrew from the commercial aspects of tourism there have been huge realignments in the ownership of hotels
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Tourist Arrivals in the 20th Century
Numbers are to March each year until ; – data is for calendar years. Tourist numbers rose dramatically after jet passenger ights to New Zealand began in . : Annual Reports of the Tourist Department, –, AJHR, -; New Zealand Official Yearbook, –; www.stats.govt.nz
and facilities. It is ironic that staff of a department accused of being bureaucratic in the s have moved out into the industry to manage many of its leading companies. The extent of some of these enterprises rivals the government’s earlier role. The largest tourist operator in the country, Tourism Holdings Ltd, owns a diverse range of interests and in its very name claims the role ‘of a parent or holding company’. From its beginnings as an innovative company that moved from deer-culling to ight-seeing, Tourism Holdings has swallowed up pioneers in twentieth-century transport such as Newmans Group and the Mount Cook Group, and former government institutions such as Waitomo Caves, Milford Sound Hotel and Red Boats. ⁵² There is a much wider range of accommodation for tourists today – from back-packers hostels and farm-stays to luxurious lodges. The Chateau and the Hermitage remain tourist icons and have become more protable with the rise in tourist numbers, but they face the same problems that the Department’s managers tussled with in the early twentieth century. These resorts still need to supply their own infrastructure of electric power, sewerage, policing and re prevention. Sited in remote, wild landscapes where they are battered by the elements, hotel maintenance remains expensive. In lonely locations hoteliers struggle to retain staff for more than one season, and alcohol remains an important form of solace and entertainment, returning per cent of staff wages to the bar.⁵³
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A shot of Auckland Harbour gives an urban avour to this % Pure New Zealand poster.
‘Nature has something for everyone. Find your niche’, advises one tourism commentator.⁵⁴ But the belief that nature is a sufficient lure for tourists has meant that for most of the century, New Zealand’s tourist publicity has concealed the country’s cities. The focus on urban tourism in the last two decades has risen from local initiatives rather than centralised government direction. Many regional tourist offices have highlighted the charms of their towns and cities, from Oamaru’s ne stone architecture to Napier’s art deco landmarks. Wellington has made the most of its café life and Te Papa’s contemporary presentation of culture, while Auckland prides itself as the City of Sails. The devel-
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opment of ne regional wines and food has sharpened the pleasures of travelling and made New Zealand a different country from the days when meals were a disaster for the tourist trade. Recent lm productions have renewed the sense of New Zealand as a realm of fantasy and reinvoked the romanticism fostered by nineteenth-century tourists, artists and writers. The timeless world of The Lord of the Rings and the mythical sea-life and Maori tradition of Whale Rider have displayed the ‘otherness’ of the country’s spectacular settings to international audiences. From glowing depictions of the Pink and White Terraces to the wide-open spaces of % Pure New Zealand and the digital enhancement of the landscape of The Lord of the Rings, artists and promoters have created a world of illusion and an escape from the everyday. They remind us that journeys begin with the stuff that dreams are made of.
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Notes Fox to Vogel, ‘Hot Springs District of the North Island’, AJHR, , H-. Richard Bollard, interview with author, September ; James Cowan, New Zealand or Aotearoa: Its Wealth and Resources, Scenery, Travel-Routes, Spas and Sport, Dept of Tourist and Health Resorts, Wellington, , p.; ‘The New Zealand Tourist Department: What It Is Doing for the Colony’, (reprinted from Liberal Herald), October , p.. The phrase comes from Wally Stone, interview with author, October . See also Simon Schama, Landscape and Memory, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, , p.. Harry G. Clement, The Future of Tourism in the Pacic and Far East, US Dept of Commerce, Washington, , p.; Timaru Herald, July . Nature’s Marvels, – Thomas Bracken, The New Zealand Tourist, Union Steam Ship Co., Dunedin, , pp.v, vi; Thorpe Talbot, The New Guide to the Lakes and Hot Springs and A Month in Hot Water, Wilson & Horton, Auckland, , p.vi. For example, Bracken, p., James Anthony Froude, Oceana, or England and Her Colonies, Longmans, London, , p.; J. Kerry Nicholls, The King Country: or, Explorations in New Zealand: A Narrative of Miles of Travel through Maoriland, Sampson, Low, Marston, Searle and Rivington, London, , p.; R.F. Keam, Tarawera: The Volcanic Eruption of June , author, Auckland, , pp.ff. Anthony Trollope, New Zealand, Chapman & Hall, London, , pp.–. Trollope, p.; Froude, pp.–. See Froude; George Augustus Sala, The Land of the Golden Fleece, Mulini Press, Canberra, ; C.F. Gordon Cumming, At Home in Fiji, William Blackwood and Son, London, ; Mark Twain, More Tramps Abroad, Chatto & Windus, London, ; Lydia Wevers (ed.), Travelling to New Zealand: An Oxford Anthology, OUP, Auckland, . Sally Irwin, Between Heaven and Earth: The Life of a Mountaineer, Freda du Faur –, White Crane Press, Hawthorn, , p.. Federation of British Spas, British Spas and Health Resorts (with a Chapter on The Spas of New Zealand), J. Burrow, London, , p.. Bracken, p.. James Watson, Links: A History of Transport and New Zealand Society, Ministry of Transport, Wellington, , pp.–. Talbot, p.. Talbot, p.; Trollope, p.. R. Reggett, ‘The Tarawera Eruption: Its Effects on the
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Tourist Industry’, MA thesis, Otago, , p.. Talbot, pp., . Wevers (ed.), p.. See also Hal K. Rothman, Devil’s Bargains: Tourism in the Twentieth-Century American West, University Press of Kansas, Kansas, , p.; Peter Gibbons, ‘Cultural Colonization and National Identity’, NZJH, vol., no., , p.. Talbot, Chapter ; Douglas Graham, ‘Graham, Robert’, in DNZB, vol., Allen & Unwin and Dept of Internal Affairs, Wellington, , p.. Fox to Vogel, AJHR, , H-, pp.–. W.W. Harris, ‘Three Parks: An Analysis of the Origins and Evolution of the New Zealand National Park Movement’, MA thesis, Canterbury, . pp.–. For Niagara, see Karen Dubinsky, The Second Greatest Disappointment: Honeymooning and Tourism at Niagara Falls, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, . AJHR, , –, pp.–. Harris, p.. Ngahuia Te Awekotuku, ‘The Sociocultural Impact of Tourism on the Te Arawa People of Rotorua, New Zealand’, PhD thesis, Waikato, , p.. W. Rolleston, NZPD, , vol., p.. Harris, p.. Te Awekotuku, p.. For the stages of this process, see Te Awekotuku, pp.–. See Te Awekotuku, Chapter ; Peter Kuru Stanley Waaka, ‘Whakarewarewa: The Growth of a Maori Village’, MA thesis, Auckland, , pp.–; James Belich, Paradise Reforged: A History of the New Zealanders from the s to the Year , Penguin, Auckland, , p.. Federation of British Spas, p.. Alfred Ginders, ‘The Thermal-Springs District, and the Government Sanatorium at Rotorua’, New Zealand Official Year-Book (NZOYB), Wellington, , pp., , , . NZOYB, , pp.–, , , . Ian Rockel, Taking the Waters: Early Spas in New Zealand, GP Publishing, Wellington, , p.. AJHR, , H-A, p.. Te Awekotuku, pp.–, . See Keam, Chapters –. AJHR, , C-, p.. See John F. Sears, Sacred Places: American Tourist Attractions in the Nineteenth Century, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, , Chapter , on the relationship between disaster and tourism. See Te Awekotuku, pp.–. Note, [Rotorua office] to Chief Surveyor, March ; Lands & Survey Rotorua office to Assistant SurveyorGeneral, September ; Sophia to Surveyor-General, July , TO , /.
See Waaka, p.. Hot Lakes Chronicle, January , cited in Te Awekotuku, p.. Philip Andrews, ‘Malfroy, Jean Michel Camille’, in DNZB, vol., Bridget Williams Books and Dept of Internal Affairs, Wellington, , p.. Camille Malfroy, Geyser-Action at Rotorua, New Zealand: A Paper Read before the Auckland Institute, Government Printer, Wellington, , p.. AJHR, , C-, p.. ‘Extracts from Report by Mr C. Malfroy’, AJHR, , C-, pp., . ‘Report on Thermal Establishments in Europe’, AJHR, , H-, p.; , C-, p.. AJHR, , C-, p.; H-, p.. Reeves to Seddon, October , and memorandum, ‘Our Thermal Springs and their Development’, pp., , TO , / /. Reeves, memorandum, pp.–. Seddon to Reeves, November ; Reeves, memorandum, pp., ; D. MacGregor, memorandum, November , TO , //. NZOYB, , p.; AJHR, , C-, p.viii. See Peter Gibbons, ‘Non-ction’, in Terry Sturm (ed.), The Oxford History of New Zealand Literature, OUP, Auckland, , p.. Reeves to Min. Lands, May , , , . F.A. Moran, ‘The Role of the Government in the Development of the New Zealand Tourist Industry – ’, MA thesis, Canterbury, , p.. Reeves to Min. Lands, May , , , . AJHR, , C-, pp.vii–viii. Michael Bassett, Sir Joseph Ward: A Political Biography, AUP, Auckland, , p.; Bassett, personal communication, October . NZH, January . ‘The New Zealand Tourist Department: What It Is Doing for the Colony’, p.. See also [T.E. Donne], ‘The New Zealand Government Department of Tourist and Health Resorts’, typescript, p., [], TO , /. E.S. Dollimore, ‘Thomas Edward Donne (–): A Biographical Essay’, February , pp.–, ABKB, , W, j. Dollimore was a relative of Donne by marriage, and this may have coloured his account of Donne’s life. Nevertheless, Donne’s period in office shows him to have been exceptional. ‘The New Zealand Government Department of Tourist and Health Resorts’, p. The Metropolis of Geyserland, – Cowan, , p.. R.F. Keam, ‘Waimangu Geyser’, in Don Stafford, Joan Boyd and Roger Steele (eds), Rotorua –, H.A. Holmes, Rotorua, , pp., ; Rotorua District Agent to Donne, October ; Williams to Donne, October , TO , /. Auckland Star, August ; Davis to Ward, August ; Donne to Ward, August , TO , /. On stunts at tourist resorts, see Sears, pp.–.
Warbrick to Donne, August ; Warbrick, notes, [October ], TO , /. Warbrick to Robieson, July ; Wallmutt to Robieson, August , TO , /. Warbrick to Donne, , August ; Wallmutt to Donne, December , TO , /. June Northcroft-Grant, ‘Papakura, Makeriti’, in DNZB, vol., AUP and Dept of Internal Affairs, Auckland, , p.. NZH, June . For a full description of the Rotorua visit, see R.A. Loughnan, Royalty in New Zealand: The Visit of Their Royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York to New Zealand, th to th June , A Descriptive Narrative, Government Printer, Wellington, , pp.–. Pearson to Robieson, report on Hanmer Springs, June , p., TO , //. Cowan, pp., . AJHR, , H-, pp.–. AJHR, , H-, p.. AJHR, , H-, p.. AJHR, , H-, p.. Wohlmann to Donne, October , TO , //. AJHR, , H-, p.. Fraser to Donne, December ; Donne to Tourist Agent, January , TO , //; AJHR, , H-, p.; , p.vii. Donne to Ward, August , TO , //a. AJHR, , H-, pp., , , , . Donne to Ward, February , TO , //. Campbell to Under-Secretary, Public Works Dept, TO , //. Wohlmann, condential memorandum, May , TO , //. Wohlmann to Donne, March ; Donne to Ward, March , TO , //. NZH, May . Corlett to Donne, December , TO , //B; Wohlmann to Robieson, May , TO , //; Robieson to Corlett, March , TO , //. Donne to Min. Tourist and Health Resorts, July , TO , //. Donne to Wohlmann, August ; Wohlmann to Donne, September , TO , //. Rotorua Times, March ; Evening Post, August . AJHR, , H-, p.. AJHR, , H-, pp., . Hot Lakes Chronicle, July ; Wohlmann, typed notes, March , TO , //. Wohlmann, typed notes, TO , //. The Tourist and Health Resources of New Zealand, p.. November . The Tourist and Health Resources of New Zealand, p.. Donne to Wohlmann, December ; Donne to Birks, January , TO , //. Rockel, Chapter . Wohlmann to Donne, September , TO , //. AJHR, , H-, pp.vi–vii; , H-, p.. Typed notes, TO , /. Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Destination Culture: Tourism,
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Museums and Heritage, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, , p.. See also Bernard Kernot, ‘Maoriland Metaphors and the Model Pa’, in John Manseld Thomson (ed.), Farewell Colonialism: The New Zealand International Exhibition Christchurch, –, Dunmore Press, Palmerston North, , pp.–. See Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, pp., . Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, pp., , . See also Ewan Johnston, ‘Representing the Pacic at International Exhibitions – ’, PhD thesis, Auckland, . Mueller, Chief Surveyor, to Surveyor-General, September , TO , /. See Raeburn Lange, May the People Live: A History of Maori Health Development, AUP, Auckland, , pp., –. AJHR, , H-, p.vi; , p.. AJHR, , H-, p.. Andrews to Donne, September , TO /. Typescript, ‘The Whakarewarewa Pa’, []; typed manuscript, ‘Ancient Maori Pas at Mercury Bay’, TO , / . See also Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, p.. Mair to Robieson, May ; Birks to Donne, June , TO , /. Mair to Robieson, May , TO , /. Auckland Weekly News, August . Warbrick to Robieson, August ; Wallmut to Robieson, TO , /. Fred Bennett and petitioners to Ward, May ; Rector of St Michaels and Vicar of St Lukes and petitioners to Ward, May ; Robieson to Warbrick, July ; Robieson to District Agent and F. Bennett, July , TO , /; AJHR, , H-, p.. Kernot, pp.–. Augustus Hamilton, Maori Art, NZ Institute, Wellington, ; John White, Ancient History of the Maori, His Mythology and Traditions, Government Printer, Wellington, –. NZH, April . Birks to Donne, June, October, November , January , TO , /. Birks to Donne, June, July , TO , /. Robieson to Thos Mackenzie, July , TO , /. Ward, NZPD, , vol., pp., , . Town Council to Chief Health Officer, May , TO , //. Birks to Donne, September , TO , //. Bennett to Donne, December , TO , //. Te Waaka and others to Donne, November , TO , / /. Cowan, p.. Rockel, pp., –. Hill to Ward, September , TO , //. Donne to Hill, June , TO , //. Te Aroha Mail, December , TO , //. For details of the tea-house, see TO , //. Press cutting, May , TO , //. Te Aroha and Ohinemuri News, April ; Te Aroha News, May ; Kenny to Robieson, June ; Wohlmann to Robieson, May ; Kenny to Donne, March , TO , //. NZOYB, , pp.–.
