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Joe Pelonio
06-29-2008, 2:05 PM
Interesting article today in the paper on the Seattle tourism industry that may apply to other locations.

Our tourism from nearby states like CA where people would drive up is way down from normal, that's attributed to gas prices.

What's up is the downtown Seattle tourism from the cruise lines, which have increased their capacity. Up even more is the tourism from Asia and Europe, largely due to the favorable exchange rate. Unfortunately they have found two problems.

One is that the foreign tourists either stiff restaurants/bars on tips or leave very small ones, so much so that the suspect a cultural difference and are printing reminders about the custom of tipping on menus in several languages.:eek:

Now the one that applies to laser produced souvenirs. Few tourist are buying the high priced, heavy and bulky items that make big profits for the sellers. What is selling are the small, light items made locally that can be easily stowed in suitcases. This is thought to be the result of the new charges for carry-on bags and additional weight by airlines.

We are a good 25 miles from the nearest tourism, no one is going to come from Japan or even Portland to see Sammamish. I am, though, planning to start making up samples to take with me on my next trip to some tourist areas and see if I can get any business from small waterfront gift shops.
I'm thinking coasters and other wood engraved and inlay items with local flavor. Any other suggestions that people from other countries might like?

Dee Gallo
06-29-2008, 2:43 PM
Joe,

I just got done making some veneer bookmarks, something a lot of travelers need since there is a lot of "reading time" waiting for planes, on the beach, etc. Another very small light thing is tourist trap-specific cutouts from veneer, index or matboard, because a lot of people make scrapbooks/photo albums, especially those with kids. I recently made some for a family with two boys who went to DC and they fought over who got the White House and who got the flag. Scrapbooking is not a big money maker in general, but for tourists, it might . Make the small photo album to go with it and you've got a better package.

Luggage stickers or tags might be another place to look, like the old steamer trunks, you could start a trend!

I also recently made some matboard bar coasters - there are a lot of people who collect those by the way, which might sell to local bars or restaurants or at tourist stores.

Denim tote bags are also a possible, so they can carry around all the things they just bought from you!

These are really small, cheap, light items which might compliment your typical coasters, pen sets, decorative boxes, plaques, frames, etc. You might want to make some pendants, silicone bracelets, pins, dogtags or something more for the younger set.

cheers, dee

John Noell
06-29-2008, 2:46 PM
We see cruise ships here as well. When Americans come, they tip. In Fiji, tipping is rare and not encouraged. Most others tip lightly or not at all. Some of the best selling items are small and either are culturally specific (e.g., sulus, our common sarong-like wraps) or commemorate the ship's visit ("Pacific Sun-Savusavu 2008").

Joe Pelonio
06-29-2008, 3:35 PM
Great ideas, Dee, that I'll try for sure.

John has also given me an idea that I should have thought about already. I do many signs, vinyl and engraved through a wholesale customer for one of the biggest cruise lines. With his contacts, perhaps they might become interested in some souvenirs to sell on ship.

Thanks!

Phillip Bogle
06-29-2008, 4:11 PM
I live just south of Cannon Beach on the north Oregon Coast. Totes are doing well this year. The tourists seem to want items with place specific imprints/markings.

THE thing to keep in mind. Tell a story. Include some little something about the product that makes it unique. I read about a hot sauce from Florida that was not better than anything on the planet, but the peppers could only be grown in that one area. The little bit of a story that appears on the bottle keeps the product moving. Here we have folks selling Myrtle Wood products, and there is always a little slip of paper telling folks how the trees only grow here and in Israel. Our Tillamook Cheddar Cheese wins more awards world wide than any other brand. The cheese factory is the number one tourist site in Oregon. The tourist want anything that says "Oregon ______" and they buy to take home.

My wife makes one line of totes on a treadle sewing machine with recycled fabrics,and reclaimed buttons or zippers. Some folks love the story and buy.

Post Cards that they could mail to themselves. Book covers, or wearable.
Anything that doesn't have to cost allot or pay extra to carry on.

Nancy Laird
06-29-2008, 4:17 PM
Joe,

I do bookmarks from 1/32" Finnish birch ply, I can get 44 bookmarks to a 12x24 sheet. Cut the length of the bookmark with the grain - 1" wide and 5-7/8" long. They go like hotcakes; the high school booster clubs around here are buying them to resell for fund-raisers. Also on my list is key tabs - oval or round - with (for our area) Southwest designs on them. If you have some designs of things that are indigenous to the Seattle area (the Space Needle comes to mind), they would probably go over well. Coasters would also probably do well. Practically anything that says "Seattle" or "Washington" on it would probably sell.

