[?]Ot All Taxed
p. 67 · Read in the full issue
[?]other View on Fiji Tourism
To The Limit
From a Staff Correspondent Arriving hack in Suva from a : circuit of the Viti Levu east in April, I was in time to in to a broadcast from Suva hich it was suggested that all able tourist accommodation on sland was taxed to the limit. statement apparently needs me qualification. After journey g to Nadi as the sole passenger Fiji Airways aircraft, a few earlier, and staying two nights le Lautoka hotel, where only ir three people could be classed urists, and where there were a many empty seats in the g room; of finding no tourists .1 at the excellent Ba Hotel, )f having the experience of be ;he sole guest at the equally ant Raki Raki Hotel, I not un ally, wondered where all these >ts were corralled. week earlier the island’s two ciotor coaches, owned by Pacific sport and chartered by Whites ;1 Service, had been laid up ack of business, and it was 7 stated round Fiji that Whites ;1 Service, which had been ng the Fiji tourist business in way, since right after War 11, n difficulties. nittedly April is only the st month of what is looked the Fiji “tourist season”. Busi in Lautoka would be much
brisker in another couple of months, no doubt. But what seems clear is that the northern half of Viti Levu is a sort of back-water in the tourist industry, and that its admittedly limited accommodation facilities are scarcely exploited at all.
From an economic point of view the harvest is made from the type of tourists who have plenty of money to spend and want only the best.
The best at present extends round the south coast from Lautoka through Nadi, Korolevu, and Deuba to Suva.
Yet the potentialities of the beautiful Viti Levu Bay area along the King’s Road east and south of Raki Raki seem very great.
Some consider this a prettier part
of whole coastline than any, with lts off-shore islands and its several Fijian villages in small valleys hugging the shore-line. This is the weather side, with its fresh cool breezes—and, let’s admit it, its heavier rainfall.
Some day there is certain to be a diversion of the tourist trade in this direction—when the roads are improved and better facilities are established.
But meanwhile, for the low-brow who can sneak through under the organised tourist trade’s guard and hick his way round the north coast by Indian bus or extend himself to a taxi, he’ll have very little to complain about in the way of exist ing hotels and particularly the cuisine provided.