Suva’s Biggest

Need is Bedrooms

ALTHOUGH not a fraction of this is in sight, it has been stated that Suva, Fiji, needs another 200 air-conditioned bed-rooms if it is to cope with its mushrooming tourist industry.

It is calculated that Suva has about one-third of the bedrooms it will need by 1965 if the tourist business increases at the present rate. This information was con tained in a report made at the Governor of Fiji’s request by the Intercontinental Hotels Corporation of New York.

A hotel —containing all these desirable bedrooms would cost about £1,500,000. The report says that the Government should support the project by giving relief from import duties and income tax, and that action should be taken at once to form a hotel development com pany to undertake the construction of the hotel—and one for Nadi costing about £1 million.

No doubt the Fiji Government would be happy to do all it could to encourage the building of hotels.

The problem now, as always, is getting the capital to build them.

Meantime, Fiji last month saw how other people conduct their tourist industries, when a film showing Bermuda hotels, firms and the public as a whole putting its collective best foot forward, was exhibited.

The film was seen recently in Bermuda by Mr. David Ragg, who arranged with Mr. J. W. Sykes, Colonial Secretary, Bermuda, and formerly Assistant Colonial Sec retary Fiji, to send it to Suva.