Demand For High-rise Hotel Doubted

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32030, 3 July 1969, Page 15

Demand For High-rise Hotel Doubted

It would be unreasonable to deny that there had been an impressive improvement in hotel buildings, their furnishings and service in recent times, the president of the Canterbury Hotel Association (Mr A. F. G. McGregor) said in his annual report. “However, in the last three months there has been a number of newspaper articles suggesting that Christchurch is lagging in the provision of first-class tourist beds. The only figures supporting these claims are those of travel agents, and these are forward bookings which relate to about 18 months ahead, that is January, 1971,” he said. It was quite apparent to several investigating teams which hoped to establish a high-rise hotel that their investments would be in jeopardy, he said. The enormous capital cost of establishing a high-rise hotel and the proportionately high room-rates would place such a hotel beyond the means of all but a few New Zealanders. It would cater for relatively few visitors from overseas during a short tourist season. The association’s 1967 annual report had said it might be thought that hundreds of people overseas were impatient to visit the South Island. “There is, as yet, no sign of this invasion; nor will there be until there is faster, cheaper air travel to the Pacific Basin. Further, there

remains a great deal to be done by tourist authorities and travel agents in selling New Zealand as a winter as well as a summer resort, and so establishing for the investor at least a need for more and better beds in Christchurch.