Hotel Roster System “Not Working”

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30043, 30 January 1963, Page 10

Hotel Roster System “Not Working”

A roster system devised by the Canterbury Hotels’ Assoriat.ion to make sure all available hotel beds in Christchurch are utilised set peak times is a failure, according to the Canterbury

Public Relations Office. Mr E. G. Beckett, the Public Relations Officer, said yesterday that hotels in Christchurch were telling people that there was no accommodation available in the city when in fact there were ho* els with empty rooms. He said his office tried to book accommodation for the mayor of a North Island city who would be coming to

Christchurch for the State dinner on February 16. “We telephoned the hotel he had particularly asked for,” said Mr Beckett, “but it was fully booked for that date. Instead of referring us to the ’duty* hotel on the

association's roster, the hotel told us to try another hotel out uf town.

"We telephoned the hotel which waa named on ’h* 'association’a roster ae the one responsible for keeptag up-to-date information on bookings «or 40 hotels. We were told that there was no accommodation available nt any hotel tor February 18— but a cell to another 1 reding city hotel disclosed tha* it had a room available.” Mr Beckett said the roster system provided for each of the 40 hotels in the scheme to telephone the "doty'” hotel each afternoon with details of booking* end bed* available. But people were still being turned away when there were beds available at city hotels. “Since the roster scheme began ta August the Public Reteteons Office juet has no* been getting i«rforma*ion

about numbers of beds available,” said Mr Beckett. Before that, the hotels used to tell us when they had beds. “The most workable scheme would be to allow the Public Relations Office to be the collecting point tor tofixmetion about aU types of accommodation. We are virtually doing that now. without information from the hotels.”

Mr Beckett said a surprisingly large number of inquirers were refereed to his office by police constables on the beat who had been approached flor help He said the Public Relatione Office had not had any failures so far in its efforts to find accommodaiticn fixpeople. to emergencies up to 250 persons cowd be provided with beds in private homes.