ACCOMMODATION FOR VISITORS

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 243, 11 July 1938, Page 10

ACCOMMODATION FOR VISITORS

Wellington apparently is unable to provide sufficient accommodation at rush times for its visitors. The Trentham race meeting last week, together with the annual racing and trotting conferences, and possibly the sitting of Parliament, may have been a factor, is reported to have exhausted the hotel accommodation of the city. Visitors, it is stated, in some cases were prepared to pay fancy prices for any reasonable sort of sleeping accommodation, and often could not get it. There may be a certain amount of exaggeration in the story, but if at a time like this accommodation is in short supply, what is going to 'be the position during the Centennial Celebrations and the Exhibition here next year? The exhibition authorities are moving in the matter, and have certain plans in hand; but every possible means will have to be taken to meet the exceptional conditions of the period which lies ahead. In this respect there has been a good deal of comment over the lack of boarding accommodation in some of our licensed hotels.

We have several very fine hotels here which cater admirably for visitors, but the majority do not. They certainly comply with the law as it stands, but the law in this respect belongs to a bygone day when the requirements of visitors and the travelling public were much less than they are to-day. The time would appear to be opportune to consider the question of the obligations of hotelkeepers in the matter of providing for travellers who require lodgings. There is no suggestion that they do not now comply with the law; but is the law adequate ?