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Seas Tourism And Travel

From The Inside

OAGO PAGO, American Samoa, will become a major tourist centre in the South Pacific when a new hotel, now nearing completion, opens for business soon. The hotel is close to the water’s edge in Pago Pago’s famous harbour (above). It is one of the projects initiated by American Samoa’s energetic Governor, H. Rex Lee, whose blonde wife Lillian is seen at left in carefree mood with a couple of typical Samoans.

The new hotel will give tourists the oppor tunity to get to know a part of the Pacific made

famous by the English novelist Somerset Maugham with his short story Rain. A few facets of the area are pictured here—at left, a Samoan chief, Tuli Le’iato, in traditional costume; below, the Lee Auditorium, popularly known as “The Turtle”, which was built in traditional style for the Fifth South Pacific Conference in 1962; right, a Pago street market with tourists viewing the wares; and, at right below, the Executive Office and Court House, an example of old-style South Seas architecture.

The new hotel, to be called the Pago Pago Intercontinental, is air-conditioned and has a swimming pool and private beach. Seventy-six of the rooms are in a Polynesian long house and 24 are in two-room cottages like Samoan fates.

The hotel is owned and has been financed by Samoans, supplemented by loans from the US Area Redevelopment Administration and the Bank of Hawaii. It will be operated by the Intercontinental Hotels Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Pan American Airways which serves the territory by jet.

It is a far cry from the old Rainmaker Hotel, a ramshackle establishment with an atmosphere reminiscent of Maugham’s Sadie Thompson saga, which was all that Pago previously had to offer tourists.

Its showplace is the Rainmaker Restaurant which commands, a spectacular view of Rain maker Mountain and Pago Pago Harbour. The restaurant, opening on a rock garden, features giant coconut columns, carved and inlaid with shell fountains, cascading down 40 feet. The bar of the hotel uses beaded curtain and Samoan

war clubs in its motif, while the snack bar uses the turtle theme so popular in Polynesian legend.

The hotel occupies a site called Goat Island (now joined to the mainland) where a US Navy officer’s club once stood.

Once the hotel opens its doors, American Samoa will be a convenient hub for island hopping tourists in the South Pacific.

Americans bound for Aus tralia, for example, can stop off in Pago and make side trips to Tahiti, the Cook Islands, Western Samoa, Tonga and Fiji.