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Railway newscutting (untitled), TO , //, . Ward to Rutherford, January , TO , /. Pearson to Donne, July , pp.–, TO , //. Wohlmann, condential report on Hanmer, May , TO , /, . Gould to Donne, September , TO , /, ; May and July , TO , /, . T.E. Donne, The Game Animals of New Zealand: An Account of Their Introduction, Acclimatization and Development, Murray, London, , pp.xii–xiii; Charles Hursthouse, New Zealand, or Zealandia, the Britain of the South, Edward Stanford, London, , vol., p.. AJHR, , H-, p.iv. See Ross Galbreath, Working for Wildlife: A History of the Wildlife Service, Bridget Williams Books & Historical Branch, Dept of Internal Affairs, Wellington, , Chapter . Donne, pp., . Donne, pp., . Donne, pp.–, , . Donne, pp.–. NZ Times, June ; NZ Free Lance, August . McNab to McGowan, July , TO , //. See Galbreath, Chapter . McNab to McGowan, July ; Robieson to Donne, August , TO , //. Donne, p.; Donne to McGowan, September , TO , //. French to Wilson, May ; Robieson to French, July , TO , //. Wilson to editor, Forest and Stream, February , TO , //. Donne to Ayson, December , TO , //. For example, Ayson to Donne, November , TO , / /. AJHR, , H-, p.. See James Belich, Making Peoples: A History of the New Zealanders from Polynesian Settlement to the End of the Nineteenth Century, Allen Lane, Auckland, , pp.–, for similar claims for the fertility of nature in nineteenth-century immigration propaganda. Editor, Forest and Stream, to Robieson, April ; Robieson to Forest and Stream, February , TO , //. AJHR, H-, , p.; , p.. ‘The New Zealand Tourist Department: What It Is Doing for the Colony’, p.. AJHR, , H-, p.; ‘The New Zealand Government Department of Tourist and Health Resorts’, typescript, p., TO , /; ‘The New Zealand Tourist Department: What It Is Doing’, p.; AJHR, , H-, p.. ‘The New Zealand Tourist Department: What It Is Doing’, p.; Cowan, . Replies to Donne, , and March, , TO , , /. Donne to Under Secretary, Colonial Secretary’s Department, May , TO , //; AJHR, , H-, p.. AJHR, , H-, p.. AJHR, , H-, p.. Auckland Star, May . Andrews to Donne, September , TO , //. Wallmutt’s annual report, April , p., TO , //.
Donne to Ward, December , TO , //. AJHR, , H-, p.. See Tony Nightingale and Paul Dingwall, Our Picturesque Heritage: Years of Scenery Preservation in New Zealand, Department of Conservation, Wellington, . Cowan, p.. AJHR, , H-, pp.–; ‘The New Zealand Tourist Department: What It Is Doing’, p.. McDonald to Donne, April , TO , //. AJHR, H-, , p.; , p.. Cowan, p..
A Spice of Adventure in their Pleasure, – AJHR, , H-, p.; Cowan, p.. The Times, March . Freda du Faur, The Conquest of Mount Cook and Other Climbs: An Account of Four Seasons’ Mountaineering on the Southern Alps of New Zealand, George Allen & Unwin, London, , p.. For example, Christchurch Press, January . Barkas to Donne, November , TO , //. Buckley Joyce, Aorangi the Cloud Piercer: A Trip to the Hermitage Easter , Timaru Press, Timaru, , p.. John Haynes, Piercing the Clouds: Tom Fyfe: First to Climb Mt Cook, Hazard Press, Christchurch, , pp., ; du Faur, p.. D.G. Pearce, ‘Tourist Development at Mt Cook: Patterns and Processes since ’, MA thesis, Canterbury, , pp.ff. Timaru Herald, July . Clarke to Donne, June , TO , //. Clarke to Donne, April , November , TO , / /. Alexander to Donne, February , TO , //. AJHR, , H-, p., , p.. Spencer to Donne, December , TO , /, pt.. Pearce, p.. Du Faur, pp.ff. There were many complaints: for example, Alexander to Donne, February , TO , //. Timaru Herald, March . Harry Wigley, The Mount Cook Way: The First Fifty Years of the Mount Cook Company, Collins, Auckland, , pp.–; Gordon Ogilvie, ‘Wigley, Rodolph’, in DNZB, vol., p.. Wigley to Robieson, November , TO , //; Wigley, p.. ‘Mt Cook Motor Car Service’, brochure, Lyttelton Times Print, []. Wigley, pp.–. Wigley, p.; Report, Chief Postmaster, Timaru, February , TO , //. McKennah to Donne, November ; Wigley to Donne, May , TO , //. Note, Donne, October , TO , //. Wigley, p.. Ogilvie, ‘Wigley’, p.. AJHR, H-, , p.; , p.. Donne to Ward, July , TO , /, pt.. ODT, January ; Press, January . Donne to Ward, December ; answer in Parliament, October , TO , /, pt..
Dominion, January . Press, March . Robieson to Min. Tourism, May , TO , /. McDonald to Robieson, April , TO , /, pt.. Mackenzie to Wigley, November , TO , //. Frethey to Wilson, November , TO , //. Wigley to Mackenzie, April , TO , /. Wigley to Ward, November ; Wigley to Mackenzie, , , , November , TO , //; Wigley to Mackenzie, November , TO , / /; Wigley to Ward, , November , TO , //. Mackenzie to Wigley, November , TO , //; Mackenzie to Buxton, January , TO , /, pt.. Pope to Mackenzie, November , AABN, , /. Blow, Under-Secretary, Public Works, to Pope, December , AABN, , /. Pope to Mackenzie, December , AABN, , /; Blow to Mackenzie, December , TO , /, pt.. Press, January . Wigley to Wilson, April, November ; Wigley to Rhodes, March , TO , /, pt.. February . Du Faur, pp., . AJHR, , H-, pp.–. Du Faur, p.; Wigley, p.. Peter Graham (ed. H.B. Hewitt), Peter Graham, Mountain Guide: An Autobiography, A.H. & A.W. Reed, Wellington, , pp.–. Irwin, p.. NZ Times, March . John Pascoe, Foreword to Graham, p.xi. Wigley, pp.–. Turner to Wilson, January ; Graham to Wilson, January , TO , /. Dominion, March . Graham to Frethey, February , TO , /. For example, Turner to Wilson, September , TO , /; Graham to Wilson, September , TO , /. Irwin, p.. Irwin, pp.–; du Faur, pp., . AJHR, , H-, p.. AJHR, H-, , pp.–; , p.; , pp.–. It is difficult to tell how much the numbers are skewed by the departure of young men for the war, but there was certainly a boom in women’s climbing. Du Faur, pp., , , , , , ; Irwin, pp., ; for example, The Lone Hand, April , pp.–, ff. Du Faur, p.; Cowan, p.. Wilson to Mackenzie, April , TO, /. NZH, April , and note attached, TO , /. In the US, communities west of the Rockies faced the same problem. See Rothman, Chapter . Wilson to Pharazyn, July , TO , /. Brustad, Lyttelton Times, August . Wilson to Wigley July ; Wilson to Graham, [] July , TO , /. Christchurch Sun, February ; Weekly News, March ; Robieson to Mackenzie, April , TO , /. Irwin, pp.–.
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District Engineer to Under-Secretary, Public Works Dept, February ; P. Graham to Wilson, May , TO , /. Graham to Wilson, March, April, ; Wilson to Rhodes, , TO , /, pt.. NZ Times, October . Wilson to Nosworthy, November , TO , /. Chapman to McNab, August , p., TO , /. H.F. von Haast to McNab, August , pp.–, , TO , /. Chapman to McNab, April ; Wilson to McNab, August ; McNab, note, superinscribed, August , TO , /. Press, January ; Dominion, January . Rhodes to Wilson, February ; reports by Willcox, April , and Lowe, August ; Rhodes to Prain, Kew, August , TO , /. McNab to Correvan, February ; Rhodes to Wilson, March , TO , /. Rhodes to Wigley, August ; Wigley to Rhodes, , August , TO , /, pt.. McNab to Wigley, March , TO , /. Pearce, pp.–. J. Craigie, W. Nosworthy, NZPD, , vol., p.. Wilson to Nosworthy, July , TO , /. Nosworthy to Wilson, July ; Circular /, September , TO , /. Pearce, p.. Timaru Herald, July . P. Graham to Wilson, August ; A. Harper to Nosworthy, July , TO , /. Wilson to Blow, August ; Blow to Wilson, June , September , TO , /, pt.. Wilson to Public Service Commissioner, October , TO , /. Wilson to Wigley, August , TO , /; J. Margaret Parker, personal communication, March . Wilson to Donne, April , TO , /. There were , overseas visitors in and , in : AJHR, , H-, p.; , p.. Pearce, pp.–. Wigley to Wilson, November , TO , /. The Romance of Rail, – Christchurch Star, June ; Timaru Herald, October ; Christchurch Sun, October ; Christchurch Press, October , January . Star, June ; ‘Across New Zealand’s Southern Alps: World Famed Otira Walk to the West Coast’, pamphlet, Wellington, . Press, October ; Star, June ; Dench to Railways Board, November , R , //, pt.. Press, January . Lyttelton Times, June ; for critics of the Sunday rail excursions, see Christchurch Sun, April, October ; Evening Post, February ; Taumarunui Press, February ; Lyttelton Times, February ; Dominion, February ; ODT, December ; Christchurch Press, September, .
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Excursionist, Press, September ; Taylor to Stewart, September , R , //, pt.. See Rothman, p.. Grace Adams, Jack’s Hut, Reed, Wellington, , pp.–; Jim Davidson and Peter Spearritt, Holiday Business: Tourism in Australia Since , Miegunyah Press, Melbourne, , p.. See Public Reserves, Domains, and National Parks Act , pt. . For the origins of Arthur’s Pass National Park, see Harris, pp.–. Collett to Steward, November ; Clinkard to Arthur’s Pass National Park Board, May ; Barnett to Min. Internal Affairs, May , TO , /; Brittenden to General Manager, Railways, September , R, W, //; Press, April . D.B. Waterson, ‘Railways and Politics, –: A Study in the Politics of Development in a Twentieth Century Social Democracy’, MA thesis, Auckland, , p.. Railway Review, August ; AJHR, , D-, p.xiv; Waterson, p.; David Leitch and Bob Stott, New Zealand Railways: The First Years, Heinemann Reed, Auckland, , pp.ff. Christchurch Sun, October . Davis to Digges-Smith, July ; Digges-Smith to Victorian Railways, January , R , /. Rodie to Mouat, September , R , /. Leitch and Scott, p.. Roussell to Hunter, December ; Pawson to Commercial Manager, November , R , //, pt.; Hokitika Guardian and Evening Star, April . AJHR, , D-, p.iii. NZ Listener, October , p.. Messenger, press release, October , TO , /, pt.; Westport Times, July . Auckland Star, October ; Sun, May . AJHR, , H-, p.. Wigley to Collett, , August , TO , /; ‘Southern Alps of New Zealand: Mount Cook the Rendez-Vous of Happiness Seekers’, pamphlet, [Christchurch], . Wigley, pp.–, . Wigley, pp.–, ; Harper to Wigley, January , TO , /. ‘Southern Alps of New Zealand’. Wigley, pp.–. ‘Southern Alps of New Zealand’. Wigley, pp.–. Drew to Min. Publicity, May ; Harper to Coates, June , TO , /. Wigley to Harper, February ; Wigley to Wilson, July ; Wilson to Nosworthy, April , TO , /. Notes of Deputation on Alpine Guides, March ; Harper to Coates, June ; Williams to Schmitt, November , TO , /. Wilson to Nosworthy, May , TO , /, pt.. Wilson to Nosworthy, January , TO , /, pt.. For example, Wigley to Ward, December ; Wilson to Nosworthy, May , TO , /, pt.. R.E. Hayes to Nosworthy, June , TO , /, pt.. Hayes to Nosworthy, June , TO , /, pt.. Wilson to Ward, January ; Ward to Wigley, February
, TO , /, pt.. NZ Gazette, September , p.. Auckland Star, February . Birks to Donne, July ; August , TO , /, pt.. Birks to Director of Tourism, August , TO , /, pt.. Parmenter to McDonald, August , January , TO , /, pt.. For example, King Country Chronicle, January ; Cormack to Blow, September , TO , /, pt.. Hill to Wilson, October ; Cormack to Blow, September , TO , /, pt.. Where-to-Go ‘Fairy Palaces’ brochure, Publicity Branch, NZ Railways, , R , //, pt.. Quoted in Cook to Coulthard, May , TO , /, pt.. AJHR, , H-, p.. A.E. Wilson to B.M. Wilson, February , July , TO , /. Clinkard to Hamilton, May , TO , /. Ranginui Walker, Ka Whawhai Tonu Matou: Strule Without End, Penguin Books, Auckland, , pp.–. Wilson to Hill, March ; Hill to Wilson, September ; Bayfeild to Schmitt, September , TO , /. Waaka, p.; Michael King, The Penguin History of New Zealand, Penguin, Auckland, , p.. Report of Commission to Inquire and Report upon the Necessity or Advisability of Establishing Model Villages on the Sites of the Present Villages of Ohinemutu and Whakarewarewa, AJHR, , G-, pp.–. Henare Mete Amohau (for Ngati Whakaue) to Commission, June ; Kingi, Te Arawa Trust Board, to Commission, July , AJHR, , G-, pp.–. Report of Commission on Model Villages, pp.–, ; Waaka, p.. Royal Hawaiian Hotel to Tourist Department, November ; Dept Internal Affairs to Secretary, Railways Board, December , R , /. Assistant Traffic Manager, CPR, to Roussell, March , R , //. List for Sterling, [October ], R , //; Quebec Chronicle-Telegraph, May ; Montreal Gazette, February . AJHR, , D-, p.iv. Railways to Nosworthy, November ; Messenger to Hislop, November , TO , /. Overseas Publicity Board (OPB) minutes, December , January , TO , /. Wilson to King, November ; OPB minutes, December , May, July , TO , /. Evening News, October ; OPB minutes, December , August , TO , /. Schmitt to Parry, November , TO , /. Dominion, May . Dominion, May ; Secretary, Association of NZ Chambers of Commerce, to Min. Publicity, February ; Thomas Walsh to Members of Legislature, August , TO , //. Wilson to Nosworthy, May , TO , /. Wilson to Nosworthy, August , TO , /. Wilson to Thompson, June ; B.M. Wilson to A.E.
