Second Hotel For Mount Cook Area Authorised

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30846, 3 September 1965, Page 16

Second Hotel For Mount Cook Area Authorised

A second hotel is essential for the Mount Cook area, says the New Zealand Licensing Control Commission in a decision issued on August 30. The commission will authorise the issue of a hotel premises licence to the Tourist Hotel Corporation for a hotel for at least 100 guests, to be built within a quarter of a mile of the headquarters building of the Mount Cook National Park Board.

In its evidence before the commission, the corporation said that its directors had resolved that a second hotel near the Hermitage was necessary to fulfil the excess demand that now existed and that which was predicted in the future tourist traffic projections.

The corporation said that preliminary sketch plans had been drawn for a 126-bed hotel. Supporting evidence from the Tourist Department was that in the 1963-64 year the Hermitage accommodated 10.924 overseas tourists and 7389 New Zealand guests During the peak months from January to March occupancy exceeded 100 per cent, using makeshift accommodation. “There was also evidence that tours were declined," said the decision, “or limited to one night’s stay at the Hermitage. Their view was that by 1970 at least 130 more beds wou’l be required, without taking into account the effect of the jet air services “The Tourist Department not only urged the immediate necessity for a new Tourist Hotel Corporation hotel, but suggested that a licence be issued for a third hotel to cater for economy tours."

But the commission decided that a third licence was “insufficiently supported by the evidence at the moment." In any event, said the decision any organisation which could obtain a convenient site, and was prepared to erect suitable premises, was entitled to apply directly under the Sale

of Liquor Act, 1962, for a tourist-house premises licence for those premises. The commission said the evidence before it was that Mount Cook National Park was the key to the overseas tourist industry. It was widely publicised, and the ski

plane trips were considered by overseas visitors to be the highlight of their New Zealand tour. “It was described as the most important link in the chain of tourist hotel resorts,” said the commission in its decision.