New Hotel For

Port Moresby

Well Under Way

Work is now well advanced on the construction of Papua- New Guinea’s first luxury hotel

—the £250,000 Gateway Hotel

at Port Moresby international

airport.

IT should be completed before Christmas. Originally, the owners, Tourist Development Pty. Ltd., planned to build the hotel in stages, the first being the bar. But recently it was decided to go ahead and finish the entire job.

The Gateway will be fully air-con ditioned and will give 24-hour room service—something that no hotel in the Territory now offers. There will also be a swimming pool.

Shops will be built alongside the hotel, which is about seven miles from the town area of Port Moresby.

Tourist Development Pty. Ltd., is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Papuan Airlines Pty. Ltd. It has a paid-up capital of £ 154,000 —all of it raised locally.

Patair’s managing director, Mr.

C. R. Jackson, says he is satisfied that the Gateway will be a “long overdue requirement for international standard accommodation in the Territory.”

Most regular travellers to P-NG will not challenge this statement.

With one or two exceptions Territory hotels are mediocre.

At the airport, the Gateway will be well placed for the time when Qantas operates an international service through Port Moresby between Syd ney and the Far East. But the owners are satisfied that in the meantime there will be guests enough to keep the hotel filled.

Although Aitutaki is only seven square miles in area, there is ample land for its airstrip to be lengthened and widened for jet aircraft. The airstrip was built by American forces stationed on the island in World War II.