Travel’s golden era
• Best price of a return flight from Auckland to Europe:
• 1947: $1170 (85 weeks’ pay of average worker)
• 1980: $1800 (six weeks’ pay)
• 2014: $1500 (1 weeks’ pay)
Source: Flight Centre

_____________________________________________

Whilst the days of the 1 euro ticket in Europe have disappeared, it is still possible to get flights for under 20 euros.

The New Zealand tourism department are no doubt congratulating themselves on the record number of arrivals into New Zealand, now over 2.9 million arrivals a year.    The airlines are hopping with joy at the demand for seats to and within New Zealand.  Emirates Airline now flies 3 Airbus A380s a day to NZ, Chinese airlines are putting on extra flights and even low cost airlines like Air Asia and Jetstar (part of Qantas) are planning to increase services to cope wit the demand.   All very nice for the the airlines who now have full aircraft.   All very nice for hotel and motel operators in NZ, who are often fully booked.  BUT not so nice for the small towns and popular places in New Zealand.  Most of those 2.9 million tourists want to see the same few places (such as Rotorua on the North Island, and Queenstown on the South Island).   Some of the most popular walks (for example, the Tongariro Crossing) are so crowded that the idea of giving walkers start times has been discussed.   The media in NZ often shows the traffic problem in Queenstown, which at one time was just a small lakeside resort in the mountains.  Tourists are sometimes finding that their travel plans are now dictated by where they can get accommodation, rather than by where they want to go.  Same situation with buses, plans are now being dictated by when the bus has available seats, rather than by when and where the tourist wants to go.  As the number of tourists goes up, often the level of service goes down., cafes, shops and tourist attractions are suffering from the big increase in visitor numbers.    Queenstown, which was once a small, quiet lakeside town has become a major internnational tourist resort.    Try finding traditional New Zealand local life in Queenstown now.   Difficult.    The situation in some places (again Queenstown springs to mind) is becoming similar to the Caribbean islands, where the arrival of 2 0r 3 huge cruise ships absolutely swamps the local towns, when 7 or 8 thousand tourists descend at once.

No sign of any tourists in this photo, the hills near Tarras, Otago, New Zealand.  As usual at the end of summer, the hills here are very dry, and there is little for the sheep to eat.  This view was taken from the main road which heads down to Queenstown.