No Room For Mr. Poroi

More About Embarrassing shortage

Letter to the Editor AFTER reading a report in your August issue relating to the accommodation provided in Suva recently for Mr. Alfred Poroi, who was returning to Tahiti, I have had the matter investigated.

The matter of an official recep tion for M. Poroi is not the concern of this company; but I think it should be known that the Public Relations Officer of the Fiji gov ernment, a representative of the Fiji Visitors’ Bureau and other local residents visited the airport to meet M. Poroi —but missed him because the aircraft unavoidably arrived ahead of schedule and M.

Poroi was very quickly passed through the usual formalities.

On his south-bound trip to New Zealand we arranged accommoda tion for Mr. Poroi at the Grand Pacific Hotel. On the night of his transit, when he was returning to Tahiti, however, the hotel was com pletely booked, as were most other hotels in Suva. Special attention was given to the matter of finding appropriate accommodation for Mr.

Poroi (at the Grand Pacific Hotel) but right up to a few minutes be fore his aircraft landed the position was hopeless, as it was at other hotels in which we would normally

have booked him when it was found that no rooms were available at the Grand Pacific. Like TEAL, the management of the hotel did every thing possible but, as you know, the hotel does not have sufficient rooms to accommodate all who wish to stay there during the tourist season.

The only reason why Mr. Poroi was not accommodated at the Grand Pacific Hotel is that every room was

fully booked for the night in ques tion. And the only reason why he was not booked at, say, the Metro pole or Garrick Hotel is that they were in a similar position.

Our Station Manager at Suva re futes the statements attributed to an un-named member of our Suva staff by your local correspondent.

We consider that your correspondent jumped to conclusions and errone

ously attributed them to TEAL. The management of the Grand Pacific Hotel will confirm that our Suva office spoke with the hotel several times regarding accommodation for Mr. Poroi.

The hotel w’here accommodation for Mr. Poroi was reserved is used frequently for TEAL passengers— including, not infrequently, wealthy American tourists bound for Tahiti.

The only fair conclusions to be drawn from the incident are that TEAL did everything possible to provide fitting accommodation for Mr. Poroi and that the shortage of good quality accommodation in Suva becomes more serious and more em barrassing every month.

We are, etc.,

T. E. A. Ltd.

G. N. Roberts,

General Manager.

Auckland, September 10, 1953.