‘Cheep, cheep’ sings the Noumea

tourist bird

A campaign to frp-sa.k down Noumea's image as an expensive holi day resort is inducing an increasing number of Australians to jet across the Coral Sea for a taste of life a la francaise. And more Sydney-based tourist industry personalities are ex ploring the New Caledonian scene.

Catering for the needs of the English-speaking visitors has been the task of Island Holidays SA, a joint venture formed in March, 1976, by Traveland of Australia and UTH, the hotel arm of the French airline UTA.

Primary concern of Island Holidays has been promotion of the Chateau Royal Hotel on Anse Vata beach, and the Kanumera resort on the Isle of Pines. The group offers Australians seven days at the Chateau Royal for SA3OO, including airfares.

Island Holidays from January 1, 1977, took over the management of the Chateau Royal. As the company’s managing director, Mr Ron Clarke, explained to PIM recently numerous innovations have been made, such as the provision of free water-skiing and sailing facilities. Guests now have fridges in their rooms, and the hotel self-service “ Pique-nique” provides French cheeses, bread, salami and wine at supermarket prices for visitors who like to prepare their own snacks.

For those who want to eat out, the New Caledonian tourist office publishes a list of over 50 Noumea restaurants, offering all the flavours brought by migrants from the French Caribbean, North Africa, Vietnam, Indonesia, Tahiti and the various provinces of France.

Island Holidays moved into the New Hebrides last September, with an office in Vila’s Intercontinental Hotel.

The group has already bought a :ontrolling interest in a New Caledo

nian transport company, Calexpress,

and Mr Clarke says the company is interested in major investment in the area.

Already Traveland holds three-year aptions to take up to a 15% share in :he Chateau Royal Hotel. Mr Clarke ;xpected the number of Australian visitors to New Caledonia in 1976 would turn out at about 22,000. Total tourist traffic during the year would

be about 35,000, excluding cruise ships.

Another group with an interested eye on New Caledonia is the Club Mediterranee, which has more than 70 holiday villages throughout the world, including those in Mexico and Bora Bora, off Tahiti.

Club Med’s regional director in the South Pacific, Mr John Youngman, speaking to PIM from his new office in Sydney, said his group is exploring the possibilities of setting up a holiday complex in New Caledonia, the New Hebrides, and maybe even the Solomon Islands or Papua New Guinea, depending on infrastructure and government attitudes.

In December, 1976, Mr Youngman set out on a further trip to Noumea and the New Hebrides, as well as Tokyo, where he was to meet Club Med’s founder-chairman, Gilbert Trigano, from Paris.

Another tourism personality to visit Noumea in December was Mr Tony Carpenter, Director (Australia) of Hilton International, and general manager of the Sydney Hilton Hotel.

Mr Carpenter met well-known Noumea jeweller and property-owner Mr Paul Loupias and his consulting architect. Mr Loupias is studying the possibility of building a large hotel complex, about 14 storeys of shops, offices and hotel rooms, which could be erected on his prime city site, or in the Anse Vata beach area.

After his conversations in Noumea,

Mr Carpenter told PIM that if Mr Loupias does go ahead with the pro ject, maybe in three or four year s time, the Hilton group “would be in terested in operating it”.

Meanwhile, Noumea’s much talked-of first golf course came a step closer to reality in December when tenders closed for the construction of a nine-hole course on land reserved at Dumbea, just outside Noumea.

Fish cannery urged

for Gazelle

Establishment of a fish cannery in Papua New Guinea’s Gazelle Penin sula has been urged by the member for East New Britain Regional in the PNG parliament, Mr Damien Kereku.

Papua New Guineans were aware that Japanese fishing companies like the Nippon Fishing were taking fish out of PNG waters, processing them in Japan and then selling the canned fish back to PNG. Something had to be done to change this situation, he said.

Stock exchange

for PNG —but not yet

Papua New Guinea will have a stock exchange but not for another two years at the earliest in the opinion of Mr Tony Archer, member of a Port Moresby stockbroking firm. The firm of which Mr Archer is a member

The Chateau Royal, a picture which graces the front of the magazine published by the New Caledonia Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Reynolds, Sweeney, Platt-Hepburn, Archer, Jones and Co started over the-counter trading in stock and I shares in mid-January.

They are catering for the invest ment needs of permanent residents who, under exchange control regulations, are allowed to invest only K 10,000 annually in foreign portfolio investments. The firm will also trade in Australian-listed companies with loca registers.

The firm has about 700 active in vestors on its books. About 100 are PNG nationals. The service caters ; primarily for permanent expatriate residents as PNG citizens already have the facilities of the PNG Invest ment Corporation available to them. 1 Citizens are able to buy shares in the [corporation which, in turn, holds local and foreign investments.

The over-the-counter market trades in kina for locally-registered com panies and in the case of Australian listed locally registered companies prices are to be close to those on Australian exchanges, allowing for exchange rate differentials, Mr Archer said.

The major stocks available to in vestors include New Guinea Finance Co Ltd, Bougainville Copper Ltd, South Pacific Brewery Ltd and Steamships Trading Co Ltd.

Lutherans to

sell up in PNG

The Lutheran Church in Papua New Guinea is to dispose of its com mercial enterprises because they are interfering with the church’s essential evangelical work.

The enterprises, estimated to be worth some K 2 million, include Lutheran Shipping, Luta Air (with a fleet of four light aircraft), Lutheran Technical Services, nine plantations, Graged Steelworks and a number of garage workshops.

The decision follows recommen dations made by a task force of five prominent Lutherans who visited PNG in early 1976 to study the opea tion of the enterprises. They recommended that they should be dis posed of within five years.

Sent specially by the church to supervise the liquidation is Mr Leroy Dockter, who arrived in Lae last December from Wisconsin, USA.

Mr Dockter said.the.intention is to turn most of the church’s businesses into “passive” investments, which will ;arn interest and provide funds for special projects, instead of largely supporting the church.