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Why our tourism people need toilet training
Stevenson's Country, July 1, 2003
By Philippa Stevenson
A brush with a good public toilet always leaves you relieved - in more ways than one.
Once you've located the darn thing you never really know what to expect. Will it be clean, have paper, a door that locks, be free of scary types?
And ever since local councils debated whether public loos were for the good of the public - and free, or a service to private individuals - and user-pays, we've never known whether we'll have to whip out 20c, a dollar, or nothing at all.
Differing conclusions were drawn from district to district, leaving us - the clenched-legged public - in loo limbo.
I don't mind if I have to pay just as long as I can find one when the first coffee of the day has wended its inevitable way, or a child has fixed me with THAT look and said she must go NOW.
Locals have the advantage when it comes to loo locating. Pity the poor traveler in uncharted toilet territory. We've all seen tour buses unloading the hoards at appointed hours and places but it's a different story for independent tourists.
There's the McDonald's strategy - used worldwide, it is simply that if you can't find a toilet anywhere else, or at least not a clean one, then you can rely on McDonald's to serve you up a McLoo. Unless you feel guilty you don't even buy the Big Mac.
In those rare places without the Golden Arches travelers can be forced to buy at least a drink and sit down for a few moments before bolting for the wee room. But that tends to only set you up for a repeat performance an hour or two later.
So, I'm very well disposed toward any town, village, hamlet or dot on the map which has a good, clean, easily found public toilet.
I'm not alone in my esteem. In a paper to an international symposium on public toilets (I do not jest) Dr Bindeswar Pathak, of India, wrote the following:
"The toilet is part of the history of human hygiene which is a critical chapter in the history of human civilization and which cannot be isolated [or] accorded an unimportant position in history. The toilet is a critical link between order and disorder and between good and bad environment."
Dr Pathak goes on to say that "the subject of the toilet is as important if not more than other social challenges like literacy, poverty, education and employment."
And who would argue when he has calculated that around 600 million Indians do open defecation every day and the country's inadequate disposal system has to cope with human excretions of the order of 900 million litres of urine and 135 million kilograms of fecal matter per day.
With only four million people, New Zealand does not have the same sort of challenge but we're not exactly flushed with success either.
On travels around the country I've checked out a few public toilets. The standard varies markedly. The likes of the Taupo and Cambridge "super" loos set a high standard in the pay-as-you-pee line and who could go past Kawakawa's famous Frederick Hundertwasser-designed toilets, Tokoroa's award winning lavs, or Tirau's Big Dog information centre and public convenience. Though if you are in Tirau before 9am or after 5pm you'll be inconvenienced unless you whip along to the local Caltex.
Those towns are on the right track. Either the toilets are prominently sited, or they are a tourist attraction in themselves.
In my book, that beats any gigantic bottle, carrot, shearer, fish or other megalith designed to stop the camera-toting tourist in their tracks without the convenience of a convenience close by.
It is time old, cold, uninviting, draughty and hard-to-find loos got the bums rush.
It would be part of catching the "knowledge wave".
After all, according to Dr Pathak's history of the toilet between 2500BC to 1990AD, the more developed a society, the more sanitised it becomes, and vice versa.
Countries we benchmark ourselves against are well ahead of us.
Australia may have a reputation for its fly-infested, outback one-holers but it also has the National Public Toilet Map.
Launched in 2001, the map identifies the location of more than 13,000 public toilets in Australian towns, cities, rural areas, and along major travel routes. Information is provided about each toilet, such as opening hours and access for people with a disability.
Maps of specific locations can be downloaded and printed from the website. Those without computer access can get maps from councils, and eventually other outlets such as motor vehicle associations, and tourist information centres.
In Britain, the British Toilet Association campaigns for better public toilets, including making annual "loo of the year" awards.
Here, the poor cousin is on www.govt.nz where, under the heading of "Find the location of public toilets around New Zealand", you will find links to various local authority websites.
None I clicked on led to a map or other identifier of the location of public toilets.
Our visitors, and we need something better. All we've got to lose are those anxious looks.
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