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MAY 1, 2025
World conflicts boost Anzac crowds
By Viv Posselt
Record numbers attending Anzac Day events around the region, and the messages delivered at those services, suggest a heightened public awareness of escalating global tensions. The messages were widespread and came from regional mayors, Members of Parliament as well as NZ Returned Services Association (RSA) and Cambridge RSA president Tony Hill. Heightened awareness of global conflicts was likely attributable to today’s almost instantaneous news coverage via social media, he said. “You can’t go anywhere and not have the news reach you … it’s in our faces all the time.” More than 1000 people attended Cambridge’s Dawn Service and about 1200 were at the Commemorative event. “Crowds at events like Anzac Day have definitely grown in number. I am sure that the current turmoil they see in the world is part of the reason. I also think it is marvellous to see them turn out like that. There seem to be more families who are there not only to support people from past wars, but also to support those serving today.” • See Anzac coverage, pgs 5, 6 and 7 and Cambridge High School heads Millie Balsom and Malakai Eade with a visiting Air Force cadet prepare to lay a wreath while the hundreds who attended the Commemoration Service outside the Town Hall on Anzac Day watch on. Photo: Mary Anne Gill cambridgenews.nz
Town’s tourism reset By Mary Anne Gill
Cambridge has weathered economic storms proving tourism is a viable industry for the town, but operators have been told to beware price gouging during key events. At Destination Cambridge’s annual tourism industry evening in the Town Hall last week, Tourism minister and local MP Louise Upston said regions needed to work together to get tourists back to New Zealand and make it the country’s biggest export earner again. Recent price gouging in Taupō during last
month’s Super 440 was “outrageous,” she said. “But do you know what’s damaging? It’s actually damaging to the town and it’s damaging to New Zealand’s reputation because the view is that we are willing to rip people off. “I know when it’s Fieldays and when it’s Waka Ama there’s lots of opportunities and lots of demand on accommodation. It is very short term thinking to go after the big prices. We don’t want to be that place or that country seen to rip people off,” said Upston. “Actually getting people to choose New
Zealand is job number one,” she said also questioning the number of regional tourism organisations in the country. There are 31 including Hamilton and Waikato plus one in Wānaka and another in nearby Queenstown. During the event Riverside Adventures business manager Memorie Brooky confirmed the i-Site operation they had run since July last year for Destination Cambridge, following the withdrawal of Waipā District Council funding, would close on June 30. Riverside would not continue being part of the i-Site network of official visitor
information centres but instead would set up an information centre at the Velodrome called Explore Waikato Visitor Hub. “The Velodrome is on the signage from the Expressway so that will be a nice easy pop off.” No announcement has been made about the future of the Town Hall space occupied by Destination Cambridge’s i-Site for more than two decades but the trust managing the hall is said to be in discussions with Waipā council around overflow library space. Continued on page 2
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