Going Ahead
pp. 34-35 · Read in the full issue
Fiji’s Hotel Programme Going Ahead
From Our Own Correspondent SUVA, July 28.
GOOD progress is being made on the new South Seas Hotel in Suva, Fiji.
It was anticipated at the end of July that the bar would come into use, though not completed, by late August or September. The hotel itself is unlikely to be completed before the end of 1954, but will come into use in stages before that date.
Round the coast at Koro Levu Beach Hotel extensions and im provements are being made by Sir Hugh Ragg. The new central hall, dining room and lounge should be completed by November, Thereafter the present central building on the inland side of the road will become staff quarters.
Levelling of land on the seaward side continues and further attrac tive bures for the use of guests are being erected. By the end of the year there will be bure accom modation for 100 guests and a set ting as attractive as any in Fiji.
In April, Mr. S. B. Philp, who with his brother, Mr. D. R. Philp, operates the attractive Deuba Hotel on the south coast of Viti Levu, 35 miles from Suva, took over a ten
years’ lease of the Mocambo Hotel at Nadi Airport.
Since then Mr. Philp has pressed ahead with improvements to the accommodation there.
Originally it was a barracks-style building divided into cubicles for the very temporary use of air passengers in transit and stopping only for a matter of hours. These
cubicles are now being made into comfortable rooms. Partitions have still to be extended to ceiling height but already hot and cold water has been laid to each room and other furnishings provided.
There will soon be accommodation here for 65 guests.
Under existing airline schedules, few air travellers use the hotel for
any length of time and there is therefore much accommodation available for tourists on a longer term basis, though some is still be ing used by airport staff pending shifts into their own housing which is also being extended on a large scale.
Mr. Philp has for the past 18 months managed the victualling of 350 airport staff in the special din ing room adjoining the Mocambo.