In response to M Stanley's letter regarding a Mount gondola, among other things, I feel absolutely obligated to respond to. Either that or collapse.

Mount Maunganui is the English name given to a location and site of considerable significance to Maori that has been known as Mauao long before any European ever visited New Zealand.

To change it to suit a small collection of people visiting for a matter of hours from a variety of other countries is quite frankly absurd.

Should we also change the name of every non-European sounding name of Tauranga/Mount Maunganui residents too, to increase the comfort of these golden fleece-wearing cruisers?

I think not. People visiting our country should see it as it is and be impressed. Pandering to the rich should has no place in 2014.

The gondola idea - really? I can only assume this suggestion is a joke.
Perhaps we should also create a water slide that runs directly from a bar in Ponsonby, delivers clients at the top of the Mount, where after champagne and canapes, they're delivered to the main beach, where they've just enough time for a photo and cappuccino before being flown back to where they came from?

Unless of course they have a driver waiting in the carpark, which now occupies 60 per cent of the existing beach.

Enjoy where you live, and if you don't like it, leave.

This would make room for the hundreds of thousands of people who would give their hind teeth to spend more than a few days here each year.

B. Goodchild, Tauranga City.