PRICE CONTROL ON HOTELS

Press, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 26906, 5 December 1952, Page 6

PRICE CONTROL ON HOTELS

ABOLITION URGED

“SUBSTANTIAL LOSSES ON ACCOMMODATION” (New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, December 4. Decontrol of tariffis for hotels with high gradings was urgently necessary to relieve their proprietors from bearing heavy losses, the secretary of the National Council of the Licensed Trade (Mr Percy Coyle) said today. Mr Coyle was commenting bn a message from Auckland reporting that the owners of the Trans-Tasman Hotel intended to apply to the Auckland Licensing Committee to close the hotel because of the difficulty of running the hotel as an economic proposition. Rising costs had affected returns from all hotel accommodation. Mr Colye said. “It is very difficult for any gradehotels to break even on the restricted tariffs that are permitted by the Price Tribunal and substantial losses have been suffered on accommodation in the higher grade hotels,” he said. If the Price Tribunal continued to restrict notel tariffs, there was a strong possibility that hotel keepers would make less accommodation available to the public. They would reduce the number of available rooms.

Hotel owners had been beset by increased costs from all sides, and despite the Licensing Commission’s recommendation some time ago that controls be lifted on high grade hotel tariffs, * ™ Pr £ e Tribunal had given no relief. Mr Coyle said there was a strong case for the complete freeing of hotels from price control. He said that before the introduction of price control competition was responsible for the regulation of fair prices for hotel tariffs. This system should be reintroduced urgently.