Only Five Of 253 Hotels Qualify For Licence

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31161, 10 September 1966, Page 3

Only Five Of 253 Hotels Qualify For Licence

(From Our Own Reporter)

WELLINGTON, September 9.

Of 253 hotels reviewed by the Licensing Control Commission in the year ended March 31, only five —all in Canterbury—qualified for the immediate issue of a hotel premises licence.

The hotels which qualified were the Grosvenor (Timaru), the New Criterion (Waimate), and the Crown, Shirley Lodge, and the Blenheim Road Motor Inn of Christchurch.

According to the report of the commission, tabled in Parliament today, the hotels examined fell into four classifications. These (with the number previously classified in brackets) were:

Meeting, or requiring only minor work to meet the comission’s minimum standards, 15 (39).

Requiring moderate improvement costing less than £5OOO, 133 (223).

Requiring substantial improvements (more than £5000), 89 (182).

Requiring complete reinstatement, 10 (35). 7

The commission expressed concern at the lack of coheI sion and apparent lack of rational development in some facets of the tourist industry and called for a tourist dejvelopment conference. “If the hoped-for river of tourists flows into this country and our own people travel more in their homeland —then we are not properly prepared for a national dispersal of visitors and holiday-makers,” it said. There was no uniform system of hotel accounting. “We do not understand how the New Zealand tourist-hotel industry can hope to make progress in an orderly and healthy way without doing its elementary arithmetic.”

The commission said its observations were that a great deal of money had already been invested without prudent regard to economic factors such as hotel size, likely patronage and “break-even” points.

Calling for a training programme for all hotel staff, the commission said most hotels were controlled by persons drawn from other vocations and “precious little” had been done to prepare them for their new vocation. Tariffs

The commission said it had observed the general practice over the last two or three years to raise hotel tariffs. “The reasons ascribed are two-fold. First, the increased cost of services and materials,

and, second, the operations of the commission. “The first is undeniable — the second has little or no validity. “While it is fashionable to ascribe trading difficulties to the operations of a statutory agency, the attempt to blame the commission for the necessity to raise tariffs is just nonsense.

“Much of what we are asking owners to do is just deferred maintenance—matters that should have been attended to years ago. “Improvements we ask are designed to make the hotel more attractive to customers —in other words to improve sales.” A hotel had food, accommodation and services to sell. “Many fail to reach a decent level in all three —most do not pass the test in one or two.

“The training and aspirations or expectations of too many hoteliers is toward success in the sale of liquor.” it said.

“On one thing we are perfectly certain and that is that tariffs are rarely calculated on the basis of efficient operating standards. “They are generally fixed on superficial estimates of what the licensee wants or needs to cover costs, or what he thinks he can get. “Too few consider their standards, what their services are worth in a competitive market, and what should and must be done to trim operat-

ing costs or provide inducements for customers to come and recommend others to do likewise.

“In sum, the fixation of hotel tariffs in New Zealand is probably the most unscientific costing process in our commercial world.”

Drinking Honrs The commission said a uniform law for drinking hours in all places was neither equitable, nor enforceable nor in the public interest. “That ought to be acknowledged.” “While exact justice could never be done, most certainly there could be a better service to meet local conditions should it turn out that a later hour for closing throughout the country is not to be permitted. “Much travelling and investigation over the whole country convinces us that that there are different needs at different times in different areas and localities. “We learn from authoritative public statements that it is intended next year, or not

too long after, to determine by one means or another whether the sale of liquor in hotel bars is to continue to cease at 6 p.m. “That is good news.”

The commission said it would welcome an early determination of whether there was to be a change in drinking hours because it was now decided—on the basis of 6 p.m. closing—the conditions that hotel-owners ought to provide and where hotels ought to be. “It would make our task much easier, and would be much fairer to owners, if all concerned knew sooner than later if there is to be any change in the law.” The report said one of the commission’s duties was to ensure "that people who wished to do so may drink in comfort.” This meant that from the outset of the national review that most hotels had to improve their bars. “There were two principal evils—overcrowding and noise. Often there is a connexion between the two.

“The other improvements we have persistently sought to bring about is the provision of seating and the improvement of decor and furnishings of bar-rooms,” it said. “To their credit an increasing number of hotel-keepers no longer have to be told what is wanted and have found they are not the losers by providing decent conditions.”