Craig Hogarth
06-29-2008, 5:53 PM
Joe, one of my customers owns a wholesale gift business making ornaments, gifts, signs, plaques, etc for several gift stores in the pacific northwest. About 3 months ago, he got the rights for over 50 original designs from the Lummi Indian Tribe. I do a lot of his low cost stuff with ornaments and paper cutouts as the biggest seller. I do the ornaments on 1/8 alder and the cutouts on red, white and black paper. He does all the matting and packaging. I don't know how much he paid for the rights, but it wasn't cheap. The advantage is obviously, no one else can mass produce them and he charges a higher premium since it comes with a certificate of authenticity. He also has a sales rep selling them at that one big wholesale place in seattle.

I think we have maybe 60 or so different designs, but we only use 9 of them. Attached is one of our biggest sellers with a good portion of the elements removed. If you look around, you'll see faces and eagles in there. I have one that people spend several minutes trying to find all the hidden pictures in it. I'd like to show you a finished product, but it's too easy to trace and don't want to post it in a public forum.

The Lummis will also be hosting the next winter olympics so we're hoping that's going to be quite profitable.

He was thinking about working with the other Indian tribes, but it took him nearly 6 months to secure the Lummis and he'd rather use his time and energy marketing the Lummi stuff instead of securing other tribes. And if you're curious, the casinos have absolutely no interest in our stuff.

Dee Gallo
06-29-2008, 6:01 PM
Hey Joe, I just got more ideas - why don't you hook up with a local chocolatier and engrave something Seattle-specific on them? Clear wrapping and off they go! Unique, edible, gifty!

Get yourself some of those tiny little terracotta plant pots, engrave whatever, plant a tiny tree seedling ($1.50 for 50 at our local Conservation Dept.) Might not be great for Japanese tourists, but maybe Californians?

While you're at it with weird stuff - Seattle Chopsticks! I bet they can sell! Or wooden salad tongs, cheese boards?

This is fun, we only have 76 houses in the "hamlet" so we don't get tourists... nothing to see but cows.

cheers, dee

Joe Pelonio
06-29-2008, 6:10 PM
These are all great ideas and trigger more. As for the chopsticks, for example, I do work for a guy at a large Asian market with stores in Seattle's International District, and in Bellevue. I need to talk to him. Many Asian tourists visit that store. I just never thought of it.

Craig,

I do have a good collection of native American art with rights to make and sell up to 10 items from each graphic. Not that many tourists would know (or care?) if it was from a local tribe.

Thanks for the ideas.

Ray Mighells
06-29-2008, 7:06 PM
After Mt St Helen erupted you could buy small glass vials of what was purported to be Volcano Seeds. On the bottle was printed a request to "Please Do Not Plant In The State Of Washington". Sold for $9.95 or somesuch. Collectors of PNW Indian art seek out authentic stuff, and know the difference. Normal tourists don't have a clue but will buy what appeals to their eye and budget. Killer Whales and Thunderbirds are popular themes, but Raven is king. Salmon are also popular.

Darren Null
06-30-2008, 7:09 AM
One is that the foreign tourists either stiff restaurants/bars on tips or leave very small ones, so much so that the suspect a cultural difference and are printing reminders about the custom of tipping on menus in several languages.
It is indeed a cultural difference; but the point to note is that you are buying a product for a stated price. And usually if you're a tourist you're probably being overcharged. Included in the price is the cost of having it carried over to the table. I find the whole expectation of tipping offensive, on several levels: The waiter/ess should be paid for the work they do by the restaurant as part of the operating expenses of the business. If the management is exploiting the staff and/or the staff are willing to be exploited, why is that my problem? I'm there for a meal, and thus subsidising the whole affair...how the proceeds are divvied up has nothing to do with me; and being guilted while I'm eating about how little the staff are earning (yes that has happened) makes the food taste like poo; despite the fact that I've normally had to save up to eat out.

Then there's the question of what exactly are you getting for your money? You're having food bought from point A to point B, a task very few people can't manage. Also wine opening. Also -with increasing frequency these days- a memorised script attempting to hard sell me things that I would have ordered had I wanted them. I'm perfectly capable of moving my own food and am competent -indeed expert- at opening wine. Rescue my children from a burning building, fine, have my wallet; but moving plates about best of three doesn't strike me as a particularly noteworthy accomplishment. Food theatre like flambé-ing at the table is worthy of a couple of quid, but *expecting* $20 or whatever for carrying 6 plates 10 yards is taking the mickey. Moving the food while flambé-ing on a unicycle and you've guaranteed yourself a solid tip, but just carrying plates? Nah.

