The last word?

Tourism

IN what we hope is the very last report on PlM’s survey on tourist bureaus, we must tell you about the latest responses from island tourist bureaus, those of Kiribati and Palau.

Back on November 5, 1993, we mailed tourist inquiries to 27 government tourist bureaus in the islands. By January 15, 1994, 17 of the islands had answered.

Some swiftly, more slowly. Some with inaccurate information. ''See articles in February and March issues of PIM.) Then, in the week of February 14, 1994 two more replies arrived, more than 100 days after the inquiry was mailed.

The oversized (14 3 /4” x 9 3 /4”) khaki colored envelope from Kiribati looked tired and careworn. It should have. It left Tarawa on December 2, 1993, and spent most of the next two months knocking around the British postal system.

The Kiribati Visitors Bureau air mailed its letter to David S North, 3113 N Kensington St., Arlington, Va., 22207, England but I live in the US, as the postage stamp and the return address on the envelope indicated.

An Assistant Tourism Officer for

Kiribati, missing the stamp and the envelop’s return address, assumed that I must be a Brit and so addressed his letter.

I am at least partially at fault because my name, and street and town address sound British, and, more importantly, my stationery does not carry a notation of the United States.

The British postal service, instead of sending it directly on to the States, tried to forward it to “Wl4”, a neighborhood in London, before marking it “USA.”

In his letter, the Kiribati official said that his letter was a followup to a fax that he had sent earlier, presumably to a British phone number I never saw it.

This made me feel badly because my letterhead unfortunately like all US letterheads I have ever seen does not include a country code for either the fax or the phone. That is arrogant of us.

Enclosed in the tired envelope were three brochures on the tourist attractions

of Kiribati, one dealing quite specifically

with Christmas Island, and the bonefish sport there. All the needed information was included, but the organisation of one of the brochures was a bit unusual it

was like a formal, European government report, rather than a sales pitch. Each of the paragraphs was numbered, such as

the following:

“4.06 Cruise. There are no regular visits by cruise boats but a few cruise calls carrying up to 600 passengers . . .

“5.01. National and Maritime Parks.

Kiribati does not have national forests or maritime parks, but does have a wild life sanctuary on Christmas Island . . .

“5.02 Museums. Kiribati does not have a museum at present. A new cultural centre at Bikenibeau housing artifacts ... is now in operation ...”

You have to love any tourism bureau that is as honest as Kiribati’s, even if they do lost track of an occasional address.

In comparison, Palau’s response was unremarkable except it did not answer my question about the side of the road used by automobiles. The Palau Visitors Authority, however, uses up-to date material. The brochures had Janu ary, 1994 dates on them. □