The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1903-05-11
TAKES COIN
To TALK OF
The ISLANDS
Put Money Where
It Will Bring
Tourists.
Make the Effort on
Business Prin-
ciples.
Pay the Men Who viii Talk
Where It Wilt Do Some
Good.

TT seems to me-" said a gentleman in
this city well known for his efforts at
advertising Honolulu in past years.
that, if we want tourists, San Fran
cisco and Southern California are not
exactly the best places in the world to
go after them. 1t is of mighty small
good, for instance, to send lecturer to
the mainland with a few lantern slides
and let him waste his efforts in a
region where they do the tourist bust
ness themselves-an do it on business
principles, which we do not. Los An
geles and San Francisco are in the
tourist business, and they are not go
ing to help Honolulu to cut in on their
trade.
Neither, in my opinion. will it do
us lot of good to send out ten thou
sand circulars, or pamphlets. or ten
million, for the matter OF that. You
can give a man a hand book, but you
cannot force him to read it-nor to do
ANYTHING else with it save to throw it
away. And that is what happens to
most circulars, particularly to those
sent to California. The people we want
to reach are farther away than Califor-
mia. They are in the great northwest,
where we never have advertised the ISL
ands. And we cannot reach them if we
do not go at it intelligently. In order
to get tourists to come here we must
employ the agencies that handle the
tourist businessman employ them,
moreover, with intelligence. For in
stance. there is not ticket Office on
any railroad on the mainland where the
agent is paid to talk of Honolulu and
the islands. Well. pay the agents to
put men, or rather hire men in Seattle
or Tacoma and Butte and Portland and
Helena and st. Paul and Chicago to
talk of the islands to people who con-
template taking an outing. 1t need not
cost much-not any more, anyhow. than
it would cost to send out bundle OF
circulars that nobody would read.
There can be no question about the
feasibility of the plan. Other resorts
with not half the attractions of Homo
lulu have done it, and have profited by
doing it. Interest the railroads, and in
terest the steamship lines in Honolulu
If the steamer lines that come here now
will not work for us, interest others
that will. How many passengers on
the two through steamers in port on
Friday knew that they could stop over
here If they desired. do You suppose?
How mary were tcjc at the ticket Of
fees in San Francisco and the Orient
that they could stop over here-told, I
mean, without having to ask for the
information? And yet. if their route
had lain through Los Angeles or Santa
Barbara, say, do you not know that the
agent selling them their tickets would
have told them all about the attrac-
tions Of those places, and how conven-
iently they could arrange to stop over?
The agents of the railway lines do not
talk of Santa Barbara and Los Angeles
out of love for those cities 1t is money
that makes them talk. Let us put our
money for tourists, if we are to put
it anywhere. where it will bring some
returns. The Raymond & Whitcomb
people would as soon bring their parties
to Honolulu as to take them anywhere
if there was money in it for Raymond
& Whitcomb. So of the Cooks tourists
parties.
"of course after a time the people
who came here would advertise the ISL |
ands, but we must make beginning |
and an intelligent one. And the Pa
cific northwest, which we have never
at all, even with the lantern
slides. is a good place to make it
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