MAKING HAY WHILE THE SUN SHINES

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 48, 20 November 1925, Page 8

MAKING HAY WHILE THE SUN SHINES

CHARGES FOR BOARD IN DUNEDIN Complaints have been received that exorbitant charges for board are being made in Dunedin to visitors to the exhibition. I i A Wellington business man informed a Dominion reporter yesterday that some weeks ago he wrote to Dunedin, endeavouring to secure board for a junior member of his staff who was going down to represent the firm at the exhibition. In every case replies came through that, all the accommodation had been taken up. Eventually, when the representative of the firm went down to Dunedin, the best terms he could make was' £2 Bs. per week for bed and breakfast, and even then he is compelled to share a room with another visitor to the city. “There is no doubt about ft;” said the Wellington business man, “the good people of Dunedin "have determined to make hay while the sun shines. Second-rate hotels and boarding-houses, which formerly charged 9s. Gd. a day, have jumped their tariff up to 17s. 6d. per day. Everyone in Dunedin declared that all their available accommodation was fully booked up weeks before the exhibition opened, but this, it is known, was by no means true. " They were all holding off until the city was full of visitors, knowing that they could then charge almost any price they liked, as people liiust have somewhere to sleep. Its is just 'a question, however, if the Dunedin people may not lose in the long run by these exorbitant charges for board, as, when people in other cent-es of the Dominion hear from visitors to the exhibition what they were compelled to pay for somewhere to lay their heads, it may deter thousands from making the trip to the southern city, no matter how keen they may be to see the exhibition. I suppose it is the Rational characteristic breaking out,” he ruefully concluded.