Friendly, Nickel-Happy New Caledonia

Doubles Its Tourist Quota

By Judy Tudor

New Caledonia, where the country and the economy is nickel-happy right now, is also getting ts quota of Pacific tourists. The local Office du Tourisme expects that by the end of December, he year of 1967 will have produced 14,000 visitors —just twice as many as in 1966.

r ery few of these paying omers are French —about 40 per L are Australian, 40 per cent. v Zealand, and 20 per cent. North erican. Some, no doubt, are lured e because it is an island on the ific circuit; most of those from tralia and New Zealand because s French and different—because imea is not Pacific Islands ich. as in Papeete; but French ich, as in Mediterranean, he similarities—such as the pre unantly Australian scenery, a lar colonial background and out :—they are willing to overlook lo not understand: If 95 per cent, visitors don’t speak French, then at 95 per cent, of the New Cale ians don’t speak English, either, i linguistic hiatus makes no irence to the friendliness, and laps it even enhances it. igger and better hotels, more and sr air-services that give the eller a variety of return routes , in the future, probably attract e Americans. But right now it is a reasonably Australasian pre e.

Three popular hotels

he three most patronised tourist Is in Noumea, in that order of e, are the Noumea, on the Baie Citrons, the Nouvata at Anse i, and the Chateau Royal a few dred yards further along, on >nin Point. The Noumea grew of what originally was a club; Nouvata seems to be a develop t of what was once known (and is) as The Bungalows; but the teau Royal is architect-designed, the picked position of all Noumea :1s right on Anse Vata beach, is ounded by green lawns, gardens, aresque coconut trees and two idfather banyan trees, opened about 15 months ago for the first months of its life ;ed as though it could turn out be a very expensive blue-tiled :e elephant. In more recent iths UTA has gone into partner with the private company that s it (40 per cent, by US interests.

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60 per cent, by local and French interests). UTA, or its hotel sub sidiary, runs it and it is believed now to be financially off the ground.

As well as glazed, blue-tile roof, marble floors, wedgwood-blue or cream carpets, crystal chandeliers and Louis XV furniture (not to say air-conditioning and a heated swimming pool), the original publicity promised that it would be a centre of French art and culture, including wine tasting in a “wine cave” and lessons in the French language.

Perhaps the new management has different ideas. When I spent four

days there in August, lessons in French culture or the French language seemed to be conspicuously absent and, judging by the expression on the one small girl I saw trying the swimming pool, the heat had been turned off there too. ■ i

Lovgiy Tooms

Nonetheless, I liked my gold-and white room with its neat bathroom; the quietness; the sun on the beach where, as it happened, I never had time to sit; and, despite the August chilliness, the marble-halls and their chandeliers. Furthermore, I imagine that a high proportion of the things that did not tickle my fancy can be attributed to the fact that some one alone, working to a tight business schedule, sees things in a different

Poolside—Nouvata Hotel.

light to that of a member of a party in Noumea to have fun.

But a few more smiling faces on the staff side would be an asset.

The small Melanesian who hauls around the baggage seems the only one unaffected by the decor; the rest are polite and chilly; or brisk and efficient, or withdrawn and pre occupied with large sheets of paper which they are perpetually conning over. Or so it seemed to me.

Hong Kong waiters

Outside the sun shines on the translucent green-blue of the sea and occasionally you have an old nostalgia for a fat Tahitian vahine waitress who will collapse into a chair, put her feet up and tell you, over your pamplemousse, that they are killing her.

But the opulent Chateau Royal restaurant is operated by a dozen Chinese waiters recruited in Hong Kong whose French is non-existent and their English sketchy. The menu is table d’hote and dinner costs 450 francs, which under the circum

stances is not outrageous if you can accommodate all that is available.

But even under the happiest circum stances, even at Chateau Royal prices, I rarely feel like eating 450 francs worth of food in one sitting.

My Chinese waiter is no help in

sorting anything out. I order sc and something that looks reasona familiar and then bow out, feel

frustrated—mostly, I think, by

French couple at the next table w had been there when I arrived £ had gnawed doggedly and wordles through five separate courses £ look good for a couple more.

During the day there is a sna bar down on the beach-side. The in the mornings, one may have r< and coffee, or even, if given to si things, bacon and eggs; and at nc an excellent buffet lunch. But if ) have any ideas of sneaking hi from work about 8 p.m. and hav a quiet sandwich and a beer th while you look out across the moi lit harbour, you can perish thought. The snack-bar closes ab 5 p.m., evidently with the idea nipping just such intentions in bud and forcing customers into restaurant.

Where else do you eat?

This is not, of course, peculiar the Chateau Royal. Proprietors hotels all the way from Korotc and Nadi, Fiji, to Honolulu hav« mortal fear of customers who live buns and tea in the snack-bar wl they should be ordering caviare £ champagne in the restaurant, £ they metaphorically turn their fa and physically shut the doors firr against this atrocious tendency on part of guests.