Wilson, November , TO , /, pt.. Wilson to Fama, September , TO , /. W.P. Barnett, ‘Deep Sea Fishing, Bay of Islands’, May , TO , /; ‘Beautiful Otehei Bay, Bay of Islands’, [], Ephemera Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library. Zane Grey, Tales of the Angler’s Eldorado, New Zealand, Hodder & Stoughton, London, , pp.–, , , , , –. Thompson to Wilson, June , TO , /; Smith’s Weekly, February . Smith’s Weekly, February . Messenger to Under-Secretary, Internal Affairs, March , TO , /. Grey to Messenger, December , TO , /. A.E. Wilson to Northcroft, August , TO , /. Grey to Messenger, June ; Arlidge to Rushworth, September , TO , /. Arlidge to Rushworth, September ; A.E. Wilson to B.M. Wilson, August , TO , /. Northcroft to A.E. Wilson, August , TO , /. Warren to Stuart, March , TO , /, pt.. Stuart to de la Perrelle, September , TO , /, pt.. See also George Fowlds, Hotel Accommodation in New Zealand, Eden Gazette Print, Auckland, . Soleely to Wilson, October , TO , /; Stuart to Messenger, January, September , TO , /, pt.. For example, AJHR, H-, , p.; , pp.–. Stuart to Clinkard, April , TO , /, pt., February, March, May, July , TO , /, pt.. Stuart to Clinkard, August ; Clinkard to Stuart, June , TO , /, pt.. Stuart to Clinkard, September ; Clifton to Stuart, May, August , TO , /, pt.. OPB Secretary to de la Perrelle, October ; Collins to Wilson, January ; Wilson to Collins, February, October , TO , /. Davidson and Spearritt, pp., . AJHR, H-, , pp., ; , p.. The Playground of the North, – For the history of Te Heu Heu’s gift of Tongariro National Park, see Craig Potton, Tongariro: A Sacred Gift, Lansdowne Press & C. Potton, Auckland and Nelson, , pp.ff.; Harris, Chapter . On leisure as a form of colonisation, see Kirstie Ross, ‘Signs of Landing: Pakeha Outdoor Recreation and the Cultural Colonisation of New Zealand’, MA thesis, Auckland, . NZ Institute and others, Deputation to Massey, September , TO , //. L. Cockayne, ‘On a Botanical Survey of the Tongariro National Park’, AJHR, , C-, p.. For the advent of a scientic approach to national parks in the US, see Richard West Sellars, Preserving Nature in the National Parks: A History, Yale University Press, New Haven, , Chapter . Cockayne, pp.–, –. Cullen to Massey, November ; Cullen to Wilson, June , TO , /. Cullen to Wilson, May , June, November , TO , /.
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Evening Post, November ; Cullen to Wilson, May, November , TO , /. Cullen to Wilson, March, June , TO , /. Harre, letter to NZH, June ; Henry Joosten, letter to Evening Post, March . Letter to NZH, June . See Paul Star, ‘Native Bird Protection, National Identity and the Rise of Preservation in New Zealand to ’, NZJH, vol., no., October , pp.–. Joosten to Evening Post, March . H.F. von Haast to Evening Post, March . Dominion, July ; Wanganui Chamber of Commerce to Nosworthy, May ; Mackintosh to Ellis, [March ], TO , /. Cockayne to Wilson, January , TO , /. NZ Times, May . Wilson to Nosworthy, October , Wilson to Heaton Rhodes, November , TO , /. Wilson to Nosworthy, March ; Wilson to Rhodes, November ; Cullen to Frethey, October , March , TO , /. H. von Haast to Wilson, Easter , TO , /, pt.. For example, von Haast to Wilson, Easter ; de Guerrier to Wilson, June , TO , /, pt.. Wilson to Nosworthy, July , TO , //. Wilson to Nosworthy, February , TO , /, pt.. Wilson to Goodall, February , TO , /, pt.. Algie to Wilson, November ; Le Roy to Harris, November , TO , /, pt.. NZH, June . Le Guerrier to Wilson, June , TO , /, pt.. NZH, June, September ; Gunson to Massey, November , TO , //. Deputation, NZ Institute and others, September , TO , //. Notes of interview between Hon. Te Heu Heu Tukino and Nosworthy, November ; Wilson to Nosworthy, June , TO , /. Wilson to Nosworthy, June , TO , /. NZPD, vol., , Guthrie, p.; Field, pp., . Minutes, Tongariro National Park Board (TNPB), January , January , December , TO , //. Thompson to Wilson, February , TO , /, pt.. Minutes, TNPB, October , TO , /, pt.. Southland News, November ; Wigley, p.. Quoted in The Chateau: Prospectus of the Tongariro Park Tourist Company, , Foreword. Alan Mulgan, New Zealand Life, cited in The Chateau: Prospectus, pp.–. For the American experience, see Sellars, Chapter . NZH, Taumarunui Press, September ; Dominion, September . Press cutting, Herbert Hall Folder, School of Architecture, Auckland University. AJHR, , C-, pp.–; The Chateau: Prospectus, pp.–. Joan Lawford (née Banks), interview with author, September . AJHR, C-, , p.; , p.. Clinkard to de la Perrelle, November , February ,
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TO , /, pt.. Clinkard to Hamilton, May ; Park to Min. Finance, March , TO , /, pt.; NZ Truth, September . Minutes, TNPB, February , TO , //. Cobbe to Clinkard, March , TO , /, pt.. Cobbe to Clinkard, August , TO , /, pt.. Clinkard to Chairman, TNPB, April , TO , /; Malcolm to Chairman, TNPB, October , TO , /. Malcolm to Chairman, TNPB, October , TO , /. Cobbe to Clinkard, August , TO , /, pt.. Clinkard to Hamilton, October , TO , /. Clinkard to Hamilton, November , TO , /, pt.. Newton to Clinkard, March , TO , /, pt.. Rodda to Under-Secretary, Dept of Lands and Survey, October , TO , /, pt.. Clinkard to Hamilton, March ; Cobbe to Clinkard, May , TO , /, pt.. Clinkard to Hamilton, March , TO , /, pt.. Cobbe to Clinkard, March , June , TO , /. Cobbe to Clinkard, November , February, March, May , June ; Cobbe to Verschaffelt, September , TO , /. Cobbe to Clinkard, November , TO , /. Cobbe to Clinkard, November , TO , /; NZ Observer, May . Gordon to Hamilton, October , TO , /. For example, Auckland Star, October , Rotorua Daily Times, October . Schmitt to Bayfeild, December ; Bayfeild to Schmitt, December , , July, September , July , TO , /. District Engineer, memorandum, ‘Chateau Tongariro – Condition of Buildings’, March ; Foreman Carpenter, ‘Report re Chateau Building’, May , TO , /, pt.. Secker to Hamilton, September ; Bayfeild to Clinkard, November , TO , /, pt.. Skardarasy to Taylor (NZ Tourist Agent, Sydney), June ; Skardarasy to Clinkard, October , TO , /, pt.. Skardarasy to Taylor, June ; to Lockwood, February , TO , /, pt.; Sports Post, June . Bayfeild to Clinkard, October , July , TO , /, pt.. Taranaki Herald, October . See Ross, pp.–. Press release [June ], TO , /, pt.. Sports Post, June ; Skardarasy to Schmitt, October , TO , /, pt.. NZH, July ; Skardarasy to Schmitt, October , TO , /, pt.. Dominion, October ; Bayfeild to Schmitt, January , TO , /, pt.. Rothman, pp.–. Schmitt to Bayfeild, September, October , TO , /, pt.. Bayfeild to Schmitt, June ; Schmitt to Bayfeild, June , April , TO , /, pt.. Agenda for TNPB meeting, October , TO , //. AJHR, , H-, pp., , .
By the People, For the People, – Christian Science Monitor, September . See ‘New Zealand Centennial Exhibition –’, www.nzhistory.net.nz. See Johnston, pp.–. Johnston, p.. See also Jock Phillips, ‘Our History, Our Selves: The Historian and National Identity’, NZJH, vol., no., October , pp.–. C.E. Beeby to Philip Johnstone, July (in Johnstone’s possession). N.B. Palethorpe, Official History of the New Zealand Centennial Exhibition Wellington –, New Zealand Centennial Exhibition Co. Ltd, Wellington, , p.; AJHR, , H-, p.. Greg Bowron, ‘A Brilliant Spectacle: The Centennial Exhibition Buildings’, in John Wilson (ed.), Zeal and Crusade: The Modern Movement in Wellington, Te Waihora Press, Christchurch, , p.. Palethorpe, pp., –. Heenan to Min. Internal Affairs, May , TO , /, pt. (the Tourist Department’s lm, One Hundred Crowded Years, should not be confused with Onward New Zealand, Edward Anscombe’s documentary of the exhibition itself ); press release, [November ], TO , //. Southland Daily News, June . Clinkard to Fenton, April ; to Bayfeild, July ; Bayfeild to Clinkard, July , TO , /, pt.; Berendsen to Savage, April, December ; Drew to Clinkard, April , TO , /, pt.. Evening Standard, February . Clinkard to Schmitt, September, , TO , /, pt.. Manley to Langstone, November ; Fenton to Schmitt, November , TO , /, pt.. ‘Notes on Centennial Film’, [November ], TO , //. For example, Pollard to Sullivan, July ; Grant to Savage, December ; Savage to High Commissioner, London, April , TO , /, pt.; Drew to Schmitt, , TO , /, pt.; Heenan to Schmitt, , May ; Fenton to Schmitt, March , TO , /, pt.. Houston to Schmitt, March , TO , /; Heenan to Schmitt, May , TO , /, pt.. Weekly News, November . Schmitt to Government Agent, Los Angeles, August , TO , /, pt.. Schmitt to Monsignor Connelly, March , and to Rt Rev. Lord Bishop of Wellington, April ; Naval Secretary, the Admiralty, to Schmitt, February , TO , //. Schmitt to Secretary, Centennial Committee, November ; ‘Notes on Centennial Film’, TO , //. See Chris Hilliard, ‘Stories of Becoming: The Centennial Surveys and the Colonization of New Zealand’, NZJH, vol., no., April , pp.–. ‘Centennial Film Titles’, [], TO , //. Dominion, November ; Evening Post, November . Beeby to Johnstone, July (in Johnstone’s possession). Dominion, November . Andrews to Paul, October , TO , //. ‘A Dream Comes True’, NZ Listener, October , p.;
Margot Fry, ‘A Servant of Many Masters: A History of the National Film Unit of New Zealand –’, MA thesis, Victoria, , pp.–. See also Geoffrey B. Churchman, Celluloid Dreams: A Century of Film in New Zealand, IPL Books, Wellington, , pp.–. ‘Country Lads’, Weekly Review, no., Archives NZ. Cabinet approval, May , TO , //. Andrews to Paul, March , TO , //. New Zealand Soldiers and Polish Children, No., Archives NZ. Paul to Schmitt, November , pp.–, TO , //. Andrews, ‘Report on Reorganisation and Expansion of Activities of the NZ NFU, Government Film Studio, Wellington’, February , pp.–, TO , //. Fenton to Schmitt, July , TO , //. Andrews, ‘Report’. The ‘dead hand’ comes from Fenton’s comments to Clive Sowry, personal communication, November . AJHR, , H-, p.. AJHR, , H-, pp., . AJHR, H-, , pp., , , p.; NZ Truth, December . Eve Ebbett, When the Boys Were Away: New Zealand Women in World War II, Reed, Wellington, , p.. Ebbett, pp.–. Bayfeild to Schmitt, June , TO , /; September , TO , /. Evidence, First Sitting of Royal Commission on Licensing, pp.–, –. NZ Truth, October ; Wigley to Fraser, June , TO , /, pt.. Schmitt to Langstone, November ; Wigley to Fraser, June , TO , /, pt.; Dominion, July . Wigley to Nash, July ; Schmitt to Parry, May, June , TO , /, pt.. Heritage Lease Departmental Committee meeting notes, February , TO , /, pt.. News cutting [November ], TO , TO , /, pt.; Casey, Heenan, Greensmith and Schmitt to Parry, February ; Ashwin to Asst Min. Finance, March , TO , /, pt.. Collins to Schmitt, September ; Schmitt to Parry, September ; Ashwin to Nash, August, October ; Schmitt to Parry, November , TO , /, pt.. Schmitt to Parry, November , August , TO , /, pt.; Wigley, p.. Elsie K. Morton, Evening Post, August , TO , /, pt.. Wilkinson to Schmitt, October, November , TO , /, pt.. Parry to Schmitt, December , April ; Fletcher to Schmitt, March ; A. Graham to Schmitt, April , TO , /, pt.. NZH, December ; AJHR, , H-, pp., , , ; Parry, speech at Timaru, April , p., TO , /. Parry, speech at Timaru, April , TO , /. Norman, Report to Tourist Development Committee, September , TO , /. AJHR, , H-, pp.–; TEAL, ‘News and Views’, March , TO , /; Coupland to Schmitt, May, Inglis to Schmitt, May , TO , /, pt.. AJHR, , H-, p..
