 |
| APEC PNG 2018 Authority CEO Christopher Hawkins seated (center) with hoteliers and police personnel. |
By MATTHEW VARI
Sunday, January 22, 2017 (Sunday Chronicle, PNG)
MAJOR hoteliers in the nation’s capital were given a rundown of preparation for APEC 2018, which is set to begin in October this year with the Transport Ministers meet leading through to November 2018.
APEC PNG 2018 Co-ordination Authority CEO, Christopher Hawkins, briefed the hoteliers on the expectations of the authority and that of visiting delegates.
He also briefed them on the accommodation needs from major meets to lead up events, and numbers expected that will be planned for.
“We have a limited number of hotels in Port Moresby in a limited area it is not sufficient to host a APEC meeting, we in the biggest case scenario had 10,000 people during that week which I don’t think we will but is what we are planning.”
“We had to offset with cruise ships, we have three cruise ships that we will be hiring that will be rented out as hotel rooms.”
“We have the accommodation at the university campus, not for delegates but for media who do not want to pay the inflated prices that you all have during APEC meets,” Hawkins said.
He said the University of Papua New Guinea 2015 Pacific Games Village would serve overseas media personnel in what is anticipated to be an accommodation starved Port Moresby during the major meets.
“More than two and a half thousand media will be here and most of those are staying in accommodation that essentially is cost even that is a couple of hundred kina per night for that period as supposed to the hundreds of US dollars for a hotel room.”
“We have sufficient rooms to accommodate the 20 APEC leaders and pacific leaders between the hotels and the cruise ships. We have done our assessment on this some time ago.”
“Each delegation is allocated one hotel. Sometimes they share and that is normal, but sometimes the big delegations have the hotels to themselves.”
“What we do is look at the delegation sizes and work that out. Because we have presidents and prime ministers and their security are always alert no matter where they are it is a highly charged situation,” Mr Hawkins told them.
He reminded them despite numerous requests from visiting delegate to have the authority and government influence costs of accommodation during major meets, the authority would not dictate rates that will be dependent on market demand.
“When it comes to bookings, it’s up to you guys to rent your rooms at the market rates. People are telling us to talk to the hotels and make sure the rate is not elevated, but look it is the market forces that dictate that, it is a very busy time, demand is high and it is not for us to dictate what the market will do,”
“The APEC Authority will pay for some rooms and we will pay for all of this up front, we pay for leaders’ accommodation, ministers’ accommodation, and senior officials.”
“When it comes to block booking we will be asking you to do that now so to block book these dates for the leaders’ week.”
Reiterating security- all were reminded also of strict on site protocols.
“Staff on site will need to check and registration so they get an ID badge that is visible at all times.”
“It is a full year of event will be seen around the world and exposure increases interest going to those countries.”
“It is an enormous manageable operation. It takes place every year, and every year we learnt something new from the previous year. The key to be manageable is to plan early.”
No comments:
Post a Comment