The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1908-07-14
rssSsSSssssSsSSTs sSTFSS*s*'
How to Tempt the American Tourist
By the Red Funnel

at the Waldorf, there is one succession
of greetings between friends or ac'
auaintances that have parted at the
Cecil in London, Bertilinis in Naples,
or perhaps only at the Auditorium IN
Chicago; but each city is known, as
often as not, by its distinctive hotel.
In fact, I may say that there are en-
! tire provinces, if not whole countries,
that have been overrun by tourists, and
made prosperous by the reputation OBJ
{ tanned for them by the erection of some
palatiaI hotel. But enough of hotels
for the moment. You know, anyway,
| that I am an American.
Once determined upon the South Seas,
I left my hotel in New York before
II could again change my mind, pur-
chased a ticket across the Continent,
and started out. I am not overload of
the American sleeping car, so stopped
over night at Niagara Falls, and again
in Chicago, Omaha, and Denver, visit
ing the Garden of the Gods and Pike s
Peak. At Salt Lake City 1 made an
other stop, and again at Sacramento,
California, so that I arrived in San
Francisco as fresh as a daisy and full
of admiration for my own country.
My old friend the Palace Hotel was
mass of ruins, and since the earth
quake nothing to rival it has risen from
the debris 1 had intended going to the
South Seas by way of the American
line, but, alasl with final gasp it
yielded up the ghost while | was cross
ing the Continent However, for the
same passage money GOO dollars to
Australia or New Zealand) I might go
via Vancouver, with no extra charge
for railway fare from San Francisco to
that point; but wishing eight days in
Honolulu, I preferably sailed on the
local boat, the Alameda, paying seven
ty-five dollars for the single trip. OF
course my first visit ashore was to the
Royal Hawaiian Hotel. Unlike Colo,
NAL (although I knew the rates by
heart), asked the clerk, H ow much
a day2"
From one dollar European and
three dollars American came the
prompt response. (And here let me
suggest to any colonial who visits
America to always ask the rate, for,
notwithstanding the fact that the min
imum rates are almost invariably ad.
verified in ali American newspapers,
/ the stranger who walks in and asks
for "a good ROOM gets it, and at
| ''good" price, There are rooms in
the Royal Hawaiian at twenty-five dol
lars day. Mine was one dollar day
"a large double room, opening on a
broad piazza on one side and a narrow
veranda and bathroom on the other.
There were electric lights in the room
and in my private balcony; and every
| room in this hotel opens on balcony
The diningroom is great circular bal
cony fifty feet in diameter, as is the
parlor, and even the billiardroom is
lanai, or open veranda of spacious
proportions. [ mention these facts be-
! cause almost every world-famous hotel
(outside of the great eities) 1 can re-
call is famous for its spacious veran-
das.
In Honolulu, as on the American
Continent, much of the social life CEN
tiers in hotels. In almost every Amer
lean daily paper there is a column or
page of "Hotel Gossip and Homo
lulu is no exception. When Alexander
Young, who made millions in Hawaii.
wanted to erect himself monument,
he built in Honolulu a hotel that would
have done credit to New York. 1t
occupies full block, is built of stone,
and has a roof garden as large as any
in the world. Then someone else built
the Moana (you recognize the New
Zealand nancy at Waikiki Beach.
Alexander Young bought it to run in
connection with the town place, and
the Royal Hawaiian invested in the
Seaside, adjoining the Moana; so that
Honolulu has today four of the most
luxurious hotels in the world. and the
three-months' tourist season paws their
expenses. Almost every night a dance
is given at one of the hotels, and Ho-
| nolulu turns out to waltz with the
strangers within her gates. At the
Seaside it is outdoors upon mahogany
floors laid beneath the spreading hau
| tree; at the Alexander Young it is
above the city, in the roof garden; and
at the Royal Hawaiian in the spacious
open lanais, while the band plays in
the garden without. Sometimes they
are all going at once. What wonder
that people go all the way from New
York for the Honolulu season?
Its hotels are not the only attraction
at Honolulu. There is surfing at Wal
| kiki beach. The Hawaiian natives
| have their great Outripper canoes there