In Honolulu it does not mat very much—within a few yards any given spot there are dozens eateries. But in the South Pac

• The Chateau Royal and its beach

Everyone in Noumea, well-heeled tourist and local Melanesian alike, patronise the mini-buses which are fast, frequent and, as things go in Noumea, cheap. Fares any point are a flat 15 francs. They are individually owned and rigidly control and inspected by the authorities. City terminal (pictured) is in "Coconut Square" the city centre.

there are frequently miles betwec hotels, and usually no alternatives eating where you happen to 1 sleeping.

However, the Chateau Royal h: further shots in its armoury. For tl entertainment of its guests it h dinner-dances—perhaps two a we< —when the food is special (such Cantonese).

Now, there are times in one’s li when one wants neither to go to dinner-dance nor eat Cantonese foo but under the circumstances her there are but two alternatives: order a taxi and go look for som thing else, elsewhere in the town; avail oneself of room-service.

There may be people who fe that sitting crouched on a Louis X chair over a low, low Louis X coffee table, at 8.30 p.m., trying deal with (a) sweet-corn soup, (1 an omelette which is being rapid air-conditioned; and (c) tea th tastes of jasmine flowers, is exoi and really living-it-up, but I ji don’t happen to be one of tho people.

I come of a long line Presbyterian Macdonalds who, wh: they may not have regarded eatii in bedrooms as immoral, certain regarded it as lacking in stand] and something to be indulged in on in extremis.

Expansion plans

Part of the Chateau Royal’s initi trouble stemmed from the fact th it had too few rooms to support t] overhead on the rest of the establis ment. It is now planned to add 1; more rooms to the existing 78 and, this eventuates, and the compai can find the extra staff (not easy New Caledonia) it could go a loi way towards fulfilling those ear publicity promises.

Meantime, there are other tour expansion plans. Intercontinental, Pan-American subsidiary, has be< negotiating for a site either at An Vata or Baie des Citrons, where can build a 300-room hotel; bo Nouvata and Noumea hotels wa to add more rooms; and a direct of the Club Mediterranee has r cently visited New Caledonia wi the idea of building at Bourail on the Isle of Pines, Club Mediterranee is a chain “clubs” rather than hotels and w established originally around t] Mediterraneaan to give Europea: what euphemistically was describ<

an out-of-door, South Sea island pe holiday. As an extension of the )tion, a club was established on oorea, French Polynesia, in 1962, give Europeans a package-deal ok at the real thing; and since •66 a similar package deal of two seks has been offered at the same ah to Americans.

The deal includes air-fares, all msport, food, living and everything at goes with a get-away-from-it >liday except the liquor drunk at e bar.

The watch-word is “relax” and part the therapy is to wear bikinis or pareu, park your outer-world oney in the front office and wear string of shells instead —which you e supposed to use to barter for ose items not already covered in e package.

There is no reason to believe that tunger Australians and New alanders would not be happy to ke part in such whimsies too, if s price were not too steep. A New dedonia Club Mediterranee would obably do very well.

To help tourism along, the New dedonian Government, in co-opera m with airlines and hotels, plans a untry club at Dumbea, a few miles it of Noumea, with an 18-hole golf urse, bowling greens, swimming iols and horse-riding, and has iened a small hotel-school where it hoped to train some of the staff gently needed by the country’s owing number of'hotels.

But although tourism is on the ove it is unlikely that it will ever as dominant in the local scene as, r example, in Fiji and Tahiti, and is could very well be its enduring arm.

Someone said to me in Noumea cently that you could scrape the

hole island of New Caledonia down , sea level, and put it through a recessing plant, and that virtually /ery cubic yard would produce >me valuable mineral. This is so ;arly correct it doesn’t matter.

For one thing, New Caledonia has ic largest reserves of nickel ore in ie Western world and as well as ic present Nickel Co. that is respon se for 98 per cent, of the local :onomy, it soon should have another -International Nickel—which will ;e a chemical process to deal with wer grade ore. There is enough ore sight for both companies for the jxt 200 years.

All this being so, it is likely that urism will never be more than an teresting ornament to the New aledonian economy. With all due spect to those Pacific territories at are trying to get into the tourist t to give their people a “better ay of life”—that is where I think I tourist industries ought to remain. l NEW tourist hotel, fronting L on celebrated Coconut Square, is opened in Noumea. It is the ew Orleans, a refurbished version the historic Hotel de France, lich PlM’s Noumea correspondent ed Dunn says was “once the ►isiest dump in town”.

“The Hotel de France,” he says, fas famous for the fights that curred there every Saturday night, len clients, mostly Melanesians, ;pped into Coconut Square to settle ;ir differences.

“The building is easily one of the lest in New Caledonia, and, as the Dtel de France, it figured in many ivel books in the old days.

“Over the last 20 years, the busi ss fell into disrepute and in the it few years it became an ill-famed /e. It caused considerable annoy ce to the Catholic sisters who run j girls’ school across the way.

“The good sisters’ dormitory Dked down on the Saturday night ings-on and they must be relieved know that the establishment is w a tourist hotel where at least a nblance of respectability will have be observed.”

The New Orleans has 17 rooms d can accommodate 33 to 35 ests. Its tariffs are extraordinarily v for Noumea—3so to 450 francs A 3.50 to $A4.50) per day.

A bar, snack bar and reception ulities are on the ground floor.