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The Cinderella of Industries, – Detective Sergeant R.S. Smith, interim report, August , TO , /. Smith, interim report; Greymouth Evening Star, Dominion, August . Greymouth Evening Star, August ; Stephens to Marshall, August , TO , /. Christchurch Press, June ; typescript, ‘Special Glacier Excursions’ [March ], TO , /, pt.. Brooks to Marshall, February ; Schmitt to Manager, Glacier Hotel, November , TO , /, pt.. Marshall to Min. of Tourism and Publicity, August , TO , /. Schmitt to Parry, March ; Schmitt, Hutchings and Hope to Parry, September , TO , /, pt.. Schmitt to Secretary to Treasury, August , TO , /; Fox to Schmitt, March , TO , /. Schmitt to Parry, , February , TO /; Dennis to Schmitt, October , TO , /; Rotorua Post, April . Auckland Star, May . Schmitt to Engineer-in-Chief, January ; Chief Designing Engineer to Engineer-in-Chief, December , TO , /. Dennis to Schmitt, August , TO , /. NZ Observer, May . NZH, April , January . Beale to Schmitt, February ; Fox to Schmitt, December , TO , . For example, Hopkins to Schmitt, January , TO , //. Pearce, pp., –. N.C. Berndston to Marshall, April , TO , /, pt.. ODT, April . Fussell, in ‘Report of the Proceedings of the New Zealand National Tourist Conference’ (NTC), – March , p.; Doidge, opening speech to NTC, p., TO , /. Marshall to Migrom, April , TO , //. Ashwin, in ‘Report’, p.; Fussell, in ‘Report’, p., TO , / , pt.. Ashwin, in ‘Report’, p., , TO , /, pt.. Doidge, speech, p.; Champtaloup, speech to NTC, p., TO , /, pt.. See Belich, Paradise Reforged, pp.–, . Doidge, speech, p.; F. Young, in ‘Report’, p.; Champtaloup, speech, p., TO , /, pt.. Champtaloup, speech, p., TO , /, pt.. A. Thompson, speech to NTC, pp.–, TO , /, pt.. W.S. MacGibbon, speech to NTC, p., TO , /, pt.; Licensed Victuallers Association to Watts, October , TO , /, pt.. Young, in ‘Report’, p.; Thompson, speech, p., TO , /, pt.; Monique Brocx, interview with author, August . Young, in ‘Report’, p.; MacGibbon in ‘Report’, p., TO , /, pt.. Young, in ‘Report’, pp.–; J. Newman, in ‘Report’, p.; Doidge, speech, p., TO , /, pt.. Young, in ‘Report’, pp.–, TO , /, pt.. W. Perry, in ‘Report’, p.; Thompson, speech, p., TO ,
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/, pt.; Neville Lobb, interview with author, November . Gifford to Macdonald, MP, April ; Hill to Acting General Manager, June , TO , //. Champtaloup, speech, p., TO , /, pt.; Johnston to Doidge, March , TO , //. Champtaloup, speech, pp., ; Swift to Houston, July , TO , /, pt.. See also Eric Linklater, ‘A Year in Space: a chapter in Autobiography’, in Jonathan Eisen and Katherine Joyce Smith, (eds), Strangers in Paradise, Vintage NZ, Auckland, , p.. ‘Customs and Immigration Requirements’, February , TO , /, pt.. Doidge, speech, p., TO , /, pt.. Fussell, Report, p., TO , /, pt.. Queenstown Borough Citizens to Heenan, March , TO , /. Herbert to Schmitt, March , February , TO , /. Doidge to Moffat, ODT, [April ]; to Macdonald, , July , TO , /. Marshall to Macdonald, July , TO , /. Harvey to McConachie, May , TO , //, pt.. Ashwin to Min. Finance, April , TO , //, pt.. NZH, July, August ; Lobb, interview. Press cuttings, , TO , /. Hartstonge to Sir Edwin and Lady Plowden, July , /, pt.; Southland Times, June ; Auckland Star, December ; ODT, December . Berndtson to Schmitt, December , TO , /, pt.; Marshall to Benton, May , TO , /, pt.. Marshall to Min. T & P, January, May , TO , /, pt.. Treasury to Min. Finance, April ; Sullivan to Halstead, September , TO , /, pt.. AJHR, , H-, p.. AJHR, , H-, p.. Cabinet Committee on Economic and Financial Policy, summary of Treasury Economic Survey, December ; Wood, notes, February ; Greensmith, meeting of Cabinet Committee on Economic and Financial Policy, February , TO , /. Eyre to Watts, August ; Marshall to Eyre, August ; Cabinet Committee on Economic and Financial Policy, summary of Tourist Department Report, December , TO , /. NZH, September ; ‘Tourist Policy’, February , TO , /. Lobb, interview; minutes of inaugural meeting, NZ Travel Association, March , TIANZ. See NZPD, , vol. , pp., ; Lobb, interview. NZPD, , vol., pp., , , . AJHR, , H-, p.. Tourist and Publicity les held by Security Intelligence Service. AJHR, , H–, p.; , H-, pp.–. Lobb, interview. AJHR, , H-, pp.–. Robinson to Longmore, November , TO , /, pt..
Robinson to Longmore, November , TO , /, pt.. AJHR, , H-, p.. AJHR, , H-, pp.–. AJHR, , H-, pp.–. Lawrence Dennis, interview with Malcolm McKinnon, July , Tape , Side A. ‘Managerial Communique’, January , TO , /, pt.; Lobb, interview. Lawrence Dennis, interview with Malcolm McKinnon, July , Tape , Side A. AJHR, , H-, p.. Central Hawkes Bay Press, September . AJHR, , H-, p.. AJHR, , H-, p.; Dennis, interview, July , Tape , Side B. Milford Report, January , pp.–, TO , /, pt.. Halstead to Halligan, March , TO , /. For example, Mason to Eyre, October ; Cockburn to Mathison, January ; Queenstown Borough Council to Mathison, July ; Salmon to Mathison, October , TO , //. Colbeck, ‘Report on South Island’, December ; minutes, THC directors’ meeting, – July , TO , / , pt.. NZH, April ; P. Graham to Mathison, April ; Rowe to General Manager, November ; Marshall to General Manager, June , TO , /, pt.. Colbeck to Shand, March , TO , /, pt.. THC, submissions by directors to Ministers of Tourism and Finance, ; Barker to Nordmeyer, January , TO , /, pt.. Diary note, May , p., TO , /. Harry G. Clement, The Future of Tourism in the Pacic and Far East, US Dept of Commerce, Washington, , p.. Clement, pp.–. Clement, pp., , , –.
The Jet Age, – Los Angeles Herald Examiner, August ; San Francisco Sunday Examiner and Chronicle, January . Neil Rennie, Conquering Isolation: The First Years of Air New Zealand, Heinemann Reed, Auckland, , p.. Keith Amies, personal communication, April ; Rennie, p.. Auckland Star, March . For the long saga of raising funds for Mangere Airport, see Martyn Thompson and Alice Clements, Where New Zealand Touches the World: From Farm Paddock to South Pacic Hub: A History of Auckland International Airport, Pearson Longman, Auckland, . Rennie, p.; NZH, , March ; Auckland Star, , March . Odell to Eyre, July , TO , //, pt.. Campbell to Beckett, Mt Cook and Southern Lakes Tourist Company, July , TO , //. Campbell to Director, Tourist Division, T&P, January ; Austin to Wellington Manager, BOAC, September , TO , //. Buck Buchwach, Los Angeles Herald Examiner, January ;
Wall to Odell, January , TO , //. San Francisco Sunday Examiner and Chronicle, January . Christchurch Star, August . By , the number of Australians would have doubled in four years. Myles to Odell, October , TO , /, pt.. Rae, Secretary for Civil Aviation, to Min. Civil Aviation, November , TO , /, pt.. Director, Tourist Division, to Travel Commissioner, London, July , TO , /, pt.. Gouffe to Odell, , , December , TO , /, pt.. R.S. Austin to W.F. Bern, July , TO , /, pt.. AJHR, H-, , p.; , p.. See departmental circulars [], TO , /, pt.; Anthony Sturrock, interview with author, July . See Belich, Paradise Reforged, p.. Rennie, p.; AJHR, , H-, p.; The Travel Agent, [], p., TO , /, pt.. Rennie, pp.–, . AJHR, , H-, pp., . AJHR, , G-, p.. AJHR, , G-, p.. Neville Lobb, interview with author, November , Tape , Side B. Neil Plimmer, interview with author, June , Tape , Side A; National Development Conference, ‘Report on Tourism’, May , p.. Minutes, Tourist Accommodation Development Committee, February , April , March , TO , //, pt.. AJHR, , H-, p.. Press release, [], TO , //. Auckland Star, ctober . See Johnston, p.. Auckland Star, May, September ; Bern to District Manager, Auckland, February , TO , //. Press clipping, [March ], TO , //, pt.. Penno to Schmitt, October ; Nini Rangimawhiti Naera, testimonial, September , TO , /, pt.; Dansey to Langstone, December , TO , /. Ngahuia Te Awekotuku, Mana Wahine Maori: Selected Writings on Maori Women’s Art, Culture and Politics, New Women’s Press, Auckland, , p.. Rotorua Chamber of Commerce to Marshall, []; Wishart to Colbeck, January , //, pt.; Mrs Cotterell to Rotorua Chamber of Commerce, [March ], TO , /, pt.. Penno to Marshall, March , TO , /, pt.. Stevens to guides, []; Gouffe to district managers and copies to travel commissioners, Sydney, Melbourne, London, San Francisco, New York, December ; Stevens to General Manager, February, September , TO , /, pt.. Auckland Star, June ; Stevens to District Manager, Wellington, June ; Hill to Marshall, December ; Hunn to Longmore, April , TO , /, pt.; Te Awekotuku, Mana Wahine Maori, p.. Bern to District Manager, Auckland, February , TO , //; NZH, , June . Truth, Rotorua Daily Post, September .
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Robinson to District Manager, Rotorua, August , TO , /. Eyre, NZPD, , vol. , p.. Notes, ‘Proposed Maori Arts and Crafts Institute’, [August ], TO , //, pt.. Eruera Tirikatene, NZPD, , vol., pp., , . See also Rata, p., Omana, pp.–; Inglis to Lapwood, October , TO , //, pt.. Stevens to Odell, September , TO , //, pt.. Leonard, ‘Proposals of the R.M.A.C.I. to Take Effect Immediately’, [March ], TO , //, pt.. Maori Arts and Crafts Institute (MACI), Director’s Report, August , p., TO , //, pt.. Dansey, press statement, [August ], TO , //, pt.. See King, p.. Bell to Hanan, January, July, October , TO , //, pt.; Wardle to Eyre, January ; Eyre to Bell, October , TO , //, pt.. Hanan to Eyre, January , TO , //, pt.. Eyre to Bell, October , TO , //, pt.. MACI, First Report, , p. (comments were crossed out); Northcroft to Leonard, June ; MACI board minutes, May , TO , //, pt.. Kelsey to Penno, February , TO , /, pt.; ‘Guide Conditions’, [], TO , //, pt.. Kiwi House to Lapwood, September ; Inglis to Lapwood, October ; Eyre to Lapwood, October , TO , //, pt.; press release, August , TO , //, pt.. R. Te T. Kingi, Testimonial, [February ], TO , //, pt.. Notes prepared for South Pacic Bulletin, November , TO W, //, pt.. MACI board minutes, February , TO W, //, pt.. Waaka to Newcomb, February , TO , //, pt.. MACI board minutes, TO W, //, pt.. Linton, report on interview with Taiapa, December , TO W, //, pt.. AJHR, , E-, p.; Schuster, report, November , TO W, //, pt.. MACI, Director’s Report, February , TO , //, pt.; Walker to Hartstonge, February , TO W, //, pt.; Bimler to Hartstonge, February ; Rooke to Hartstonge, March , TO W, //, pt.; Linton to Hartstonge, July , TO W, //, pt.; MACI, Director’s Report, July, December , TO W, // , pt.; MACI board minutes, November , TO W, //, pt.; McEwen to Min. Maori Affairs, May , TO W, //, pt.. Hartstonge to Linton, Rooke to Hartstonge, July , TO W, //, pt.. MACI board minutes, February , TO W, //, pt.. Waaka, ‘Report on Nocturnal Kiwi Houses’, June ; MACI board minutes, August , TO W, //, pt.. MACI, Director’s Report, September , TO W, // , pt.. AJHR, , G-, p.; , E-, pp., (gures for are
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February to December only); press cutting, [], TO W, //, pt.. Te Awekotuku, pp.–. Te Awekotuku, Mana Wahine Maori, pp., –. Waaka, ‘Whakarewarewa: The Growth of a Maori Village’, MA thesis, Auckland, , p.. David Thomson, cited in MACI, Director’s Report, July , TO W, //, pt.; Waaka in NZH, July . On Maori housing, see Bronwyn Labrum, ‘Bringing Families up to Scratch: The Distinctive Workings of Maori State Welfare, –’, NZJH, vol., no., October , p.. Waaka, ‘Whakarewarewa’, p.. Linton to Hartstonge, June , TO W, //, pt.. I am grateful to Anne-Marie d’Hauteserre, whose discussion of French Polynesia helped me to dene these issues. See Walker, Chapter ; King, Chapter . NZ Truth, October . Waaka, ‘Whakarewarewa’, pp.–; AJHR, , E-, p.. Muldoon, Document , p., conference papers, TO W, //, pt.. Tourism Sector Report, pp.–, , TO W, //, pt.. Accommodation Working Party Report, pp.–; Document , p., conference papers, TO W, //, pt.. Address, March ; Document , pp., , conference papers, TO W, //, pt.. Tourism Sector Report, pp.–, TO W, //, pt.. Document , p., conference papers, TO W, //, pt.. Tourism Sector Report, p., TO W, //, pt.. Document , pp.–, conference papers, TO W, //, pt.. Tourism Sector Report, pp.–, TO W, //, pt.; McBean to Austin, January , TO W, //, pt.. Rotorua Daily Post, April ; Mavis Bowen, interview with author, May . Tourist Facilities Development Proposal, [September ]; Davies to Min. for State Advances, December , TO W, ///. Bowen, notes, March ; Bowen to Tirikatene-Sullivan, July , TO W, ///. Bates, Document , pp.–, conference papers, TO W, //, pt.. Whyte to District Manager, Dunedin, August ; Clear, Report on Information Section, October ; NZ Pavilion press release [August ]; notes for Question and Answer in the House [August ], TO W, //, pt.. Brant, Expo Report on Tourism, October , p., TO W, //, pt.. Lynch, Japan monthly report, March , pp., , TO W, /; Brant, p.. Japan monthly report, March , p., April , p.. Japan monthly report, April , p., October and November , p.; Japan Times, April . Japan monthly report, March , p., April , pp., –. Japan monthly report, October/November , p.. Duncan, Tourist Promotion Report, September , January , TO W, /. Notes on second meeting of the th Anniversary Coordinating Committee, April ; Hartstonge to Manager,
National Film Unit, July , TO W, //, pt.. Japan monthly report, January , p., TO W, /. An Island Unto Itself, – Belich uses the term ‘revolution’ for both these trends; see Paradise Reforged, pp., . Dennis to Hartstonge, January , TO W, /, pt.. Henderson to Commissioner of Works, February , TO W, /, pt.. See Richard White, ‘ “Are You an Environmentalist or Do You Work For a Living?”: Work and Nature’, in William Cronon (ed.), Uncommon Ground: Toward Reinventing Nature, Norton and Co., New York, , pp.–. Gianolla to Colbeck, July ; Woolcott to Colbeck, ‘Report on Conict Between Hotel Staff and Fishermen’, July ; Russell, ‘Views on Certain Matters Relating to Milford Sound’, February , TO W, /, pt.. J.S. Campbell, Manager, Fishing Industry Board, to Cook, Alsweiler and others, May , TO W, /, pt.; Office of Min. Transport, memorandum for Cabinet, April , TO W, /, pt.; Russell, ‘Views on Certain Matters’, February ; Colbeck to Sec. Marine, April ; Colbeck to Select Committee Investigating the Fishing Industry, October , TO W, /, pt.. Meeting notes, February , TO W, /, pt.; ‘Draft Plan for Future Developments of the THC Property at Milford’, [September ], TO W, /, pt.; Arthur, memorandum to Cabinet, April , TO W, /, pt.. B.T. Chapman, ‘Parks, People and Preservation: An Analysis of Recreational Pressure in the Milford Area, Fiordland’, BA (Hons) dissertation, Otago, , p.. Brown, ‘Officials Committee on Milford Sound Fishing Fleet Facilities’, June , TO W, /, pt.; Arthur, memorandum to Cabinet, April , TO W, /, pt.. Wilson Campbell to Eyre, April , TO W, /, pt.. Odell and Coxhead to Acting Chairman, THC, September , TO W, /, pt.. Les Hutchins, Making Waves, L. Hutchins, Queenstown, c., p.. Satterthwaite to Cox, April , TO W, /, pt.; Hutchins, pp.–, , , ff. McBean, report, February , TO W, /, pt.. For a full account of this ‘Milford Odyssey’, see Hutchins, Chapter . Coxhead and Odell, draft notes, [ September ], TO W, /, pt.. National Parks Authority visit to Fiordland National Park (FNP), February ; ‘Notes on Foreshore Problems in the Western Sounds Area of FNP for Authority Meeting’, July , TO W, //, vol.. R.J. MacLachlan, citing Lyndon B. Johnson, submission on Mining Bill, February , TO W, //, vol.. ‘Milford Sound Environmental Planning Report’, (adopted ); minutes, meeting of Fiordland National Park Board (FNPB) and THC, December ; McBean to Hartstonge, February , TO W, /, pt.. Kelsey, comments on Milford Sound Environmental Planning Report No., January , TO W, /, pt..
