Posted 8th February 2014 to the Mountain Scene Newspaper Queenstown
Back in the days of the Clark Government Queenstown and Glenorchy and Queenstown where visited by agents from the Swiss Tourism industry
They looked at what could be done to resurrect the amazing Pre Edwardian era Tourism infrastructure in the Glenorchy Paradise Region, It must have been a mirror of Switzerland When one could take a Paddle steamer up the Lake to a Grand Style Hotel and get guided tours of the then Jura Glacier on Mt Earnslaw.
Whether any business idea where formed about rebooting this era is not known to me but it poses some interesting questions,
Local Politics being one and the “Auckland-ization” of the Wakatipu Area is another, then there is creeping malignant contempt of the past that would no doubt be alien to the Swiss.
All of which is a shame as we lost our South Pacific Switzerland at the top of the Lake half a century ago first with the fire at the Mt Earnslaw Hotel The Scrapping for the PS Mountaineer and eventually the Road Link, which last nail in the proverbial Coffin. What makes it worse is that the New Chinese visitors come here to see how we are and how we use to be, and it’s all burnt out, scrapped and buried. Seems only the Swiss have a working business model for sustained Edwardian era Tourism.
Back in the days of the Clark Government Queenstown and Glenorchy and Queenstown where visited by agents from the Swiss Tourism industry
They looked at what could be done to resurrect the amazing Pre Edwardian era Tourism infrastructure in the Glenorchy Paradise Region, It must have been a mirror of Switzerland When one could take a Paddle steamer up the Lake to a Grand Style Hotel and get guided tours of the then Jura Glacier on Mt Earnslaw.
Whether any business idea where formed about rebooting this era is not known to me but it poses some interesting questions,
Local Politics being one and the “Auckland-ization” of the Wakatipu Area is another, then there is creeping malignant contempt of the past that would no doubt be alien to the Swiss.
All of which is a shame as we lost our South Pacific Switzerland at the top of the Lake half a century ago first with the fire at the Mt Earnslaw Hotel The Scrapping for the PS Mountaineer and eventually the Road Link, which last nail in the proverbial Coffin. What makes it worse is that the New Chinese visitors come here to see how we are and how we use to be, and it’s all burnt out, scrapped and buried. Seems only the Swiss have a working business model for sustained Edwardian era Tourism.
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