TOLD WHEN TO EAT

Evening Star, Issue 22630, 23 April 1937, Page 11

TOLD WHEN TO EAT

RESTRICTIONS ON TOURISTS EXPERIENCE OF ENGLISH VISITOR Complaint about the curtailment of the personal liberty of tourists to make their own arrangements, because of the effect of the 40-hour week on hotel meal times, was made yesterday in an interview given by Mr W. J. Charles, a retired Birmingham manufacturer, now visiting the Dominion (says the Christchurch ‘Press’). Mr Charles has been in the Dominion for some months, and he said that he' had everywhere heard tourists—especially Americans—complain against a system that compelled them to take their meals at set times or go without them. He told one story of the legislation reacting on one of its supporters by depriving the Prime Minister (the Right Hon. M. J. Savage) of a meal. “ Every pound a tourist brings in is new money not previously in circulation in the Dominion,” Mr Charles said. “ The tourist trade has an immense value to New Zealand, and it ought to be encouraged in every way possible. This may only bo a small thing, but sometimes it is the small things told by tourists that stop others from going to a country.” Mr Charles gave several examples of the way restricted hours curtailed the liberty of tourists to suit themselves. In certain hotels breakfast was served only from 8 to 9 in the morning, he said. After‘a long day’s travelling the previous day tourists might feel like staying in bed—-but if they did, and came down and wanted breakfast at 10, it was not available. A tourist arriving at an English hotel at any time would be given a meal; in New Zealand he came in at the set time, or went without. The legislation had been most adversely commented on by American tourists Mr Charles had met. They had complained that rigid and unchangeable meal hours interfered with arrangements for outings, “ Tourists do not want to be told at what time they will eat,” Mr Charles said.