THC, ‘Environmental Assessment: Milford Sound Low Tariff Accommodation’, ; THC comments after FNPB meeting, May ; meeting between THC and FNPB, May ; Young to Coad, July , TO W, //, vol.. Wilson Campbell to Min. Lands, April , AAAC , W, PDR . Hayman to Commissioner of Crown Lands, May , AAAC , W, PDR ; National Parks Act , sec. ()(e). Johnston to Queenin, April , AAAC , W, ADM . Belich, Paradise Reforged, p.. Michael Bassett, personal communication, July . Hayman to Commissioner of Crown Lands, May , AAAC W, PDR ; Forest and Bird, November , pp.–. Press statement, July . Ministry of Works and Development, ‘Milford Sound Development, Stage One: Investigations and Design’, , pp.–, , –, . Murray-North, ‘Milford Sound Fiordland National Park Development: Options Report’, , pp., , –, , . MDA Ltd and DOC, memorandum of understanding, October , AAAC , W, /. Roger Wilson to NZTB, November , BD ///, pt., Ministry of Tourism. MDA Ltd. Development Prole, [], BD ///, pt., Ministry of Tourism. Milford Sound Development Consortium, ‘Milford Sound Development Environmental Impact Assessment’, , p.. Plimmer to Banks, January ; Fraser to Roger Wilson, November , BD ///, pt., Ministry of Tourism. AJHR, G-, , pp., ; , p.. Monique Brocx, interview with author, August . Sean Murray, interview with author , September ; Richard Bollard, interview with author, September ; AJHR, G-, , p.; , p.. Bollard, interview; AJHR, , G-, p.. AJHR, G-, , pp.–; , pp.–. See Alan Collier, Principles of Tourism: A New Zealand Perspective, th edn, Longman, Auckland, , pp.–. For publicity incentives, see AJHR, , G-, p.. Hoy to Moore, October, December , AAAC , W, PDR , pt.; NZH, May . Hospitality, April , pp.–; Hoy, ‘THC Letter’, June ; Kazuo Ohtake, interview with author, August . Ohtake, interview. Ohtake, interview. AJHR, , G-, p.; Moore, notes for speech to New Plymouth Chamber of Commerce, February , AAAC , W, ADM . For example, Gates to Staniford, March ; Thomas to Staniford, AAAC , W, ADM . For example, Alabaster to Brooks, November , AAAC , W, ADM . Aim to Brooks, April ; Peter to Brooks, April . For the full range of responses, see ‘Summary of Issues Raised’, [], AAAC , W, ADM .
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Garrett, interview; ‘Domestic Tourism Review’, August , AAAC , W, /, pt.. See Belich, Paradise Reforged, pp., . Douglas G. Pearce, ‘Tourism, the Regions and Restructuring in New Zealand’, Journal of Tourism Studies, vol., no., November , p.. Neil Plimmer, ‘New Zealand Tourism and the New Zealand Tourist and Publicity Department –’, , pp.–; Harris to Hurst, March ; Harris to Hayman, February , AAAC , W, ADM ; Wikiriwhi in Daily Post, December . G.V. Butterworth and R.W.N. Smith, Maori Tourism Task Force Report, The Maori Tourism Task Force, Wellington, . Collier, pp., . Keith Johnston, interview with author, September ; John H. Cossens, ‘Positioning a Tourist Destination: Queenstown, a Branded Destination?’, MCom thesis, Otago, , p.. Winkel to Goff, April , AAAC , W, /. THC board minutes, April, May , AAAC , W, PDR ; Southland Times, April ; AJHR, , B-, p.. ODT cartoon, reproduced in Tourist Marketing Strategy Group, Destination New Zealand: A Growth Strategy for New Zealand Tourism, Corporate Design & Graphics, Auckland, , p.. Belich, Paradise Reforged, p.. Brocx, Jeal, interviews. ‘Report of the “Taskforce ”: A Report to the Minister’, October , p.; Dominion, November ; Plimmer to Min. Tourism, November , AAAC , /, pt.. Paper, February , AAAC , /, pt.. Fran Wilde, ‘The Role of the New Zealand Tourist and Publicity Department Following the Sale of the Business Units’, [February ], AAAC , /, pt.. Plimmer, interview, Tape , Side . Sunday Star, June ; Scott to Banks, [ November ]; NZTIF, ‘Tourism NZ’, November , AAAC , /, pt.. Notes on ‘Tourism Today: The Issues’, and speech notes, December , AAAC , /, pt.. Tourist Dept, ‘Presentation to “Board” Committee’, February , AAAC , /, pt.. ‘Presentation to “Board” Committee’, paper (d). Banks, speech to Forum on Implementation of Government’s Tourism Policy, [March ], AAAC , /, pt.. For example, R. Prebble, NZPD, , vol., p.; F. Wilde, , vol., p.. For fears of Air New Zealand’s domination, see also Trans Tasman, November . New Zealand Tourism Board Act , sec. (a), (b). Extreme New Zealand, – Gerry McSweeney, NZ Listener, March , p.. Alison Dench, Extreme NZ: A Thrillseeker’s Guide, New Holland Publishers, Auckland, , pp.–; Tourism New Zealand, TNZ, Wellington, , p.; Davidson and Spearritt, p..
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Claudia Bell and John Lyall, The Accelerated Sublime: Landscape, Tourism and Identity, Praeger, Westport, Connecticut, , p.xii. Bell and Lyall, pp.xiii, . Shotover Jet brochure, quoted by Paul Cloke and Harvey C. Perkins in ‘ “Cracking the Canyon with the Awesome Foursome”: Representations of Adventure Tourism in New Zealand’, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, vol., , p.. Cloke and Perkins, pp.–; Jon Bridges and David Downs, No Wire: The Best of Kiwi Ingenuity, Hodder Moa Beckett, Auckland, , p.; Dench, pp.–; Alan Collier, Principles of Tourism: A New Zealand Perspective, th edn, Longman, Auckland, , p.. Bridges and Downs, pp.–; A.J. Bungy New Zealand, ‘Company Prole’, www. ajhackett.co.nz. Dench, pp., ; Hackett, ‘Company Prole’. Cloke and Perkins, p.. Cloke and Perkins, pp.–. See Rothman. Des Snelling, cited in APEC, ‘Bigger than Moby Dick: Whale Watch Kaikoura’, in Tourism Environmental Best Practice in APEC Member Economies, APEC, Singapore, , p.. APEC, p.. APEC, p.. Tourism New Zealand News, March , p.. John R. Fairweather, Simon R. Swaffield and David G. Simmons, ‘Kaikoura Case Study, Report No.: Understanding Visitors’ Experiences in Kaikoura Using Photographs of Landscapes and Q Method’, Tourism Research and Education Centre, Lincoln University, , pp., , , , . APEC, p.. David G. Simmons and John R. Fairweather, ‘Kaikoura Case Study, Report No.: Towards a Tourism Plan for Kaikoura’, Tourism Research and Education Centre, Lincoln University, , pp., , . Stone, interview. Simmonds and Fairweather, pp.–. See Michael J. Hatton, Community Based Tourism in the AsiaPacic, Humber College School of Media Studies, Toronto, , p.. Rod Barnett, ‘The Landscape of Simulation: Whakarewarewa Thermal Reserve’, unpublished conference paper. For the American equivalent, see Chris Wilson, The Myth of Santa Fe: Creating a Model Regional Tradition, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, , p., and Cronon (ed.), p.. Norman Geary, interview with author, October . Paul Winter, Monique Brocx, Sean Murray, Valerie Jeal, Fran Wilde, interviews with author, , August, , , September . Winter, interview; Nigel Morgan, Annette Pritchard and Rachel Piggott, ‘Destination Branding and the Role of the Stakeholders: The Case of New Zealand’, Journal of Vacation Marketing, vol., no., , pp.–. Geary, interview; AJHR, , G-, pp.–; , G-, p.. AJHR, , G-, pp., ; Margaret Belich, ‘Work and Crisis on a National Tourism Project: The New Zealand Tourism Board –’, MCom thesis, Auckland, , pp.–.
Bruce Bassett, interview with author, July ; Neil Plimmer, ‘Background Notes: Relationship between Tourism Board and Ministry of Tourism’, August , BD // /. See also Chloe Munro, John Kyne and Neil Plimmer, ‘Report of the Review of the Functions of the Ministry of Tourism’, November , BD ///. Report of the Commerce Committee, ‘Inquiry into the NZ Tourism Board’, AJHR, , I-B, pp.–. Murray, interview. Shotover Jets, Annual Report, , p.. Murray, interview. Minutes of special meeting, Tourism Board, October , Board papers. See M. Belich, pp.–. Ian MacFarlane, interview with author, September ; Tourism Board minutes, November , Board papers. See also Christine Smith and Paul Jenner, ‘The Impact of Festivals and Special Events on Tourism’, Travel and Tourism Analyst, no., , pp.–. Tourism Board minutes, August ; Tourism Board to McCully, addendum papers, September , Board papers; Controller and Auditor-General, ‘New Zealand Tourism Board Inquiry’, April , para., –, www.oag.govt.nz. NZTB media release, July , Board papers. Tourism Board minutes, special meetings, October, November ; Anders, Report to Board, October ; CEO, Report to Board, November , Board papers.
Auditor-General, para., , , . Macfarlane, interview. Quoted in Morgan, Pritchard and Piggott, p.. Macfarlane, interview. CEO, Report to Board, August , Board papers. Morgan, Pritchard, Piggott, p.. Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, ‘Management of the Environmental Effects Associated with the Tourism Sector’, Wellington, November , p.. ‘Management of Environmental Effects’, pp.–, A–. ‘Management of Environmental Effects’, pp.–. Joan Giannecchini, ‘Ecotourism: New Partners, New Relationships’, Conservation Biology, vol. , no. , June , p.. Stephen J. Page and Kaye Thorn, ‘Towards Sustainable Tourism Development and Planning in New Zealand: The Public Sector Response Revisited’, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, vol., no., , p.. NZH, November ; Ministry of Tourism, ‘Towards : Implementing the New Zealand Tourism Strategy’, Wellington, , p.; www.stats.govt.nz. NZH, March , May ; Guardian Weekly, – July ; Inside Tourism, October , p.. Sean Murray, ‘A Potted History of the Helicopter Line to Tourism Holdings Ltd’, p.; also interview with Keith Johnston, September . Discussion at Tourism NZ Board meeting, September . Bell and Lyall, p..
