Action On

Lae Gets Some

New Hotels

From a Lae Correspondent Lae, which is at present as badly off for hotel accommoda tion as any place in Papua-New Guinea, may soon be in a better position to cater for the thou sands of people who have to pass through the town in the course of a year.

ANEW motel is being built at the corner of Markham Road and Milford Haven Rd. by N. R.

Leydon & Co. Pty. Ltd. and should be in operation by December, or January next.

The first stage will have 20 units, each with private bath and air conditioning. The rooms will be carpeted and there will be a refrigerator in each. There will be a restaurant; and, in a second stage, 10 more units and a swimming pool will be added.

The building is of cement-block construction; it will be called the Huon Gulf Motel. Mr. N. R. Leydon, who is one of Lae’s leading builders and contractors, is overseeing the work himself.

Bulldozer At Work

In the middle of June, a bulldozer was finally at work on the site of a projected hotel that has been planned for the last couple of years by Steamships Trading Co.

Main entrance to this hotel, which is of attractive design, will be in First Street, near the present RSL Club. Reception, dining room, lounge-bar and hotel offices will be on this level; behind this will be guest accommodation, in three storeys, which will take the ground floor of the block down over the edge of Lae Terrace.

The ground floor will be used for staff accommodation; the first floor, or second storey of the build ing, will be at the same level as the reception area. This will provide guest accommodation and so will the floor above. There will be eight single and eight double rooms each with private bath and individual air-conditioning. All should have pleasant views over Huon Gulf.

Down at the bottom of the terrace, at Markham Road level, will be the

public bar which will be detached from the main hotel.

As we understand it from the Liquor Commission, the hotel will be built in three stages—public bar. reception-dining room, guest accom modation, in that order; with the whole thing due for completion about next April.

The economics of the project are obvious but as far as public con venience is concerned, it might have been more to the point to have built stages two and three together and let stage one take care of itself at a later date. There is no lack of places in which to grog-on in Lae but accommodation for the travelling public is woefully inadequate.

l\/f R - R J - SC °TT, a Government administrative officer, has been appointed managing director of the ... .. D FIJI Vlsltors Bureau. He will take over this P° st on July 1. Mr. Scott, born in Scotland, took an MA degree a t Edinburgh University. He joined , c G the Colomal S« rvlce fiv « years ago.

He succeeds Mr. W. Drury who has resigned.