TOURIST PUBLICITY

Evening Star, Issue 18393, 29 September 1923, Page 16

TOURIST PUBLICITY

EXPANSION LEAGUE MEETS , EXPEET. Mr Armitage, secretary of the Tourist Bureau of Honolulu, attended the meeti ing of the executive of the Otago Expansion League last night, and gave the members a little chat upon tourist arrangements and amenities in the cross road of the Pacific. There was not, he said, a body exactly corresponding to the league in Honolulu. The league seemed to unite the functions of a tourist information bureau with what they called their Advertising Club and Women’s Circle. _ 11 1 do not think,” the speaker said, amid laughter, *' that a Women’s Circle such as wo have would be popular in Dunedin, because one of their most strenuous activities is war against bill boards and hoardings. ’God made Honolulu beautiful,’ they say, ‘ and ■we intend to keep it so.’ The hoarding Owners, on the other hand, maintain that an artistic and attractive advertising screen 1s far more beautiful than empty sections and rubbish heaps, but the ladies’ slogan is Take away your hoarding and We will make the vacant lots beautiful.” When the visitor came to explain his own

particular work in regard to tourist information and encouragement he left the members green with envy. Honolulu has discovered that tourists mean money—heaps of It—or, to put it in the racy vernacular of the visitor, “every tourist brings the brand-new dollar, and when ho leaves there is more money in circulation than there was before ho landed.” It fs hard to imagine the Government of Now Zealand voting a sum equal to the lOOjOOOdol' which the Tourist _ Bureau, Honolulu, receives from the Territorial exchequer annually—not to maintain tourist 1 resorts, but to advertise them. And the I (visitor informed the meeting that this sum ! %aa practically-doubled by donations from

merchant a, business men, and residents. Evidently*' they are not idle dreamers, these Hawaiiana ; they are wide-awake Americans with a long eye to the main chance and as ka m a nose for profits as any son of Israel They give these gums, and give themt freely, because they know that it brings s\ great and increasing return, Mr Arm itago stated that if a supply of reliable it iformation were provided the Tourist B) urea a of Honolulu would gladly place before travellers from the Continent the charnas and attractions of these Antipodean inlands, and now, even after his hurried Visit, ho would feel more competent to aJlvanca its attractions and bear testimony to its ohann. The President thanked Mr Armitage for his visit, nnd especially for the enlightenment he B ad given them in regard to the way they* did things in Honolulu. He envied tnß' bureau its magnificent income, and complimented it upon the splendid results it wsia achieving. In its own small wav, he said, the Otago Expansion League pad endeavored to foster and encourage the tourist* traffic in the province, and the statements of their visitor gave them heart of grace ti|> get out and secure a greater revenue frv.vm local bodies and the public, beung assured, after hearing the experiences} of the Hawaiian Bureaux, that such experjHiture (like bread cast upon the waters) would return after many days.