CENTRAL HOTEL.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 234, 3 October 1931, Page 10

CENTRAL HOTEL.

MR. SCOTT KAMSAY TAKES CONTROL.

MANY INNOVATIONS PLANNED,

The principal hotels of the world and the licensing business generally are an open book to Mr. Scott Kamsay, who is to take over the management of the Central Hotel from Monday. He will also be a great asset to Auckland yachting and Association football circles, for his yacht, the Mai-angi, figured in the champion class in Wellington, and he presented to the Cliristchurch Football Association the Charity Cup, the biggest trophy of its kind m the South. Mr Eamsay has been a familiar figure hi the business world of the Dominion for some years past, and his long associations with the licensing world :in Great Britain fit him admirably for his new position. It is no idle boast that he will make the Central Hotel the finest house in the Dominion, with many special attractions for his guests.

For seven years, before coming to New Zealand, Mr. Ramsay was associated with the firm of Fraser and Carmichael, of Dunfermline, Scotland, who are the largest hotel and licensed house proprietors in Great Britain. For a considerable time he occupied the position of one of their managers, and as they control not only hotels, but large stores and restaurants, his duties were concerned with many interests, all of which should make for increased efficiency.

For the past five years Mr. Ramsay has been factory representative in New Zealand for the Hoover Company, with headquarters at Wellington. Before that Christchurch knew him as one of its finest citizens, where, amongst his other activities, he was a leading figure in the New Zealand Scottish Society and an executive officer of the Christchurch Pipe Band.

Six or. seven years ago Mr. Piamsay conceived the idea of going back to hotel life, for which he is particularly fitted, and from then on, with characteristic thoroughness, he worked with that object in view. -Five years ago he went on an extended tour of the Continent of Europe and the United States for the purpose of studying the most efficient methods of conducting an hotel. In America he was given every opportunity of seeing the internal organisation of that famous hotel group—the Biltmore and Staller. He was initiated into the efficient systems of such hotels as the" St. Stephens, the Morrison and the Congress in Chicago, and the St. Francis in San Francisco. Hotel proprietors in Canada also conferred on him the privilege of inspecting thoroughly such v/orld-famed houses as the Hotel Vancouver, in Vancouver, the Hotel Plaza Vaise, one of the great houses of the Canadian Pacific Railways, and the HoteL Windsor and Mount Eoyal in Montreal.

Mr. Ramsay will have on his new staff Miss Winifred Russell, who has just returned from England and Europe, where for the past eleven months she has been studying the latest and most efficient methods of conducting hotels. Miss Russell was formerly with the National Hotel in London, and left there to join the new Mayfair, one of the finest and most modern hotels in the Empire metropolis. She also brings with her the proficiency of 1931' and all that it means in hotel comfort. . • A large sum of money is to be spent immediately on renovating and re-deco-rating the Central Hotel. Under its new management the hotel will be well named. Almost on Queen Street, and yet away from its distracting noise and within a minute's walk of lovely Albert Park, it should become the most popular and comfortable house in the Dominion and the, high-water mark of hotel efficiency. Many new innovations formerly not enjoyed in New Zealand are to be introduced.

. Mrs. Ramsay, who was formerly well known in Christchurch, will join her husbandas hostess at the Central. They are both very popular people, and as Mr. Kamsay i s the proud possessor of the Kamsay tartan his hotel will soon become the rendezvous of the Scottish and sporting element of Auckland— 4d*'