Tourism tips in the 1920s
How to attract more tourists? answer 95 years ago. had the
It was going to be a cold autumn night in Palmerston North, that Saturday of April 29, 1922. The weather forecast predicted moderate to strong south-easterly winds, along with heavy rain – but ‘‘the weather should improve shortly’’.
Meanwhile, that afternoon’s Manawatu Standard editorial told readers: ‘‘thousands of people would visit New Zealand if our scenic resorts were more thoroughly advertised’’.
Apparently an Australian periodical had taken the NZ Tourist Department to task ‘‘for not advertising the scenic value of the Dominion on such a scale as to attract the many thousands of people with means to travel’’.
The periodical had noted that ‘‘for the variety of its natural wonders and the gracious hospitality of its citizens, New Zealand surpasses easily any other country of similar area on the planet…it has always been a marvel that so few Australians, comparatively speaking, spend their vacations there’’.
What Switzerland and Italy were to British holidaymakers, New Zealand should be to the Australian, the editorial went on, but this was not so, ‘‘and the cause is, to quote the article, the inefficiency and inadequacy of the Dominion’s publicity department’’.
But: ‘‘perhaps the finest advertisement the Dominion ever had was the part played by its splendid manhood in the Great War,’’ — and the soldiers took every chance to tell of the natural beauties of their country.
The editorial concluded: ‘‘money well spent in this direction would be returned indirectly many times over’’.
On the previous night, Friday, 25 Palmerstonians had met in the Soldiers’ Club building on the corner of Cuba and George Sts, to form a tenants’ league fighting to lower high local rents.
‘‘Wages are falling throughout the Dominion,’’ the chairman had told the meeting, ‘‘and will fall lower, but rents do not come down in proportion’’. If they could get a reduction equal to that of 1914, tenants could ‘‘get along nicely on £3 a week and still have £1 to put by’’.
He said ‘‘the biggest bite out of the present day’s wages is the £2 for rents’’.
Household necessities were up in price: ‘‘a penny here and a penny there’’. Bread prices fell one week, and the next butter went up.
Lately, in going from door to door, he said he’d found ‘‘practically every tenant was quite in favour of concerted action’’. His aim was a Dominion-wide organisation of tenants.
Mr R. Andrews gave his opinion that workers made slow progress in putting away a few shillings for a rainy day. The chairman replied that, indirectly, the people made the law and they should see to it that proper legislation was brought in to deal with the matter of rents.
‘‘Many people are up against the wall and have not the spirit to kick out. It is not right that one should live in luxury and another not. All should wear the smile of happiness’’.
Smiles no doubt left the tenants’ faces when adult wage rates were lowered even further by the Arbitration Court, which, under newly authorised powers, would issue its first general wage order that year.
Anzac Day, which became a full public holiday in 1921, was still on people’s minds that Saturday.
A letter to the editor signed ‘‘Remembrance’’ grumbled that at four commemoration services in Palmerston North the previous Tuesday, ‘‘not once did I hear a reference to our departed nursing sisters who so valiantly sacrificed their lives in the great cause; nor to those now ill or incapacitated as a result of their war service, nor to those of the nursing profession who have returned’’.
‘‘Also, sir, at the big service at the Showgrounds…nursing sisters were sitting where they could, amongst the general public, instead of, as I should have thought proper, in reserved seats of honour…’’
In news from Auckland, the Soldiers’ Mothers’ League had passed a resolution strongly opposing the sale in New Zealand of ‘‘flowers made in any other country outside the British Empire in commemoration of the dead soldiers’’.
A percentage of the money from sales of Anzac poppies was being sent back to France, where they were manufactured. The mothers emphasised that ‘‘all proceeds from Poppy Day should be expended in New Zealand for the benefit of New Zealand men’’.
Even a shoe advertisement managed to slip in an Anzac Day reference: said Mrs Kckeen to Mrs Mckane/my daughter worked hard on the Poppy Campaign/she tramped through the wind for hours and hours/and sold quite a lot of the scarlet flowers/was she tired that night? Not at all, for she wore/ a neat pair of shoes from Phil Duncalf’s store/they were 25 shillings each pair guaranteed/a wonderful bargain and just what you need…
Deaths in Palmerston North decreased dramatically in April, down to 8, births numbered 35 and there were 26 marriages.
Building permits issued by the borough council during April had also hit a record high, at £19,499.
Royal news was always popular, and Everybody’s Theatre in Coleman Place was advertising a silent black-and-white newsreel film, February’s wedding of Princess Mary, 24, daughter of King George V and Queen Mary, to Henry, Viscount Lascelles, 39.
It featured enormous crowds along the wedding route, a heavy presence of mounted police, and a procession of medieval magnificence to Westminster Abbey.
Unfortunately the camera — positioned on the wrong side of the arriving carriages — caught barely a glimpse of a hand or the twitch of a veil as the royal couple alighted at the entrance.
Only afterwards, on the palace balcony, was there a close up of the royal pair, who didn’t wave to the crowd, but bowed slightly left and right.
The screening was given an extended run, because of ‘‘phenomenal bookings’’.