"tough" job

Bringing visitors to the Cooks —a "tough" job

From a Suva correspondent “I see the Cooks,” said

quietly-spoken New Zealander,

Arthur S. Helm, “in the same way as I saw the Antarctic— something new, and a chal

lenge.”

Arthur Helm, general manager of the newly-established Cook Islands Tourist Authority, might be described as a man of many parts. A recent profile on him in a New Zealand newspaper went even further- —“he is a man of unquenchable curiosity, enthusiasm and good humour . . . has literally done everything from carry ing war dispatches to graduating MA (at Victoria) with honours, though missing the normal secondary educa tion . ..”

The man who intends to turn the merest trickle of tourists to the Cooks into a tide, is the author of 10 books, mainly on travel and war experiences.

But he is best known for his work in the Antarctic; he was secretary of the Ross Sea Committee Trans- Antarctic Expedition and also of the 1955 Antarctic Expedition with Sir Edmund Hillary.

During the summer of 1956-57 he acted as postmaster at Scott Base and was responsible for date stamping the 120,000 stamps commemorating

the expedition. Helm Glacier, an ex panse of ice almost as big as Raro tonga, has been named after him.

When he was in Fiji in October and November, primarily to pick up tips at the tourism convention and to visit resorts and tourist attractions, he admitted that the job ahead was a tough one—“we’re starting from scratch, after all. But I do enjoy being involved in a project which I can help and influence”

Time for lunch

Like most other tourism developers in the South Pacific, Mr. Helm —who heads a five-man team —insists that the industry will not turn the Cooks into a replica of Hawaii or Tahiti.

It seems unlikely that that would happen anyway, certainly within the foreseeable future, for it’s not ex pected that a commercial air service will begin before completion of the international airport at Rarotonga at the end of 1971.

The monthly RNZAF flights to Rarotonga, which have been the only air services into the Cooks (except for rare charters) for the past two years, will cease in January. They will be diverted instead to Aitutaki airport.

While the New Zealand-Cook Is. air fare has been SNZIOO each way on the RNZAF flights, Mr. Helm said he wouldn’t like to hazard a guess about the cost of the com mercial air fare. “The prices haven’t been fixed,” he said. “I wouldn’t like to say whether they’ll he higher or lower”.

Two hotels in Rarotonga and one

Continued on p. 70

Arthur S. Helm, in Suva in November.

Photo: Bal Ram

Tourism and culture

on the island of Aitutaki, 140 miles away, are being built by private enter prise. They will have between 120 and 140 rooms each—and Mr. Helm believes they can be filled by New Zealanders initially, and later by Australians also.

Formerly with the New Zealand Tourist and Publicity Department, Mr. Helm spent last year in the Cooks writing a lengthy report on the area’s tourist potential. Since he was instrumental in bringing it about, the Cook Islands Government obviously felt he was the man to fill the job of head of the new authority.

“Tourism CAN help the Cooks— and it doesn’t have to destroy the culture,” he insists firmly. “Quite the opposite—tourism can strengthen culture, by reviving local interest in it. We hope that tourism will attract back some of the young people who have left the Cooks to study or live in New Zealand.”

Mr. Helm plans a monument on the beach inside a hole in the reef in the Ngatangia Harbour; it was from this spot that migratory canoes are supposed to have left for New Zea land about 1350.

Unknown history

“There are many historical spots on Rarotonga, but they are relatively unknown,” he said. “There is an old inner road running 19 miles around the island of Rarotonga, more than 1,000 years old, the oldest in the Pacific.”

Mr. Helm agreed that there wouldn’t be enough money in the Cooks to meet any tourist influx— and that outside investment would have to come. “Quite a lot of interest has been shown already—but I can’t say what government policy is on this,” he said.

Travelling with Mr. Helm through Fiji, Tonga and the two Samoas was Cook Islander, Mr. Tekeu Framheim, a member of the tourist authority.

The authority’s chairman is Mr.

R. W. Rapley, a New Zealand busi nessman now resident in the Cooks.

Cook Islanders George Ellis, Noo Tetuairo and Utia Matata are mem bers—and Mr. Percy Henderson, retired secretary of Internal Affairs, is assistant manager. • Bougainville Hotel Pty. Ltd. has been formed to build a $300,000 luxury hotel on Arova Island, three miles from Kieta, Bougainville’s main town. Fruition of the venture depends upon NG Administration approval to use government-owned land on the island for the project.