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THESES AND RESEARCH ESSAYS Belich, Margaret, ‘Work and Crisis on a National Tourism Project: The New Zealand Tourism Board –’, MCom thesis, Auckland, Chapman, B.T., ‘Parks, People and Preservation: An Analysis of Recreational Pressure in the Milford Area, Fiordland’, BA (Hons) dissertation, Otago, Cossens, John H., ‘Positioning a Tourist Destination: Queenstown, a Branded Destination?’, MCom thesis, Otago, Fry, Margot, ‘A Servant of Many Masters: A History of the National Film Unit of New Zealand –’, MA thesis, Victoria, Galbraith, Philippa, ‘Colonials in Wonderland: The Colonial Construction of Rotorua as a Fantasy Space’, MA thesis, Auckland, Harris, W.W., ‘Three Parks: An Analysis of the Origins and Evolution of the New Zealand National Park Movement’, MA thesis, Canterbury, Johnston, Ewan, ‘Representing the Pacic at International Exhibitions –’, PhD thesis, Auckland, Moran, F.A., ‘The Role of the Government in the Development of the New Zealand Tourist Industry –’, MA thesis, Canterbury, Pearce, D.G., ‘Tourist Development at Mt Cook: Patterns and Processes since ’, MA thesis, Canterbury, Piggott, Rachel, ‘Building a Brand for a Country: Can Commercial Marketing Practices Achieve this in a Government-Funded Environment?’, MBA thesis, Hull, Reggett, R., ‘The Tarawera Eruption: Its Effects on the Tourist Industry’, MA thesis, Otago, Ross, Kirstie, ‘Signs of Landing: Pakeha Outdoor Recreation and the Cultural Colonisation of New Zealand’, MA thesis, Auckland, Taylor, John, ‘Consuming Identity: Modernity and Tourism in New Zealand’, MA thesis, Auckland, Te Awekotuku, Ngahuia, ‘The Sociocultural Impact of Tourism on the Te Arawa People of Rotorua, New Zealand’, PhD thesis, Waikato, Waaka, Peter Kuru Stanley, ‘Whakarewarewa: The Growth of a Maori Village’, MA thesis, Auckland, Waterson, D.B., ‘Railways and Politics, –: A Study in the Politics of Development in a Twentieth Century Social Democracy’, MA thesis, Auckland,
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INTERVIEWS (WITH AUTHOR UNLESS INDICATED) Bruce Bassett, Wellington, July Richard Bollard, Wellington, September Mavis Bowen, Auckland, May Paul Bowen, Rotorua, October Monique Brocx, Auckland, August Ross Corbett, Wellington, October Lawrence Dennis, interviewed by Malcolm McKinnon, , July Simon Douglas, Wellington, July Norman Geary, Auckland, October Peter Gee, Auckland, September George Hickton, Auckland, September Tim Hunter, Wellington, August Valerie Jeal, Wellington, September Keith Johnston, Auckland, September Neville Lobb, Auckland, November Ian Macfarlane, Auckland, September Sean Murray, Auckland, September Kazuo Ohtake, Wellington, August Neil Plimmer, Wellington, June Wally Stone, Kaikoura, October Anthony Sturrock, Wellington, July Mike Tamaki, Rotorua, October Andrew Te Whaiti, Rotorua, October Fran Wilde, Wellington, September Gill Wilson, Auckland, September Paul Winter, Wellington, August
PUBLISHED OFFICIAL PUBLICATIONS Appendix to the Journals of the House of Representatives (AJHR) New Zealand Parliamentary Debates (NZPD) New Zealand Official Yearbook (NZOYB) Statutes of New Zealand BOOKS, REPORTS AND PAMPHLETS Adams, Grace, Jack’s Hut, Reed, Wellington, Aron, Cindy S., Working at Play: A History of Vacations in the United States, OUP, New York, Barnett, Stephen, and Richard Wolfe, At the Beach: The Great New Zealand Holiday, Hodder & Stoughton, Auckland, Bassett, Michael, Sir Joseph Ward: A Political Biography, AUP, Auckland, Bassett, Michael, The State in New Zealand –: Socialism Without Doctrines?, AUP, Auckland, Baughan, B.E., Glimpses of New Zealand Scenery, Whitcombe & Tombs, Auckland, [] Belich, James, Making Peoples: A History of the New Zealanders from Polynesian Settlement to the End of the Nineteenth Century, Penguin, Auckland, Belich, James, Paradise Reforged: A History of the New Zealanders from the s to the Year , Penguin, Auckland, Bell, Claudia, Inventing New Zealand: Everyday Myths of Pakeha Identity, Penguin, Auckland, Bell, Claudia, and John Lyall, The Accelerated Sublime: Landscape, Tourism and Identity, Praeger, Westport, Connecticut, Bell, Leonard, Colonial Constructs: European Images of Maori –, AUP, Auckland, Bowen, Godfrey, New Zealand and Its Sheep, np, Levin, Bracken, Thomas, The New Zealand Tourist, Union Steam Ship Co., Dunedin,
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Bridges, Jon, and David Downs, No Wire: The Best of Kiwi Ingenuity, Hodder Moa Beckett, Auckland, Brien, Bill, Years of Hospitality in New Zealand: The People, the Politics, the Passion, –, Wellington Museums Trust & Hospitality Association of NZ, Wellington, Buckley, Joyce, Aorangi the Cloud Piercer: A Trip to the Hermitage Easter , Timaru Press, Timaru, Burkart, A.J., and S. Medlik, Tourism Past, Present and Future, Heinemann, London, Burrow, J., and Co. Ltd, British Spas and Health Resorts, London, Butterworth, G.V., and R.W.N. Smith, The Maori Tourism Task Force Report, The Task Force, Wellington, Churchman, Geoffrey B., Celluloid Dreams: A Century of Film in New Zealand, IPL Books, Wellington, Clement, Harry G., The Future of Tourism in the Pacic and Far East (a report prepared by Checchi and Co. under contract with the US Department of Commerce and co-sponsored by the Pacic Area Travel Association), US Dept of Commerce, Washington DC, Collier, Alan, Principles of Tourism: A New Zealand Perspective, th edn, Longman, Auckland, Conly, Geoff, Tarawera: The Destruction of the Pink and White Terraces, Grantham House, Wellington, Cook, Thomas, and Son, New Zealand as a Tourist and Health Resort, Thos Cook & Son, Auckland, Cosmos Publications, The Chateau, Napier, Cowan, James, New Zealand, or Aotearoa: Its Wealth and Resources, Scenery, Travel-Routes, Spas, and Sport, Department of Tourist and Health Resorts, Wellington, Cowan, James, Romance of the Rail through the Heart of New Zealand, Government Printer, Wellington, Cowan, James, The Tongariro National Park, New Zealand: Its Topography, Geology, Alpine and Volcanic Features, History and Maori Folklore, Tongariro National Park Board, Wellington, Cronon, William (ed.), Uncommon Ground: Toward Reinventing Nature, W.W. Norton & Co., New York, Dalley, Bronwyn, Living in the th Century: New Zealand History in Photographs, –, Bridget Williams Books & Craig Potton Publishing, in association with Ministry for Culture & Heritage, Wellington, Davidson, Jim, and Peter Spearritt, Holiday Business: Tourism in Australia Since , Miegunyah Press at Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, Dench, Alison, Extreme NZ: A Thrillseeker’s Guide, New Holland Publishers, Auckland, Dennan, Rangitiaria, with Ross Annabell, Guide Rangi of Rotorua, Whitcombe & Tombs, Christchurch, Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, vol., Allen and Unwin/Department of Internal Affairs, Wellington, , vols , , Bridget Williams Books/Department of Internal Affairs, , Donne, T.E., The Game Animals of New Zealand: An Account of Their Introduction, Acclimatization, and Development, Murray, London, Dow, Derek A., Safeguarding the Public Health: A History of the New Zealand Department of Health, Victoria University Press, Wellington, Dubinsky, Karen, The Second Greatest Disappointment: Honeymooning and Tourism at Niagara Falls, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, du Faur, Freda, The Conquest of Mount Cook and Other Climbs: An Account of Four Seasons’ Mountaineering on the Southern Alps of New Zealand, George Allen & Unwin, London, Ebbett, Eve, When the Boys Were Away: New Zealand Women in World War II, Reed, Wellington, Eisen, Jonathan, and Katherine Joyce Smith, Strangers in Paradise, Vintage New Zealand, Auckland, Esler, A.E. (ed.), Tongariro National Park Handbook, Tongariro National Park Board, Wellington, Ewing, Ross, and Ross Macpherson, The History of New Zealand Aviation, Heinemann, Auckland, Federation of British Spas, British Spas and Health Resorts (with a Chapter on The Spas of New Zealand), J. Burrow, London, Fowlds, George, Holiday Accommodation in New Zealand, Eden Gazette Print, Auckland, Froude, James Anthony, Oceana, or England and Her Colonies, Longmans, London, Galbreath, Ross, Working for Wildlife: A History of the New Zealand Wildlife Service, Bridget Williams Books & Historical Branch, Dept of Internal Affairs, Wellington, Gordon Cumming, C.F., At Home in Fiji, William Blackwood and Sons, London, Graham, Peter (ed. H.B. Hewitt), Peter Graham, Mountain Guide: An Autobiography, A.H. & A.W.
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Reed, Wellington, Grey, Zane, Tales of the Angler’s Eldorado, New Zealand, Hodder & Stoughton, London, Hall, C. Michael, Tourism in the Pacic Rim: Developments, Impacts and Markets, nd edn, Longman, South Melbourne, Hall, C. Michael, and Geoff Kearsley, Tourism in New Zealand, OUP, Melbourne, Hall-Jones, John, Milford Sound: An Illustrated History of the Sound, the Track and the Road, Craig Printing Co., Invercargill, Hamilton, Augustus, Maori Art, New Zealand Institute, Wellington, Harding, Paul, Carolyn Bain and Neal Bedford, New Zealand, th edn, Lonely Planet, Footscray, Harris, George, and Graeme Hasler, A Land Apart: The Mount Cook Alpine Region, Reed, Wellington, Hatton, Michael J., Community Based Tourism in the Asia-Pacic, Humber College School of Media Studies, Toronto, Hawke, G.R., The Making of New Zealand: An Economic History, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, Haynes, John, Piercing the Clouds: Tom Fyfe, First to Climb Mt Cook, Hazard Press, Christchurch, Holmes, Noel, To Fly a Desk: Sir Geoffrey Roberts, Father of Air New Zealand, A.H. & A.W. Reed, Wellington, Hursthouse, Charles, New Zealand, or Zealandia, the Britain of the South, Edward Stanford, London, Hutchins, Les, Making Waves, L. Hutchins, Queenstown, c. Irwin, Sally, Between Heaven and Earth: The Life of a Mountaineer, Freda du Faur –, White Crane Press, Hawthorn, Keam, R.F. (ed.), Geothermal Systems: Energy, Tourism and Conservation (seminar proceedings, Nature Conservation Council and the Environmental Defence Society, Rotorua, – October ), Nature Conservation Council, [Auckland], Keam, R.F., Tarawera: The Volcanic Eruption of June , author, Auckland, King, John, Wings Over New Zealand: A Pictorial Chronicle of New Zealand Aviation, Saint Publishing Ltd, Auckland, King, Michael, The Penguin History of New Zealand, Penguin, Auckland, Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara, Destination Culture: Tourism, Museums and Heritage, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, Lange, Raeburn, May the People Live: A History of Maori Health Development, AUP, Auckland, Leitch, David, and Bob Stott, New Zealand Railways: The First Years, Heinemann Reed, Auckland, Lewis, David, and Darren Bridger, The Soul of the New Consumer, Nicholas Brealey, London, Lippard, Lucy R., On the Beaten Track: Tourism, Art, and Place, New Press, New York, Lloyd, P.J., The Economic Development of the Tourist Industry in New Zealand, New Zealand Institute of Economic Research, Wellington, Loughnan, R.A., Royalty in New Zealand: The Visit of Their Royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York to New Zealand, th to th June , A Descriptive Narrative, Government Printer, Wellington, Lowenthal, David, The Past Is a Foreign Country, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, McKinnon, Malcolm, Treasury: The New Zealand Treasury, –, AUP and Ministry for Culture & Heritage, Auckland, Makereti [Maggie Papakura, ed. T.K. Penniman], The Old-Time Maori, V. Gollancz, London, Malfroy, Camille, Geyser Action in New Zealand: A Paper Read before the Auckland Institute, Government Printer, Wellington, Marsh, Ngaio, Colour Scheme, Collins Fontana, Glasgow, Millar, J. Halket, with Graham Spencer, High Noon for Coaches –, rev. edn, A.H. & A.W. Reed, Mitchell, Austin, Pavlova Paradise Revisited: A Guide to the Strange but Endearing Land Where Kiwis Live, Penguin, Auckland, Molloy, Leslie (ed.), Wilderness Recreation in New Zealand, Federated Mountain Clubs, Wellington, Morgan, Nigel, Annette Pritchard and Roger Pride (eds), Destination Branding: Creating the Unique Destination Proposition, Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford, New Zealand Institute of Economic Research, Tourism in New Zealand, Te Rau Press, Gisborne, [] New Zealand Tourist and Publicity Department, Years of Tourism, Wellington,
