Apia Hotel

Travelodge

May Not Build

By a staff writer

Travelodge’s long-standing

proposal to the Western Samoan Government to allow it to build a 100-room hotel on the site of Apia’s Casino Hotel may not proceed. The company is cur rently taking a second look at some of its plans in the South Seas.

Within the company there is some thinking that Travelodge should ex pand in Australia first, where initial room occupancies are high.

Travelodge is impatient with Western Samoa over the Apia delay.

It has to consider building costs in Samoa, which have risen steeply since its proposals were made.

Initial work on a Tahiti hotel is landing Travelodge with far higher construction bills than expected be cause of rising wages, rising costs for materials and shipping in frequencies.

Instead of the Samoan hotel, some interests in Travelodge are urging the company to build a hotel in the Solomons. Proximity to the Bougain ville copper project and improve ments in overseas air services are arguments advanced for another hotel there.

Expansion

Planned For

Fiji Resort

The Trans Tours Group of com panies in New Zealand will send a planning team to Fiji in the new year to plan the expansion of the Tropic Sands resort at Deuba, about an hour’s drive from Suva.

The 10-acre resort was bought recently by the group’s new sub sidiary, Trans Hotels Fiji Ltd. and construction began immediately on five extra bures, to bring the total accommodation to just over 90 beds.

Trans Tours says it has big plans for its Fiji operations, which began in 1969 with the formation of Trans Holdings (Fiji) Ltd. and the opening of a Suva-based travel agency.

The group’s managing director, Mr. J. Cronin, said in Suva that immediate investment in Fiji would be about $200,000 in good medium

class bare and motel accommodation.

He said one of the main reasons for buying the Deuba resort was the severe shortage of accommodation along the Coral Coast, where the demand is highest.

The managing director of Trans Tours’ Fiji agency, Mr. David Moore, said that the resort itself had been heavily overbooked before being bought; the five extra bures were necessary to accommodate clients already on the books.

The Trans Tours Group is a wholly-owned New Zealand one, founded in 1960.

Its turnover has grown from

$42,000 to S 3 million a year and it operates throughout New Zealand, with branches in Australia and Los Angeles.

It has chartered the Russian liner Shota Rustaveli for two South Pacific cruises next year.

New Tourist

Liners Fors. Seas

An American company, Westours Incorporated of Seattle, plans to run a small luxury liner on inter-island cruises in the South Pacific.

Suva and Papeete are to be the

two main ports for 11-day cruises due to start this November.

The company has announced that its 250-passenger liner West Star— at present operating in the Caribbean under the name of Cabo Izarra — will also visit American and West ern Samoa and Tonga.

Mr. H. J. Musiel, senior vice president of Westours Incorporated, said a decision to put a ship into the South Pacific was made after a two year feasibility study in which all current sea and air tours in the area were taken into account.

The company, with a fleet of four ships and its own hotels and motor coaches, runs similar cruises from California to Alaska.

A Los Angeles company, Princess Cruises, which brought the luxurious liner Italia into the South Pacific last November, has also said that it might base a cruise ship in the South Pacific from this year,

More And Faster

Air Services

American Airlines is scheduled to begin trans-Pacific services about May, and the tip is the airline will begin with three or four flights a week, instead of its requested daily timetable (P/M, Nov., 1968, p. 73).

It is interested in building hotels in Fiji and American Samoa; in Suva it knocked back an offer to take over the Hotel Isa Lei, and on Tutuila, Samoa’s main island, it remains in terested in an option on land at Coco nut Point.

Meanwhile, subject to final Aus tralian Government approval, Qantas and BOAC will operate six trans pacific services a week out of Mel bourne from July.

All flights, however, will go via Sydney, and there will be no Mel bourne-Nadi direct hops.

Everybody

Wants Islanders

Eighteen 10-seater Britten Norman Islander aircraft, worth $1,440,000 have been sold to French Polynesia, Western Samoa, New Caledonia and New Guinea.

Islander Aircraft Sales Pty. Ltd., distributors for the British plane, says two Islanders have been delivered to Tahiti-based taxi and charter operator, Air Tahiti. Two more were due for delivery in January.

Western Samoa’s new Air Samoa, one of three charterers in the two Samoas ; has bought one Islander,

The "West Star", currently named "Cabo Izarra", soon to be seen in the Pacific.

and the New Caledonian nickel pro ducer, Le Nickel, has also bought one.

New Caledonia’s internal airline, Air Caledonia, has ordered two, one of which was due in Noumea in January. Port Moresby-based Aerial Tours, operated by local business man, Mr. Dennis Douglas, has bought six and has ordered another four for delivery this year.

The Islanders cost about $BO,OOO each, delivered, and they have been proposed by Qantas as suitable for regular internal operations in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, Tonga and the New Hebrides.

However, internal operations for Tonga have been delayed indefinitely because the constructors of the King dom’s second airstrip, on Vavau, built the strip on the wrong site.

Work on another strip is in progress.

In the GEIC, Fiji Airways is using aged Heron aircraft and in the New Hebrides, Air Melanesia’s Drover fleet has been replaced by Piper Aztecs and Navajos.

The Britten Norman Islander in flight.