The bit that's really offensive, though, is being perceived as 'stiffing' a reataurant by not leaving a tip; however dire the service was. Tips are meant to be a voluntary gesture of appreciation for service *over and above* the service charge you have already paid. 'Stiffing a restaurant' would be running out without paying...at the coffee-and-mints stage if the timing is right***. Having received, consumed and paid for a product at the stated price means that I have fullfilled my part of the bargain. If you wanted 15% more for that product, you should have published that price outside, so that I could make an informed decision as a consumer before stepping into the restaurant.

If I'm selling a product, I factor in the materials, time etc. to arrive at a price. This is what's paid by that customer for that product. If I don't add in a component of the cost (service charge), then I either have to eat the cost; renegotiate with apologies to the customer; or ditch the job. If I delivered the product and then attempted to emotionally blackmail the customer into coughing up a significant percentage on a voluntary basis I'd get laughed at, at best. So why should the serving industry be any different.

I -like most people here, probably- have done my time in the serving industry. If I was expected to survive on tips alone I didn't take the job. Simple as that.

{/RANT}

*** NOTE: I have never done this. I always finish with a coffee and brandy, and I am physically and emotionally unable to run away from one of those...
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Now, where we? Oh yes, tourist trinkets:

Things to avoid for foreigners (mostly to do with customs):
¤ Food
¤ Anything with earth in/on (Transmission of nasties in the soil. Kits with seeds where you add your own earth when you get home are usually OK)
¤ Anything that could possibly be construed as a weapon (and remember that people have recently been turned back in the UK for a Transformers T-shirt (it had a -->*PICTURE*<-- of a gun on it!) and having a jacket with the word 'Bomb' on it. The full phrase was 'Bomb Disposal Unit'. Go figure.
¤ Awkwardly-shaped/fragile items that may not survive baggage-handlers.
¤ Heavy stuff.
¤ Expensive stuff- if you go over $20, you're severely limiting your market. $10 is safer.

With those constraints in mind, then, some vague categories:

PURELY DECORATIVE:
Local art, anything with a picture of a local landmark, pretty well anything at all with the name of the place on, old maps lasered onto lightweight material, postcards and equivalents.

VAGUELY USEFUL
Bookmarks, boxes with a set of cards/other game in, coasters, if your region is famous for the manufacture of a specific item, try one of those with the town name burned on, that sort of thing.

THINGS THE TOURIST CAN USE ON HOLIDAY
Travel kit, voltage converters, spare camera cards (in a little wooden box for nice), beach/local conditions kit, clothes (denim burns white- quite effective), leather stuff (wallets, tobacco pouches, handbags etc).

FUNNY STUFF
The volcano seeds is an excellent example. People will pay $10 for something that makes them laugh, no matter what it is.

One thing that I would heartily recommend is visiting your local cheap-junk-imported-from-China shop and seeing what stock they carry that can be lasered. You're starting out with a finished product, so you just have to laser the town name on, or whatever, add a lick of paint/varnish and you have a competitively-priced finished product ready to go.

Mike Null
06-30-2008, 7:23 AM
Darren

There is a fundemental difference in pricing goods between the US and common market countries.

As noted, restaurant prices in the EU typically include service and tax. If you are very pleased with the service you might add a small gratuity for the waiter.

In the US the waiters pay scale is such that tips are necessary to make a living. Restaurant menu prices do not include tips or tax. The standard for tipping is 15% or even more at better restaurants.

In most cases being a waiter in the US is not considered a career. It is more often temporary employment or employment for less skilled people.

When my family comes over from Germany they have a tough time with sales taxes (VAT in the EU) and tipping.

Darren Null
06-30-2008, 8:55 AM
In most cases being a waiter/ess anywhere isn't considered a career. It's how you eat while you're planning other things.

As you say, a service charge and VAT is built into the price of the food usually in the EU. A small gratuity is expected on top of that for good service, and it is a mingy customer indeed who doesn't add a couple of quid/euros or wave away the change. Nevertheless, if the service is bad, they don't get tipped.

The American system is just plain wrong. The product and price are being misrepresented because there are stealth charges on top of the advertised price. It's like selling somebody a car and saying afterwards "Ooh, that'll be $1,000 extra if you want wheels on it". Even if you know about the system and the tax rate for those goods in that state, who wants to be messing about with a calculator if you're going out for a meal? Just tell me what the price is, dammit! And it leads to exploitation of staff. It IS exploitation of staff. For a start, EU staff are guaranteed the 15% because it's built in, and any extra is on top of that. If I've just had to shell out 15% extra, I would be considerably less inclined to add any more to that, so US waiting staff lose out. It's traumatic enough setting the combination for my wallet once.

