Tonga's Dateline

Hotel Behind Schedule—Still

Tongan Government officials are still hopeful that Tonga’s new Date line Hotel the first real hotel in the kingdom will open about August, but local observers are extremely doubtful if this date will find the hotel ready for business.

REPORTS one: “The way things are going it might well be Christmas before the hotel is ready to receive its first guests.”

One recent setback was in the resignation of Mr. Max Tremain as manager. He was reportedly fed up with the amount of interference he got from local Government “experts”.

The hotel is Government owned.

Another problem is that supplies have still to come forward for many unfinished tasks. Furnishings for the hotel have still to be bought and delivered. The furniture has not yet been ordered, and shipping problems will no doubt delay things even further.

Following the resignation of Mr.

Tremain, Mr. D. Mankhopf, of Melbourne, has been appointed to the position.

Mr. Mankhopf has been in the hotel business all his life, starting his apprenticeship in Germany. He was manager of the Sheraton Hotel, Melbourne, and he has had wide experience in hotel work in the Bahamas.

In Tonga he will no doubt have his problems.

AIR NEW ZEALAND completed its current expansion programme with the inaugural Auckland-Singa pore DC-8 flight on April 6. The big jet left Auckland at 9 a.m. with a full load of 129 passengers and was in Singapore late the same afternoon, Singapore time.

Since December 14, when Air New Zealand opened its first long-haul ser vice—twice weekly through Nadi and Honolulu to Los Angeles—the air line has more than doubled its total routes to 34,600 miles. In March, the airline began its first Orient ser vice with a twice-weekly flight from Auckland to Hong Kong.

THE Romanda, a 100 ft twin-engine Fairmile launch, will enter the Fiji tourist cruising service in May, under the command of Captain C. I. Miller, managing director of

Blue Lagoon Cruises Ltd. and Fair mile Enterprises Ltd., both of Lautoka.

Blue Lagoon Cruises operate the Fairmile motor vessel, Sayandra, on three-day cruises to the Yasawas.

The Romanda will take over these cruises and cut them to two days, while the Sayandra will go on to a new cruise—to Nanuya Lailai in the north of the Yasawas, and Yaqeta.

DR. A. GROVE DAY, Professor of English at the University of Hawaii and a leading authority on Pacific literature, will give a series

of lectures to first and tourist class passengers during a month-long voyage in the P and O-Orient liner Orsova in June and July.

Before each port—Suva, Noumea, Auckland, Sydney, Manila, Hong Kong, Kobe and Yokahama—he will brief passengers on the port and the surrounding region. The Orsova is due in Sydney on July 19.