Make Survey

Travel Briefs

American Firm To Make Survey Of Fiji Tourism

An American firm of tourist

consultants recently began

making a survey of Fiji's tourist

industry.

THE firm is Harris, Kerr Foster & Company, who have recently made a comprehensive survey of Australia’s tourist industry, and who have also made surveys in Hawaii, Israel and Tanzania.

A Fiji Government Public Relations Office release says the object of the Fiji survey is “to provide essential information on which a practical and comprehensive programme for the expansion of tourism in Fiji can be based, and which will be to the ;conomic benefit of the country”. ■& ■& ☆ AIR NEW ZEALAND, formerly TEAL, has opened a branch office in Apia under Mr. W. H. Hope veil, who has had experience in the iirline’s Suva office.

The office will do public relations vork and will assist local selling igents, but it will not be a ticketing )ffice. The office is situated above kelson’s warehouse in Beach Road.

Air New Zealand has no services o Apia, but it will have two flights hrough Pago Pago on its outward md return flights between Auckland, -lonolulu and Los Angeles after it akes delivery of its first DCS jets in December, ☆ ☆ ☆ A SECOND DC3 aircraft for Poly nesian Airlines is due to arrive a Western Samoa from Santa Barbara, California, early in July.

The aircraft has been bought from be Atlas Aviation Corporation for 75,000. It seats 26 passengers and /ill be named Savai’i.

The airline’s other DC3 will go to Jew Zealand for a major overhaul s soon as the new aircraft is in sivice.

FIJI hotel owners who are members of the Fiji Employers’ Con sultative Association recently got to gether and decided on higher wages and improved conditions for em ployees.

The director of the association, Mr.

J. Grundy, said the employers were the first in any industry in the Colony to come voluntarily together to negotiate among themselves wage rates and conditions of work for their employees which would stand fair comparison with any negotiated collective agreement reached after hours of bargaining with a trade union. ☆ ☆ ☆ FIJI’S tourist boom has created a recurring problem for Fiji Air ways to provide enough planes to meet demand for its services.

Recently, following the acquisition of two Herons, it chartered a DC3 from Qantas to operate between Suva and Nadi, and between Suva and Nukualofa twice a week.

The company’s seven Herons are to be used to supply additional ser vices to other aerodromes in Fiji, and to develop the regional services to other island groups.

Mr. Chris Ritchie, manager of Fiji Airways, said in May that the airline soon hoped to place an order for a Hawker Siddley 748 or Fokker Friendship, The first of the DC3 services be tween Fiji and Tonga began on May 20. The services are on Thursdays and Saturdays. ☆ ☆ ☆ MARINER’S CAVE, the famous cavern in Vavau, Tonga, which can be entered only through an underwater tunnel by skin divers, has at last been photographed from the inside. The shots were taken in May by Luis Marden, of the National Geographic Magazine, using special underwater equipment. It will be some months before the photo graphs are published.

The entry to Mariner’s Cave is not recommended to tourists, but another cave in the Vavau area.

Swallow’s Cave, which can be en tered by boat, is a popular attraction. ☆ ☆ ☆ QANTAS will be flying to South- East Asia from Sydney via Port Moresby and Manila later this year,

using Boeing 707 jets. Meanwhile Philippines Air Lines have been given permission to start a twice weekly service between Manila and Sydney. ☆ ☆ ☆ WITH the opening of Pago Pago’s new hotel only a few months away there is agitation in some quarters of American Samoa for a publicity drive to build up Samoa’s tourist industry.

In an editorial on May 1 the Samoa News said it was time to en large the Office of Tourism, which should be developing scenic locations as well as publicising Samoa abroad.

“Samoa should begin to be one of the names on the collection of pam phlets in travel agency offices and air ports all over the world,” says the News.

“While the people who will benefit will be private individuals with busi nesses, curio shops, and perhaps owners of the hotel, the job of creat ing a favourable image for Samoa belongs to the Government.”

Air New Zealand has enlarged its pub licity department as a result of its change of name (from TEAL) and its imminent expansion into jet travel (to Los Angeles, Singapore and Hong Kong). Manager of a new Information Service Department in Auckland, with a newly recruited staff, is Mr. Keith Silcock (above) who has been Air NZ's Melbourne representative for the last three years.