Rob A wrote:How does bypassing local buisness and tourist operators help the kiwi economy?
Maybe they are going to cater to a new clientelle, the macdonalds eaters will fly in buy a ticket 'see the south' then head back to disneyland.
Maybe the fastrail will be made in New Zealand without any international loans.
Canal to get the cuise ships up to Queenstown would be a good idea too.
i dont think the developers are thinking about the nz economy, they are thinking about their own profit.
te anau has always been the poor cousin to queenstown, most people visiting milford sound by bus will travel from queenstown 300km away and return rather than do it from teanau which is only 100km from milford sound,
I was told the accomodation companies pay kick backs to the tour companies to ensure people stay in queenstown. Te anau accomodation owners don't tend to pay the kick backs so get less demand for people wanting to stay....
if you ever drive up the milford rd in a car , the buses are a pain, they will stop at several view points but they are on a tight schedule , they will drive as fast as they legally can, which means you get them tailgating you all the time. you know you've got nothing more than a commercial operation behind you...
developers have been trying for years to find a shortcut to milford from queenstown, but they all go through doc land and have been stonewalled. a proposed gondola up the greenstone was stopped. people queue up to fish the greenstone in solitude out of site of other people, imagine doing that with a gondola going overhead...
commercial operators want a road through the hollyford to the west coast as well, but that has also been stonewalled.
It's all about a few wanting all the profit. the money is concentrated in certain areas in NZ tourism, outside of those areas most rural towns are relatively poor unless they are also in an area of intensive agriculture.
take a trip through northland or the east cape of the north island and you'll see what i mean, it's a 500km trip round the east cape. there are towns at either end with nice town centres that speak of wealth, but in between them, almost every other building and town you see speaks of poverty.