The Pahiatua Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING TUESDAY, JANUARY 28, 1936. HOTEL ACCOMMODATION.

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13167, 28 January 1936, Page 4

The Pahiatua Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING TUESDAY, JANUARY 28, 1936. HOTEL ACCOMMODATION.

“Everybody who has an interest in the ultimate fate of the tourist traffic will thank the American journalist and author, Mr A. Wetjen,” says a Christchurch daily, “for saying what a great many New Zealanders have been thinking for a long time about the hotel accommodation and service at tourist resorts. Mr Wetjen says that with too few exceptions the buildings are old-fashioned and badly equipped. There is no- variety in the food, and what the tourist sees soon alter leaving his boat is enough to discourage him from going farther. This is emphatically the case in respect to many New Zealand country hotels. In old buildings the bedroom accommodation is abject. As for the feed, there may often be a gre at variety of it, but it is badly cooked. Then again tea is often brought in cups, milked, and coffee is served of a standard pie-cart consistency, lounge accommodation is often completely missing, but the tourist who desires> to read in bed is thwarted by %h.e low can die-power and remjpt e position of the lamps. In many instances a first-class tariff is charged tor third-class accommodation. It is true that uncertainty of the licensees’ tenure owing to the threat of prohibition has had the effect of discouraging improvements, but the prohibition issue is a dead issue today, and the licensing committee should insist upon greater improvements, especially Avhere tourist traffic is concerned.” The above article makes a. direct tilt at the country hotels of Netr Zealand, and although the statement is qualified by the magic word “many,’ s it seems hardly just for a city journal to make such a scathing tirade against the country hostelries, which fulfill a very necessary duty to the public despite the handicap of a much lesser patronage than that accorded the city establishments. There are admittedly some features surrounding hotel service that do not please everybody, but the traveller or tourist surely does not expect to get everything to his liking. There is not the volume of traffic in this country to warrant building the type of hotels that our American friend would have us put up, and the Christchurch article holds that the threat of prohibition Has the effect oT discouraging improvements. We venture to discount this view and ask whether, if all the country hotels in the Dio-mini on raised a mortgage on their takings for the next five years, and put up new Ihoujses, equipped with bed-reading lamps and even telephones and baths for each bedroom, it would bring more more people into the country !* Hardly. The licencing committees in the country districts for the most part, are fully alive to the needs of the travelling pubiie and they are equally cognisant c>t the fact that the hotelkeepers probably experienced a greater set-back than aiyone in fTTe recent financial upheaval. Taking our country hotels generally they are not the poor houses they are made out to be, and should not be classed in the same category as the tourist resorts about which Mr Wetjen speaks so disparagingly.