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New Zealand Tourist and Publicity Department, New Zealand Centennial, –, Government Printer, Wellington, ‘The New Zealand Tourist Department: What It Is Doing for the Colony’ (reprinted from the Liberal Herald, October ), Wellington, Nicholls, J. Kerry, The King Country, or Explorations in New Zealand: A Narrative of Miles of Travel through Maoriland, Sampson, Low, Marston, Searle and Rivington, London, Nightingale, Tony, and Paul Dingwall, Our Picturesque Heritage: Years of Scenery Preservation in New Zealand, Department of Conservation, Wellington, Nolan, Iris, A Traveller Backtracks: New Zealand Motoring and Tramping s to s, Philip Garside Publishing, Wellington, Palethorpe, N.B., Official History of the New Zealand Centennial Exhibition Wellington –, New Zealand Centennial Exhibition Company Ltd, Wellington, Papakura, Maggie, Guide to the Hot Lakes District and Some Maori Legends, Brett, Auckland, Pascoe, John (ed.), National Parks of New Zealand, Government Printer, Wellington, Pawson, Eric, and Tom Brooking (eds), Environmental Histories of New Zealand, OUP, Melbourne, Pearce, Douglas, Tourism Development, Longman, Harlow, Pearce, Douglas, Tourist Organizations, Longman, New York, Penning-Rowsell, Edmund C., and David Lowenthal (eds), Landscape Meanings and Values, Allen and Unwin, London, Potton, Craig, Tongariro, A Sacred Gift: A Centennial Celebration of Tongariro National Park, Lansdowne Press and C. Potton, Auckland, Nelson, Reeves, William Pember, New Zealand, Adam & Charles Black, London, Rennie, Neil, Conquering Isolation: The First Years of Air New Zealand, Heinemann Reed, Auckland, Rockel, Ian, Taking the Waters: Early Spas in New Zealand, GP Publishing, Wellington, Rothman, Hal K., Devil’s Bargains: Tourism in the Twentieth-Century American West, University Press of Kansas, Kansas, Ryan, Chris (ed.), The Tourist Experience, Continuum, London, Sala, George Augustus, The Land of the Golden Fleece, Mulini Press, Canberra, Sax, Joseph L., Mountains Without Handrails: Reections on the National Parks, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, Schama, Simon, Landscape and Memory, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, Sears, John F., Sacred Places: American Tourist Attractions in the Nineteenth Century, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Sellars, Richard West, Preserving Nature in the National Parks: A History, Yale University Press, New Haven, Shaw, Peter, and Peter Hallett, Art Deco Napier: Styles of the Thirties, Craig Potton Publishing, Nelson, Stafford, D.M., The Founding Years of Rotorua: A History of Events to , Ray Richards Publishers and Rotorua District Council, Rotorua, Stafford, D.M., The New Century in Rotorua: A History of Events from , Ray Richards Publishers and Rotorua District Council, Rotorua, Stafford, D.M., Joan Boyd and Roger Steele (eds), Rotorua –, H.A. Holmes, Rotorua, Talbot, Thorpe, The New Guide to the Lakes and Hot Springs and A Month in Hot Water, Wilson & Horton, Auckland, Taylor, Eric, and James Cole, Volcanic New Zealand, OUP, Auckland, Te Awekotuku, Ngahuia, Mana Wahine Maori: Selected Writings on Maori Women’s Art, Culture and Politics, New Women’s Press, Auckland, Temple, Philip, Castles in the Air: Men and Mountains in New Zealand, John McIndoe, Dunedin, Templeton, Hugh, All Honourable Men: Inside the Muldoon Cabinet –, AUP, Auckland, The Chateau: Prospectus of the Tongariro Park Tourist Company, np, Thom, David, Heritage: The Parks of the People, Lansdowne Press, Auckland, Thompson, Martyn, and Alice Clements, Where New Zealand Touches the World: From Farm Paddock to South Pacic Hub: A History of Auckland International Airport, Pearson Longman, Auckland, Thomson, John Manseld (ed.), Farewell Colonialism: The New Zealand International Exhibition Christchurch, –, Dunmore Press, Palmerston North, Torgovnick, Marianna, Gone Primitive: Savage Intellects, Modern Lives, University of Chicago Press, Chicago,
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Tourism Strategic Marketing Group, Destination New Zealand: A Growth Strategy for New Zealand Tourism, Corporate Design & Graphics, Auckland, Trollope, Anthony, New Zealand, Chapman & Hall, London, Turner, Anthony, and John Ash, The Golden Hordes: International Tourism and the Pleasure Periphery, Constable, London, Twain, Mark, More Tramps Abroad, Chatto & Windus, London, Urry, John, The Tourist Gaze: Leisure and Travel in Contemporary Societies, Sage Publishers, London, Walker, Ranginui, Ka Whawhai Tonu Matou: Strule Without End, Penguin, Auckland, Warren, Julie A.N., and C. Nicholas Taylor, Developing Eco-Tourism in New Zealand, New Zealand Institute for Research & Development, Wellington, Watson, James, Links: A History of Transport and New Zealand Society, Ministry of Transport, Wellington, Wevers, Lydia, Country of Writing: Travel Writing and New Zealand –, AUP, Auckland, Wevers, Lydia (ed.), Travelling to New Zealand: An Oxford Anthology, OUP, Auckland, White, John, Ancient History of the Maori, His Mythology and Traditions, Government Printer, Wellington, – Wigley, Harry, The Mount Cook Way: The First Fifty Years of the Mount Cook Company, Collins, Auckland, Wigley, Harry, Ski-Plane Adventure: Flying in the New Zealand Alps, A.H. & A.W. Reed, Wellington, Williams, Karen, and Dave Bamford, Skiing on the Volcano: Historical Images of Skiing on Mount Ruapehu, Ruapehu Alpine Lifts & Tourism Research Consultants, Wellington, Wilson, Chris, The Myth of Santa Fe: Creating a Model Regional Tradition, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, Wrobel, David M., and Patrick T. Long (eds), Seeing and Being Seen: Tourism in the American West, University Press of Kansas, Kansas,
ARTICLES AND CHAPTERS APEC (Asia-Pacic Economic Co-operation), ‘Bigger than Moby Dick: Whale Watch Kaikoura’, Tourism Environmental Best Practice in APEC Member Economies, APEC, Singapore, , pp.– Ateljevic, Irena, and Stephen Doorne, ‘Representing New Zealand: Tourism Imagery and Ideology’, Annals of Tourism Research, vol., no., , pp.– Bassett, Judith, ‘ “A Thousand Miles of Loyalty”: The Royal Tour of ’, NZJH, vol., no., April , pp.– Bowron, Greg, ‘A Brilliant Spectacle: The Centennial Exhibition Buildings’, in John Wilson (ed.), Zeal and Crusade: The Modern Movement in Wellington, Te Waihora Press, Christchurch, Cleaver, Megan, and Thomas E. Muller, ‘The Socially Aware Baby Boomer: Gaining a LifestyleBased Understanding of the New Wave of Ecotourists’, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, vol., no., , pp.– Cloke, Paul, and Harvey C. Perkins, ‘ “Cracking the Canyon with the Awesome Foursome”: Representations of Adventure Tourism in New Zealand’, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, vol., , pp.– Craik, Jennifer, ‘Tourism, Culture and National Identity’, in Tony Bennett and David Carter (eds), Culture in Australia: Policies, Publics and Programs, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, Giannecchini, Joan, ‘Ecotourism: New Partners, New Relationships’, Conservation Biology, vol., no. , June , pp.– Gibbons, Peter, ‘Cultural Colonization and National Identity’, NZJH, vol., no., April , pp.– Gibbons, Peter, ‘Non-ction’, in Terry Sturm (ed.), The Oxford History of New Zealand Literature, OUP, Auckland, Goodwin, Joanne, ‘Mojave Mirages: Gender and Performance in Las Vegas’, Women’s History Review, vol., no., , pp.– Hilliard, Chris, ‘Stories of Becoming: The Centennial Surveys and the Colonization of New Zealand’, NZJH, vol., no., April , pp.– Labrum, Bronwyn, ‘ “Bringing families up to scratch”: The Distinctive Workings of Maori State Welfare, –’, NZJH, vol., no., October , pp.– Linklater, Eric, ‘A Year of Space: A Chapter in Autobiography’, in Jonathan Eisen and Katherine Joyce Smith (eds), Strangers in Paradise, Vintage New Zealand, Auckland,
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Mings, R.C., ‘A Review of Public Support for Tourism in New Zealand’, New Zealand Geographer, vol., no., , pp.– Morgan, Nigel, Annette Pritchard and Rachel Piggott, ‘Destination Branding and the Role of the Stakeholders: The Case of New Zealand’, Journal of Vacation Marketing, vol., no., , pp.– Page, Stephen J., and Kaye Thorn, ‘Towards Sustainable Tourism Development and Planning in New Zealand: The Public Sector Response Revisited’, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, vol., no., , pp.– Pearce, Douglas G., ‘Tourism, the Regions and Restructuring in New Zealand’, Journal of Tourism Studies, vol., no., November , pp.– Smith, Christine, and Paul Jenner, ‘The Impact of Festivals and Special Events on Tourism’, Travel and Tourism Analyst, no., , pp.– Star, Paul, ‘Native Bird Protection, National Identity and the Rise of Preservation in New Zealand to ’, NZJH, vol., no., October , pp.– Ward, Janet, Ken Hughey and Steven Urlich, ‘A Framework for Managing the Biophysical Effects of Tourism on the Natural Environment in New Zealand’, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, vol., no., , pp.– Wynn, Graeme, ‘Conservation and Society in Late Nineteenth-Century New Zealand’, NZJH, vol., no., October , pp.– FILM (ALL ARCHIVES NEW ZEALAND, WELLINGTON) ‘Country Lads’, Weekly Review, no. ‘New Zealand Soldiers and Polish Children’, Weekly Review, no. ‘Return from Crete’, Weekly Review, no.
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Index References to illustrations in italics
Abel Tasman National Park, Adams, Grace, adventure tourism, – Agriculture, Commerce and Tourists Department see Tourist Department Agrodome, Rotorua, , , , Air New Zealand, –, , , –, , , , , , , , , , , , air travel, , , , –, –, , , , , –, , , –, –, –, , Airport Inn, Airways Corporation, Akaroa, Alexander, Dudley, Alexander, Ken, Alfred, Prince, Algie, Ron, All Blacks, , , Allport, Peter, Allum, John, American Airlines, American Express Company, , Amery, Mrs L.S., Andrews, Stanhope, , – Angas, George, Anita Bay, Anscombe, Edward, Aranui, Ruruku, Aranui caves, , , Arapuni, Arthur’s Pass, , , Arthur’s Pass National Park Board, , Ashwin, Bernard, , , Asian market, , –, –, –, , , , , Auckland, , , , , , , , –, –, , , , , , , , Auckland Acclimatisation Society, Auckland Aero Club, Auckland City Council, Auckland Institute of Technology, ‘Aunt Daisy’, , Automobile Association, , , , Aviemore, Ayson, Lake, backpackers, Ball Hut, , ,
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Banks, Joan, Banks, John, , Barnby, Lord, Bastion Point, , Batten, Jean, – Bay of Islands, , , ; Kingsh Club, Bayfeild, L., –, , Bealey Glacier, Bedford, Duke of, Benmore, Bennett, Fred, Big Ice, Birks, Lawrence, , Blake, Peter, Blenheim, Blomeld, Charles, , Blue and Green Lakes, Bluff, , , Bollard, Richard, , Bourne, Possum, Bowen, Godfrey, , Bowen Falls, Brent’s Hotel, Bridgman, Herbert, British Airways, British Antarctic Expedition, British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC), , , Buck, Peter, Buckridge, Mr (stuntman), Buller, , bungy jumping, , , , , – Burton brothers, Campbell, J., Campbell, Wilson, campervans, –, Canadian Alpine Club, Canadian National Railways, Canadian Pacic Airlines, , Canadian Pacic Railways, , Canterbury, , , , Caroline Bay, , Cathedral Cove, Centennial Exhibition, /, , , – Central Institute of Technology, Chapman, Frederick, Chateau Conference, , –, , Chateau Hotel, , , , , –, , , , –, –, , , –, ,
–, , , , Cheddar Cliff caves, Christchurch, , , , , , , , , , , , Christchurch Exhibition, –, , Christ’s College, Civil Aviation Authority, Clark, Morris, Clark, Russell, Clarke, Jack, –, Clinkard, G.W., , , Clinton River, coach tours, , –, , , , , Coates, Gordon, , , , , Cobbe, Richard, – Cockayne, Leonard, –, , Colbeck, Eric, –, –, Columbus, Ray, Commerce, Ministry of, , , Commission on Maori Model Villages, , , Communicate New Zealand, Community and Public Sector Grants Schemes (CAPS), , conservation, –, –, , , , , –, –, –, , –, – Conservation, Department of, –, , , , Continental Airlines, Cook, James, Cook Strait, Corlett, B.S., Coromandel, , , Coronet Peak, , Country Lads, – Cowan, James, , Cowling, Alf, Cox, Duncan, Cullen, John, , –, Cunningham, Carol, Davis, Ernest, Dawson Falls Mountain House, Day, Cecil, de la Perrelle, Philip, Defence Department, , Dennis, Lawrence, , Destination New Zealand, – Doidge, Fred, , , , Dominion Breweries,
Donne, Thomas, , , , ff., , , –, , , , Douglas, Roger, , du Faur, Freda, –, Dunedin, , , , , Dusky Sound, , Economic Development, Ministry of, eco-tourism, – Eichardt’s Hotel, English Alpine Club, , , Expo ’, , , Eyre, Dean, , , , Fairlie, , Fenton, F.D., Field, Willie, lm, –, , Filmcraft Company, , Findlay, John, Finn, Neil, Fiordland, , , , Fiordland National Park, , , , – Fiordland Travel Company, , –, shing, , , –, Fishing Industry Board, Fitzpatrick, Sean, Fitzroy House, Fletcher Construction Company, , , Fly By Wire, Fox Glacier, , –, ; Hotel, Fox, William, –, –, Franz Josef, Emperor, Franz Josef Glacier, , , , , , –, , –, , , Franz Josef Hotel (see also Glacier Hotel), , –, , , –, , , Fraser, Peter, , Friendship, Frind, Otto, , Froude, James, Fussell, E.C., , , Fyfe, Tom, Gamble, Trevor, – Geary, Norman, Geyser Hotel, Geyserland Motel, Gifford family, Gilmour, Robert, Ginders, Alfred, Gisborne, Glacier Hotel (see also Franz Josef Hotel), , –, , – Glade House, , Glencoe Motor Inn, Glorious New Zealand, , Goldie, Charles, F.,
