The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1908-04-07
MAUI WANTS
SOME TOURISTS
Editor Coke Talks of Valley
Island and Its Many
Attractions.

Mr.. H. NJ Coke, editor Of the Maui
News and member of the promotion
committee OF the Waikiki Improve
ment Association, visited some of the
officers of the Territorial transportat ton
committee yesterday and arranged that
his organization on Maui would CO.
operate with the transportation COM
mittee to bring about transportation
rates that would tempt tourists to visit
Hawaii-and all it's main islands.
our ideas in Maui" said Mr.. Coke,
"are more along the ideas expressed
in your late welcome society. We want
the tourist, not to get all we can out
of him. but to send him away satisfied
that Maui is the island of the group.
We are going to compel fair deal IN
his favor We of Maui can visit Ha-
leakala for five dollars, but then 1t
costs 81 to shoe horse and he needs
if after that trip and moreover is
knocked out for two days after the
descent. Senator PalOma of MakaWao
has rented horses at five dollars apiece
for the trip; it is worth ten, | DelleVe
Give is for friendship, but for ten
dollars a horse can. be secured ana we
want the transportation committee 10
make that fact known. Men nave come
to Wailuku, and have walked up to the
crater, and they are just as welcome
as the spendthrifts. We want that
known too. 1 go up myself sometimes
on my horse and I take blankets with
me and sleep in the cave. We VIII
nut ND signs so that anyone can find
it, for it is practically on the trail
There is an entrance six feet high and
two wide. Within is vaulted chamber
twenty feet square, with a natural
chimney at one end. Moreover, Mr..
Baldwin is going to put an iron roof
on the. old stone house at the edge of
the crater and we expect to put a man
in charge to prepare hot meals at fifty
cents each and offer bunk for the
night at the same price: or the tourist
can take his own provisions. 1 say let
the tourist travel the way he wants
to and don't compel him to spend his
money, not a penny of it, the way you
want him to; if he has any sense he
resents the insult to his intelligence.
| know I would. And after all there is
more than the mere money
value of a visitor, at least we feel that |
way in Maui.
Il remember ten years ago, when I |
first came to Honolulu, there were Sc /
stopovers, ten in my party. We paid /
our dollars a day at the hotel in a |
basement room that wasn't worth two. |
Later we found rooms at dollar a day I
ind moved to them, not because they !
we're cheaper, but because they were
better. The ten Of US went to the Pail
n a group; they charged US six dollars
.ach, and we malihins felt we were
'eing robbed The other nine were lib
raj spenders, but went away, to spread
he report that the tourist was robbed
light and left in Honolulu. l know +,
hat the outside world believes to this
ay that Hawaii is a frightfuIIy ex-
ensive place and many are kept away.
t isn't right. A man can live as COM
ortably in Hawaii for as little money
s anywhere else in the world, and
yer on Maui we are going to tell him
he whole truth and if he has a million
0 spend, let him spend it his own way:
nd if only a dollar. tell him how he
an get his dollars worth The tourist
ont mind paying five dollars for five
oliars' worth of sightseeing, but he
oes, as any man would, being charged
We dollars for a service he knows is
'orth only fifty cents. At present our
ommittee has been to the county board
Dr. an appropriation to make an. eight
Dot horse trail on six per cent grade
ntireIy encircling the tableland about
40 valley. We will see that any visitor
no comes among US gets a horse for
MS entire ride for a dollar and a half !
'hen the territorial transportation
ommittee arranges for week end ex-
arsion to Maui and HaIeakala it will |
nd that every one of the $50 members
the Wailuku Improvement Assoc1a-
on will extend the glad hand and act
a welcome society that no people
eed feel ashamed to face or belong to.
I am for the tourist in HAWAII for
he good it will do him-and if it will
Hawaii any good, so much the bet
er; but [ want every visitor to our
lands TO be so pleased that he will
eturn again and bring his friends"
Mr. Coke returns to Maui on the
-auna Kea today and viii take I'D with
IS organization the matter of cooper
ting with the territorial transporta- :
on committee in its projects