[?] South Seas

Hotel For Suva

/F Orris Hedstrom Ltd.

■* announced mid-April that the mpany’s plans to build a new and iborate hotel at the corner of ctoria Parade and Gordon Sts., va, have been abandoned. [t was made clear that ever creasing costs made the construc ►n of such an hotel, in accordance th the original plans, uneconomic.

Fenders were recently called for npletion of the hotel; lowest bid s £339,772, n abandoning the plan, the npany recognises frankly that decision will probably imperil future holding, after June 30, of old Club Hotel licence under ich a liquor bar is operated on ground floor of that part of new premises already built, ndications are that permission I be sought for MH to complete building according to a much dified plan which will add -ually nothing to Suva’s already al l e d accommodation for /ellers.

'lans to build the multi-storied el were announced by the jpany in 1952 and preliminary k proceeded. It was expected t th e completed job would cost

£F250,000 and accommodate about 50 guests. However, after the earthquake which shook Suva in September, 1953, work was abandoned with only the ground floor bar complete. Nothing has been done to it since.

The Fiji Licencing Court has not been happy with the arrangement and has reviewed the licence a couple

of times and at one period held up renewal. It comes up for con sideration again at the end of June this year.

Matson Interest in Hotels

The hope that the Matson Company might have its own hotel in Suva has again been revived.

It is a possibility which has been

discussed from time to time, but about which the Company has shown little enthusiasm.

This time the idea is believed to come from the Company itself.

At a recent meeting of share holders, Mr. Randolph Sevier, President of the Matson Navigation Co., said the Company was

investigating the feasibility entering the hotel business in t South Pacific.

This week (April 25), Mr. Sev and two other executives j visiting Fiji, Samoa and Tahiti.

It is easy to understand a chai of attitude since before a immediately following the

An artist's drawing of how the South Seas Hotel in Suva was to have looked.

len the Company firmly scouraged any idea that it might come interested in a hotel in Suva.

Fo-day, air-lines have opened up new travel area. The South cific has been well publicised by ig and story and stage, and by ,vel agencies and air-lines.

Wealthy travel-minded Amen ds have done Europe; they have 0 done Honolulu several times ;r, and have become intrigued h what lies beyond the blue •izon—the “romantic” islands of hiti, Samoa and Fiji—with the cresting and well publicised mg nations of Australia and New iland, each with its individual factions. uva is the junction from which branch lines run out to such •active places as Tahiti and aoa, from the main line which is to the New World.

Ir. Sevier states that the Dmmodation problem has to be ed if the new areas are to )y any significant expansion of r present tourist business, ut (he adds, in a saving clause) ther it would be economically ible for the Company to make tal investments in various areas Df course, a different facet of problem. He said they meant ssist in over-all development in y way possible. •me of the Matson Company's reluctance to run, or invest in, Is in foreign territories is hasised in the statement; he that “our experience but not ssarily our capital is at the )sal of whatever island or try needs it.” lerein lies perhaps some under lie reluctance, not only in sting in outside territories but aps also some fear, also under lable, of coating under the icting and often irksome •ol of Colonial officialdom, vertheless, the Company •usly realises the effect of the nt hotel deadlock in Suva, in a private enterprise can do on a large scale without rnment help. o, the Co. seems to recognise importance of Suva, in linking ahiti and Samoa with a really rehensive South Pacific tour, 1 could offer the large array ealthy Americans something •ly different. Suva Corre \ent.

Editorial Note

ore Suva gets too optimistic Fairy Godfathers (name of Sam): Representatives of lean hotel interests have ed up everywhere in the South c m the last six months, right Papeete to Sydney. All the pleasant things have been ibout the tourist business and nice—even sensible—it would have American-type tourist • Then the experts have gone rieir way without anything

having been decided. Sydney at present has the offer of a Hilton hotel—well, the Hilton hotel know how, anyhow. But local business has to provide the capital and the hotel, then the American experts will come in and run it. A fair proposition—but we haven’t heard of any Sydney businessmen getting together to provide that necessary ingredient, to wit, the £SD and/or the building. !f Mr. E. W. Watkins who had 20 years service in Papua-New Guinea before he retired in 1949 (as Patrol-Officer, Resident Magistrate and District Commissioner) was in April appointed area secretary of the Newcastle and Hunter River district of the Boy Scouts’ Assn.