Chicago Tribune article on John Margolies - Beyond Tiki

K Kailuageoff Member Honolulu Lounge,Lewes, DE Joined: Mar 27, 2002 Posts: 1506	K Kailuageoff Posted posted on Thu, Jul 10, 2003 7:58 PM Jab, I agree with your comments on the AAA books, but the premise of the TourBooks is to present an array of accomodations to meet different expectations/budgets of travelers, not to catalog every hotel/motel in the USA. It would be great if they did that, but not practical since AAA's road reporters do visit and inspect every property. They do that by giving each property a 1 to 5 diamond rating. One diamond means it is basically clean and habitable at $35 or so per night, but offers little more than a bed and a bathroom. Five Diamonds means you're at the Grand Wialea on Maui dropping $600 per night. Because the books have existed in their current form since the 1950's (previous to that decade they were called the AAA blue books), they have continously added and dropped listings. That's part of the reason it is worthwhile to find some of the older Tourbooks because some of the places you might be interested in could have been listed at one time and then dropped. Not sure about California hotels because I don't really focus on much outside of Florida, but almost every tiki hotel postcard I have has the AAA logo on it which is kind of fun for me to see. That also means is was listed in a AAA Tourbook at some point in time. One of my favorite Tourbooks is the 1969 Florida Tourbook. It lists just about every tiki motel in the state that I have been able to identify through postcards or matchcovers, plus it has some wonderful display ads for places like the Hawaiian Village, the Waikiki, the Aku Tiki, and the Hawaiian Inn. Tiki Gardens also has a write-up. One of my favorites ads is for the Castaways hotel and Wreck bar that proudly proclaims its nude sunbathing. (I'm sure that must have slipped by the AAA censors.) The thing that can be frustrating about the AAA publishing environment is that almost everything we do has to be geared to a mass audience with circulation in the millions (AAA has 46 million members). That means specialty publications are a really tough sell to management. Thank God someone like James can come along and do micro travel guides for those of us with special interests, and we can swap travel tips on TC. KG [ Edited by: Kailuageoff on 2003-07-10 20:17 ]

Jab,
I agree with your comments on the AAA books, but the premise of the TourBooks is to present an array of accomodations to meet different expectations/budgets of travelers, not to catalog every hotel/motel in the USA. It would be great if they did that, but not practical since AAA's road reporters do visit and inspect every property.
They do that by giving each property a 1 to 5 diamond rating. One diamond means it is basically clean and habitable at $35 or so per night, but offers little more than a bed and a bathroom. Five Diamonds means you're at the Grand Wialea on Maui dropping $600 per night.
Because the books have existed in their current form since the 1950's (previous to that decade they were called the AAA blue books), they have continously added and dropped listings. That's part of the reason it is worthwhile to find some of the older Tourbooks because some of the places you might be interested in could have been listed at one time and then dropped.
Not sure about California hotels because I don't really focus on much outside of Florida, but almost every tiki hotel postcard I have has the AAA logo on it which is kind of fun for me to see. That also means is was listed in a AAA Tourbook at some point in time.
One of my favorite Tourbooks is the 1969 Florida Tourbook. It lists just about every tiki motel in the state that I have been able to identify through postcards or matchcovers, plus it has some wonderful display ads for places like the Hawaiian Village, the Waikiki, the Aku Tiki, and the Hawaiian Inn. Tiki Gardens also has a write-up.
One of my favorites ads is for the Castaways hotel and Wreck bar that proudly proclaims its nude sunbathing. (I'm sure that must have slipped by the AAA censors.)
The thing that can be frustrating about the AAA publishing environment is that almost everything we do has to be geared to a mass audience with circulation in the millions (AAA has 46 million members). That means specialty publications are a really tough sell to management.
Thank God someone like James can come along and do micro travel guides for those of us with special interests, and we can swap travel tips on TC.
KG

[ Edited by: Kailuageoff on 2003-07-10 20:17 ]

Post #42536 by Kailuageoff on Thu, Jul 10, 2003 7:58 PM