Gordon Cumming, C.F., Government Film Studios, , , Government Tourist Bureau Travel Agencies see Tourist Department Offices Governors Bush, Grabham, G.W., Graham, Alex, , , , –, Graham, Peter, , –, –, , –, –, Graham, Robert, , Gran, Tryggve, Grand Hotel, , Great Barrier Island, , Green, Spotswood, Grey, Zane, –, Greymouth, Grierson, John, , guides, , , –, , –, , , , , –, , Gunson, James, , Guthries, Haast Memorial Hut, , Haast Pass, , , Hackett, A.J., – Haere-mai Year, Haira, Hinemoa, Halstead, Eric, , Hamilton, , , Hamilton, Augustus, Hamilton, Bill, Hanaghan, Susan, Hanan, J.R., Hangatiki, , , , Hanmer, , –, , Harewood, Harford, George, Harihari Hotel, Harper, A.P., , Harrap, Neil, Hartstonge, J., Haast, H.F. von, Haunted Whare, Hawea, Lake, Hay, John, Health Department, , , Heenan, Joseph, –, Helensville, , Henare, George, Hermitage Hotel, , , , , , –, –, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , –, , , , Hickton, George, Hilton (Cementation Ltd), Hinerangi, Sophia, , , Hobson, William, Hochstetter Icefall, ,
Hohnel, Ritter von, Hokitika, Holyoake, Keith, Homer Tunnel, , Hooker River, , Hora Hora, Hot Lakes District, , , , , Hotel Employees’ Union, Hotel International, hotels, ch , ch , , –, , , , –, ; see also individual hotels Housing Corporation, Hoy, Mike, Hoyte, John Barr Clarke, Huddleston, Frank, Hunt, Jonathan, , , hunting, – Hutchins, Les, Hutchinson, W.E., Ihaka, Kingi, impact of tourism, –, –, , , , , , –, –, –, –, – Industries and Commerce, Department of, , , Intercontinental Hotels, , , Internal Affairs, Department of, , International Air Transport Association (IATA), Invercargill, Isitt, Leonard, James Cook Hotel, Japan Airlines, Jenolan caves, New South Wales, , Johnson, Lyndon B., Johnson’s Motel, Johnstone, Dick, Kaikoura, , , –, Kain, Conrad, Karnicar, Davo, Kawarau River, , Kawharu, Hugh, Kean, Ian, – Kelliher, H.J., Kepler Track, Ketetahi Springs, , King, Sydney, – King Country, , Kingsford Smith, Charles, Kirwan, John, Kiwi House, Kosciusko, , , – Kotkin, Vicky, Ladd, Fred, Lake Hostel/Lake House Hotel (Waikaremoana), , ,
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Lake House Hotel (Ohinemutu), Lands Department, , Lands and Survey Department, , , , Lange, David, , Langstone, Frank, Lawless, Lucy, – Leonard, P.H., – Licensing Commission, Lindauer, Charles, Lindbergh, Charles, Lindis Pass, Lindon, Mrs, Lippe, Jack, Littledale, St George, Lobb, Neville, Lord of the Rings, The, , Lovelock, Jack, Lynch, David, McCormack, Josephine, – McCully, Murray, , McDonald, D., , McEwen, Jock, McGowan, James, MacGregor, Duncan, , , McGregor, Gregor, Mackay, Jessie, Mackenzie County Council, Mackenzie, Thomas, , McKinnon, Quinton, MacLoughlan, R.J., McNab, Robert, , –, , Mace, Fred, Mair, Gilbert, Malfroy, Camille, –, , , Malolo, , Malte Brun Hut, , , Manaakitanga Conference, , Manapouri, , –, Mangatepopo, Mangawhero, Mangere International Airport, , , Maori, culture, , , –, , , , – , , , –; role in tourism, , –, , , –, , –, – Maori Affairs Department, , , , , Maori Arts and Crafts Act , Maori Arts and Crafts Institute, –, , , Maori Councils, , Maori Land Court, – Maori Tourism Task Force, Maori Women’s Welfare League, , Marine Department, , , marketing, –, –, , –, , , –
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Marshall, Bob, , , , Massey, William, , Matson Line, , , , , , Mayor Island, Mechanics Bay, Mercury Bay, , – Mercury Island, Messenger, A.H., , , Middlemass, Kate, , Milford Hostel, , , , , , Milford Hotel, , , , , , , , , , Milford Sound, , , , , , , , , , , , –, Milford Track, , , , , , , , , , , –, Milne, Charlie and Frank, Mines Department, Mitchell, Leonard D., , , , Mitre Peak, , , Mitre Peak, Mizen, Edward, – model pa, –, Montreal World Fair, Moore, Mike, , , , – Moore, R.P., Moorhouse, Fred, Morrison, Howard, , Morton, Cyril, motels, , , motor car travel, , , , , , , , , –, , , Mt Aspiring, Mt Cook, , , , , , , –, , –, , , , , ,, , , , , , , , , , , Mt Cook and Southern Lakes Tourist Company, , Mt Cook Airlines, , , , , , Mt Cook Group, Mt Cook Motor Car Service (later Mt Cook Motor Company), , , , , , , , , – Mt Egmont, , , , Mt Lendenfeld, Mt Luxford, Mt Ngauruhoe, , Mt Rolleston, Mt Ruapehu, , , , , , –, , Mt Tarawera, –, , Mt Tongariro, Mueller Glacier, , , Muldoon, Robert, Mulgan, Alan, Mullahey, Bill, Muriwai, Murray-North Consultants, Myers, Ken,
Napier, , Nash, Walter, , Nathan, L.D., , National Airways Corporation (NAC), , , National Council of Sport, National Development Conference, – National Film Unit, , –, , , , Native Land Court, , national parks see individual parks National Parks Act , National Parks Authority, National Publicity Studio, , Nelson, , , , Nelson, C.E., New Zealand Alpine Club, , New Zealand and South Seas Exhibition, , , , New Zealand Breweries, , New Zealand Centennial –, New Zealand Institute, , , New Zealand Maori Council, , New Zealand Meat Marketing Board, New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, New Zealand Tourism Board see Tourism Board Newman, J., , Newmans, , , , , , , , Newton, Rev., Ngata, Apirana, , Ngati Kuri, Ngati Tama, Ngati Tuwharetoa, , , Ngati Whakaue, , – Noah’s Hotel, , Nordmeyer, Arnold, – Northcroft, E.S., Northland, , Nosworthy, William, ‘NZ Way’, , Odell, Ron, O’Grady Roche, Standish, Ohakune, Ohinemutu, , , , , , Ohope, Ohtake, Kazuo, – On the Ball, One Hundred Crowded Years, – % Pure New Zealand, , –, , , , Opua, Orakei-Korako, Otehei Bay, , Otira, , –, , – Otukapuarangi, , Overseas Publicity Board, –,
P & O Steamship Company, , Pacic Area Travel Association, , , , Paekakariki, Pahiatua, Palace Hotel, Pan American Airways, , , , , , , Pan Pacic Hotel, Papakura, Bella, Papakura, Maggie, , Park Royal Hotel, Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Parry, Bill, , Paul, J.T., – Paul, Suzanne, Pearson, T.E., , Pembroke, Perry, William, Pevsner, Nicolas, Phillips Turner, E., Picton, Pink and White Terraces, , , , –, , , –, , , Plaza International Hotel, Plimmer, Neil, , , , Pohutu geyser, , , Polish Children, Pompallier, Jean-Baptiste François, Pompolona Hut, , Pope, F.S., , – Porirua, , Porter, H.L., Prime Minister’s Department, , Pringle, Thomas, – Puarenga Bridge, Public Reserves, Domains and National Parks Act , Public Works Department, , , , , Pukaki, Lake, , , Qantas, , , –, , Queenstown, , , , , , , , , , –, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , –, , , Queenstown Hotel, rail travel, , , , –, , , Railways Department, , , –, , , , , , Rainbow Farm, Ranfurly, Lady, , Rangi, Guide, – Reed, A.H. & A.W., Reeves, William Pember, –, , , , Regent Hotel,
Reigler, Claudia, Remarkables, The, , Renouf, F., Revfeim, Kristian, Rhodes, Robert Heaton, – Richmond, Jock, , – Ritchies Air Services, Roberts, Geoff, , Roberts, Kevin, – Robieson, C.R.C., , , Rodie, D., Romantic New Zealand, Roosevelt, Theodore, , Ross, D.M., Ross Dependency, Rotomahana, Lake, , , Rotorua, , , , , , –, , , – , , , –, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , –, , , , , –, ; Bath House, –, , ; Blue Baths, , , ; Borough Council, , ; City Council, , ; Government Gardens, ; Lake, ; Pavilion Bath, , ; Postmaster Baths, ; Priest’s Bath, ; Rachel Bath, ; Sanatorium, , , , ; Sulphur Point, ; Town Act , ; Town Council, , ; Township Act , Rotowhio, – Routeburn Track, Royal International Hotel, Ruakuri Caves, Ruapehu Ski Club, , Russell, , Rutherford, John, Saatchi and Saatchi, – Saatchi, M. and C., – St Louis Purchase Exposition, , , , , Sala, George, Salt Hut, Satterthwaite, A.M., , Scanlan, Nelle, , Scenic Preservation Act , Schmitt, L.J., , , , –, – School of Arts and Crafts, , Schuster, Emily, Scoria Flat, , Scott, Jim, , Secker, N.H., Seddon, Richard, , Shaw, Alex, Sheraton Hotel, Shipley, Jenny, shipping, , , , , , , , , , Shotover Jet Company, ,
Shotover River, Singapore Airlines, Skardarasy, Ernst, – skiing, , –, , , , –, –, , Skippers Canyon, , , Skyline Enterprises, Smith, S. Percy, Solomon, Bill, South Pacic Hotel, South Pacic Hotel Corporation, , , , South Seas Adventure, – Southern Alps, –, , , , , Southern Cross Hotel, Southern Scenic Air Trips, –, spas, , , , –, , Special Publicity Unit, Spencer, Baldwin, Sperry, Admiral, , Springeld, State Advances Corporation, , State Services Commission, Steel’s Orchestra, Steele, L.J., Stephenson Smith, W., Stewart Island, , Stone, Wally, Stuart, Bathie, – Summers, Charles, Sumner, Sutherland, Donald, Swann, J., TAI (airline), Taiapa, John, – Talbot, Thorpe, Tales of the Angler’s Eldorado, New Zealand, – Tamaki, David and Mike, – Tarakawa, Teipu, , Taranaki, Tararua Tramping Club, , Tarewa, Task Force , Tasman Empire Airways Ltd (TEAL), , , Tasman Glacier, , , , , , , Tasman River, Taste New Zealand, Taupo, , , , , , , Tauranga, Te Anau, , , , , , , , , , , , Te Arawa, , , , , , , , Te Arawa Trust Board, , Te Aroha, –, ; Cadman Baths, –; Domain Board, , , Te Heu Heu Tukino IV, , ,
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Te Heu Heu Tukino V, Te Kooti, Te Kuiti, , , Te Maori exhibition, Te Papa museum, Te Puia, Te Puia geyser, Te Tarata, Te Wairoa, , , , , Tebay, F., Teichelmann, Ebenezer, Tekapo, Lake, Terrace Hotel, Theomin, Dorothy, , Thermal-Springs Districts Act , This Is New Zealand, , Thomas Cook and Sons, , , Thomson, Darby, , , – Thomson, David, Thomson, Elizabeth, Thornley, Samuel, Tiki Tours, , , Timaru, , , , , , Tinorau, Tane, Tirikatene, Eruera, Tirikatene-Sullivan, Whetu, Todd, Mark, Tokaanu Hotel, –, , Tongariro National Park, , , , , , , , –, , , ; Act , ; Board, , , , ; Trust Board, –, Tongariro Park Tourist Company, , Tongariro River, Tongariro Sports Club, Tourism, Ministry of, – Tourism and Sport, Office of, , Tourism Board, –, –, –, ; marketing, – Tourism Design Award, Tourism Forum, Tourism Holdings Ltd, Tourism New Zealand, – Tourism Policy Group, , , ‘Tourism : Grow For It’ Conference, Tourist Accommodation Development Scheme, , –, , Tourist Air Travel, , Tourist and Health Resorts Department see Tourist Department Tourist and Publicity Department see Tourist Department Tourist Department, establishment, –; local offices, –, , , , , , ; overseas offices, , –, , , , , , , ; marketing, –, –, , –, , ; th anniversary celebrations, ;
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disestablished, ; staff, , , –, –, –, , –, –, , –, –, –, , , –, , –, , –, –, –, , –, , , , –, –, , , , , , –, , , –, , –, , ; see also Clinkard, de la Perrelle, Donne, Marshall, Plimmer, Pope, Schmitt, Wilson Tourist Development Council, Tourist Facilities Development Scheme, , Tourist Hotel Corporation (THC), –, –, , , , , , , , –, –, , , Tourist Industry Federation, , Tourist Marketing Strategy Group, Trade New Zealand, Trans Tours, Trans-Tasman Hotel, Transit New Zealand, Travel and Holiday Association, , Travel Industry Association, Travelodge hotels, , Treasury, , , , , , , –, –, , , Treaty of Waitangi, , – Trollope, Anthony, Tuhourangi, , , , , Tukaokao, Tony, Turner, E. Phillips, Turner, Samuel, , Twain, Mark, Union Steam Ship Company, , United Airlines, University of Otago, Unser Fritz Waterfall, UTA (airline), Vacation Holidays, van Asch, Henry, Vogel, Julius, – Waaka, Kuru, , Waihi, , Waiho, Waihohonu, Waikaremoana, , , , Waikite geyser, Waimangu geyser, , –, , Waimarino, Waimarino–Tokaanu Road, Waiouru, , Wairakei, , ; Hotel, , , , Waitangi Hotel, Waitomo caves, , –, –, , ; Hostel (later Hotel), , , –, , , , ,
Waiwera, Wakatipu, Lake, , , , , , Walker, Karen, Walters Peak, Wanaka, Hotel, , , Wanaka, Lake, , Wanganui, , Wanganui Chamber of Commerce, Wanganui River, , Warbrick, Alf, , –, Ward, Joseph, , , , , , , , , , , , , Waterloo Hotel, Webbs Transport Company, , Weekly Review, Welles, Orson, Wellington, , , , , , , , – , , , , , , , , , Wellington Acclimatisation Society, Wellington City Council, West Coast, , , , , , , , , , Westland, , Whakapapa Glacier, Whakapapa Hut, , , Whakarewarewa, , , , –, , –, –, , , , , , , –, Whakatane, , , Whale Rider, Whale Watch Kaikoura, – Wheeler, Charles, Whenuapai airport, , White, John, White Heron Lodge, White Star Hotel, Whitianga, Whitlam, Gough, Wigley, Harry, , Wigley, Rodolph, , –, , –, –, –, , , , –, , Wilde, Fran, – Williams, Clem and Vic, Williams, Henry, Wilson, B.M., , , –, , –, , , , , , , , , , , Winter, Paul, , Wiseman, Edward, Withington, Alex, – Wohlmann, Arthur, –, –, , , Wood, George, Works, Ministry of, , , , ; see also Public Works Department Wright, Leonard, Yellowstone Park, , , York and Cornwall, Duke and Duchess of, – Yosemite, Young, Fred,