Encouraging Visitors

Reference to tourism leads to to another faux pas story. I was decanted from a plane at Laucala Bay, and lined up for Customs inspection.

I had three bags. A young official told me to open one. Bag duly un

zipped. “This one, please.” I opened the second bag, praying that this was the end. The zippers on my bag had gone haywire that morning, and I had had a long struggle before I got the thing fastened.

“Now this one,” snapped the

youth, curt and unfriendly.

“Look, laddie,” I said. “There isn’t anything there to worry about. I’m an old traveller; and that bag’s zippers are in an extremely delicate condition.”

It was no use. “Open it, please,”

he ordered.

I had got it open, with wes phrased and very audible commer when there was a kind of stranglJ yelp behind me. It was Len Ushe Public Relations Officer, who h;j come down to meet me.

“God Almighty,” he wailed. “V, spent all Tuesday on the Tourf Conference, discussing all the waf in which we can make the; formalities less irksome to traveller and now I come and find you this state.”

I laughed and forgot it. But do remember that only last yea when PlM’s assistant editor arrive in the same Customs shed, she wr taken out of the queue, and uij ceremoniously thrust aside, to awa official attention later, because sH had no return ticket. It was onlj after the furious lady had produce to them her authority to operau upon our Suva bank account th;j they let her in, satisfied that aft© all she had not come to Fiji to fao a fate worse than death.

Fiji, like other Territories, is eag© for tourist traffic. Fiji, like th others, will have to learn that ai though petty officialdom loves tt herd travellers around as if they wen sheep, the travellers hate it am react accordingly. The few shilling

ivhich may be raked in in dues, hrough this furious examination of ravellers’ bags, is wiped out a housand times over by the ill-will vhich the silly proceedings entail.

Problem Of Hotels

PHI’S departmental heads and commerce chiefs met in formal onference early in October, to find /ays and means to stimulate tourist raffic. Fiji has an enormous un eveloped industry in her tourist ttractions; and Fiji, through causes diich need not be described here, as been “running in the red” for bout two years. Fiji must sell at last another £2,000,000 worth of roduce per annum, to maintain the ght balance; and there is no product f Fiji easier to sell to Australians ad New Zealanders than a holiday ;re.

The key to the whole Fiji tourist tuation, of course, is the hotel ac >mmodation. In Suva, since the muary hurricane crippled one hotel id wrecked another, there have not :en enough hotel beds to meet the >rmal demands. The kind of urism that really would make the jian purse bulge would require at ist a couple more modern hotels Suva.

The three main hotels—Grand icific, with Garrick and Metropole second place—provide excellent commodation; but none seems to ve any plans for extension.

GPH, now the mecca of most ivellers, ought to extend; but PH’s owners, the cautious Union Co., will promise nothing. GPH’s lited capacity (60 guests, or so), is to-day’s fantastic wage rates, is the fact that GPH’s distance >m town robs the hotel of ihe lal profitable bar trade, makes it ficult to wring profits out of the ;erprise. But 150 guests, under the ne overhead umbrella, would give 'ery different set of figures. |NE bright suggestion at the Tourist Conference was that, as Government is most anxious to nulate the tourist traffic, the •vernment should take over the 'H from the Union SS Co. imour hath it that the Co. would for £80,000) and extend it, and i it for tourist encouragement tier than immediate profit.

Whereupon Morris Hedstrom aited —who have just commenced aping the rocks off the site for new Club Hotel on Victoria ade—sat up in amazement and ror. “What!” said they. “Invite Government in, to compete

against us in the hotel business, with public funds? Not on your life! No more construction on the Club Hotel until this position is clarified!”

That is one of the minor headaches now facing the new Governor.

It seems clear enough that there cannot be a worth-while tourist trade unless there are more first-class hotels in Suva. In these unhappy days there can be no new hotels built without the real co-operation and support of Big Business.

Pan American Airways have placed an order for three Comet 111 jet liners with an option of seven more.

These advanced models are not due

for delivery until 1956. Engines are similar to the Canberra bomber, one of which crossed the Atlantic re cently in 3 hours 25 minutes.

Hindu scientists have developed synthetic rice to help combat the food shortage in India. The synthetic grain, which is produced from Tapioca and peanuts, will be mass produced at a new plant in Madras, in western India.

Three properties on Sudest Is., Eastern Papua, formerly owned by the late Mrs. Elizabeth Mahony, are offered for sale by advertisement in this issue.