SOME CROWDED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 69, 21 March 1940, Page 8

SOME CROWDED.

AUCKLAND HOTELS. EASTER EXPERIENCES. VISITORS HERE FOR RACES. While some Auckland hotels report that for various reasons their accommodation ie not being taxed to the same extent ae in previous Eaeter esea-sons, others again suite that they will be booked out for the entire holiday period. Motoring parties, it is explained, will not he. in such large numbers this year owing to the j>etrol restrictions, and a big |iercentaj;e of the visitors have come, north for the racing.

"We have been booked out for the la«t week, and have had to divert traffic tu otlier hotels in the city," said the manager of an hotel which hae accommodation for a large number of people. "All our accommodation will be in use by to-morrow night, and that includes ehake-downs which will be made up in the commercial room. We have had to turn some of our old customers away. The races are the attraction, and we have people booked in from all parts of the North Island. There is a fair proportion of South Island visitors, but, of course, they axe visitors who would come to Auckland in the ordinary course of e.veute. The demand for accommodation will slacken off after Monday night, and then I expect we will be slack until the Juno raeee come along. People had been slow in booking this year, but his hotel was full again, said the manager of another city hotel. Last year his hotel was booked out a week or two liefore Easter, and perhaps the earlier Kaster this year had upset some calculations. Trade in all departments of the hotel business, the manager concluded, was keeping up remarkably well. Some other hotel proprietors said their bookings definitely were not so heavy as in previous years, but by tonight it was posftible they would have most beds occupied. "One never can tell, but the bookings are not as good as last year,"' t>aid one of the proprietors in this group. "The benzine restriction.*, in my experience, are keeping many ]>coplt> away from Auckland, and that lias been the case ever since they were introduced."