So with the US system, the customers have the price misrepresented to them; the staff get stuffed...the only one it works for is the restaurant; and I would have thought the system would have increased churn of staff, so it doesn't work there either.

Expensive restaurants expect bigger tips here too. Sometimes they get them- attention to detail is what makes a good restaurant. I'm a bit of a hippy, though, and I find being grovelled to a bit embarassing; so if that's all they're selling, then I don't tip massively. And the chef coming out of the kitchen to berate me for having red wine with fish (true: it was a £45 bottle of 20-year-old Barolo and white wine gives me indigestion) is unlikely to increase any tip and will with near 100% certainty lead to a short answer ending in "off". The waiter was near apoplectic when I didn't tip. Serves him right for ratting me out to the chef though. Fink.
It's all about perceived value, and how much I enjoyed the meal. I'm quite an easy customer...give me a large lump of cow, well-cooked, and don't let the wine bottle stay empty for very long and I'm happy. Little details like toothpicks, attractive table presentations, stuff that makes your experience more pleasant are worth tipping for. Same for fast unobtrusive service. Minus points for asking "Is everything OK for you sir?" every 20 seconds, usually just after you've put a forkfull in. Minus points for hovering inside my comfort zone. Definitely minus points for hard-selling.

The snobbery bit is difficult to assess- some people seem to like it, but it doesn't do much for me.

Joe Pelonio
06-30-2008, 9:54 AM
Darren,

I agree that our system for tips is dumb, and wish we didn't have to deal with it. It's just been this way so long that employees do depend on those tips.

The minimum wage laws do not always apply to servers here, the law allows them to be paid less than minimum as long as the tips put them over it. When the tips are less or not there, the restaurants have to make up the difference but then they end up with only minimum wage. At the better restaurants people do make careers of it and those that can upsell with expensive wines and deserts make a good living. Including gratuities in the price would solve that problem but then there would be controversy over it, since a lousy waiter/waitress could make the same as a good one.

The worst thing to me is the coffee places with a tip jar, when they are charging $4-5 for a cup of coffee. We have our own espresso machine in the kitchen.:D

Nancy Laird
06-30-2008, 10:49 AM
The worst thing to me is the coffee places with a tip jar, when they are charging $4-5 for a cup of coffee.

I hate those tip jars too - I refuse to put any money in a jar for someone who hands me a bag or a cup!! That's their job!

Craig Hogarth
06-30-2008, 1:46 PM
I always tip in restaurants. I used to wait tables so I'm a bit sympathetic to what they have to deal with. But in Florida state, we were getting sub minimum wage, $2.01, min wage was $3.85 at the time. The kicker was that we were required by law to claim 8% of our food sales as income. It was a very busy pancake house on the beach and our claimed income always resulted in zero dollar paychecks. They do it differently here in WA state though. I know they get full min wage here but not sure how they do on taxes.

But back to the topic of low cost gifts. I requested some samples from lasergifts.com. They have these really cool solar powered keychains and I just wanted some. Anyways, they sent me a catalog that includes info on their Personalized Name Program that includes racks and all the personalized items such as pens, keychains, etc. I'm going to give this a shot and see if I can start the same program in my local area. I can add value by providing merchandising service as well.

Marc Myer
06-30-2008, 2:02 PM
It's little more challenging, but if you can come up with items that appear to have 'meaning' or significance/authenticity, they will sell better.
Tourists coming here to Hawaii are smarter, they're tired of the 'Aloha Hawaii' text plastered on every Chinese made trinket that floods the tourist traps.
But anything, even a bookmark, that appears to have some 'meaning' behind it is much more attractive. Plus, you don't want to compete with the cheap imported garbage.
Is there a cool local wood you can get? How about a local (not copyrighted) Indian word, image or phrase that has a friendly or spiritual connotation? Dream catchers have been huge sellers for years, right?

Or find/create a new piece of art you can adapt/reproduce. A great resource is old illustrations from clip art collections; some have beautiful images from books published in the early 1900s.

Roger McDowell
06-30-2008, 2:22 PM
In many cases I try to open/view attached Corel files but end up with a blank screen in CorelDraw. I have CorelDraw 12. Is this a result of files being posted in a newer version of Corel or am I doing something wrong?

Darren Null
06-30-2008, 2:56 PM
The 'incomplete bear' is version 13. V10 variety attached.