Editorial ...

Hotel-Keeping And Other Problems In The

South Pacific

IHE presence in the South Pacific Territories in recent weeks of Very Important People, examin j air services, shipping facilities d accommodation problems gener y, directs attention to an industry at still is mostly neglected, but ich should rank next to copra )duction as the South Pacific’s ;t money-spinner.

Phere seems to be in the world increasing number of people who re the means to travel, frequently luxury, and who insist that they nt to go “somewhere different.” f the comparison be with the dent ruins of Europe, or the un tied shores of the Mediterranean, the sophisticated and over-com rcialised charms of Hawaii and West Indies, then the South dfic Islands definitely are “some 3re different.” .11 the archipelagoes, from New inea right through to French lania, can offer to world-weary pie an unspoiled Islands’ charm t is quite unique; and yet nearly ry group has something different nterest the traveller, ut all suffer in common from the ie disability—a grievous lack of 3l accommodation. Here and •e, there is a first-class hotel— 11—the people they can accom late are not enough to make i a ripple on the economy of the th Pacific Territories, ane and ship-owners and travel noters look the situation over shake their heads despairingly. 3 is everything needed to build a travel industry that would g millions each year into the :ets of most of the South fic Islands communities; but the le of their planning becomes ned in the bottleneck of hotel mmodation. le bigger and shrewder com es interested in the South fic are getting over the problem their own way. The Orient pany, and now the Matson Line, sending parties of world 3llers through the Islands in ing hotels—fine, modern liners, llent, as far as it goes—but not ly enough. is not as if investors are un illing to build hotels. A few ears ago Morris Hedstrom ted, of Suva, decided to use of their accumulated funds in ing the modern South Seas i in Suva, designed to accom ite many first-class travellers.

But two years ago they stopped the project literally in mid-air—the storey l * It e£ hari her!? e^ri the

ranstruetlOTi r ’ costs!

operated* 1 a?* “ reonomic b tion h After /UgthTSSISfS in g favour 15 ©? 6 a t win °Thpre C fs l^ n ?h^ atlon ™ There is nothing new in that. For

exactly the same reasons —the pro hibitive costs of building and of staff —there has not been half a dozen big modern hotels built in the British Commonwealth in recent years, although the need is clamant.

THERE is something here that needs the attention, not of the baffled and exasperated travel men and investors, but of the several South Pacific Administra tions.

The latter, collectively through their South Pacific Commission, and individually through other channels, express repeatedly their urgent view that there is need for the establish ment of new “alternative” industries in the South Pacific Territories— that they dare not think always in terms of coconuts and coffee and cocoa and metals. They are pre pared individually at all times to subsidise industries based on the

Well, boss, if you’re stuck you can just call me ‘mate.’” (This month Pap ( Guinea Legco will try to decide what the indigenes of the Territory are to be called now that the term "native" is tabu.) Teritory

land the minerals, the forests and the sea Yet here, in Tourism in the South Seas, is the industry with the biggest potential of the lot; and,

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SPl" S through* social V andindustrial

and economic changes that need not be described here, and over which the Islands Administrations have no control, it is impossible foi private enterprise to supply the missing link in the organisation of South Pacific Tourism, is there not a responsibility upon the several Administrations.

If New Guinea or Fiji or Tahiti is prepared to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds in the develop ment of a new agricultural industry, why should they not assist private enterprise also in finding funds foi hotels for the development of the tourist industry, which could enrich all classes in the same way as any other well-established and profit able industry? . , In the case of Tourism it becomes merely a matter of providing private enterprise, on behalf of the country, with sufficient cheap money to enable private enterprise to make a profit out of the construction and operation of first-class hotels.

THIS seems to be a matter in which consultation between South Pacific Governments be comes necessary. A principle, as well as a modus operandi, for the guidance of all the Territories, seems to be needed.

There clearly is a call upon the Governments for their co-operation in the establishment of Tourism; but some sections of private enter prise are greedy and cunning and unscrupulous, and the utmost. care would be needed in seeing that public funds are not made available to persons and corporations with no sense of public responsibility. Hence, the need for consultation.

The Governments —we refer par ticularly to Australia, United King dom, New Zealand, France, Nether lands, United States —have put enormous effort and money behind the activities of the South Pacific Commission; and the latter, in its turn, has done a mighty job in studying and recording all phases of social, economic and medical de velopment among the indigenous folk of the 18 different South Pacific Territories.

If the six Governments could co-operate in this, surely they can similarly co-operate with the numer ous interests concerned in develop ing and encouraging new industries in the South Pacific, and especially the tourist industry.

A little vision, a little energy and a little co-operation in providing better transportation and better hotel accommodation could change the economic pattern within a very few years in most South Pacific Territories —and especially Fiji, New Guinea, New Hebrides, New Cale donia, both Samoas, Tonga and French Oceania.