Hawaiians banking on Obama’s name to generate business
Washington, December 23 : People in Hawaii, a state in the U. S. that shaped Barack Obama's life, are banking on the President-elect's name to generate business.
To draw more and more tourists, Hawaiians have been arranging for Barack Obama-inspired ice cream flavours and special bus tours around his old Honolulu neighbourhood.
Air conditioned mini-buses full of tourists wind around the narrow streets of Makiki, and breeze past the school Obama attended and the apartment building where his grandparents raised him.
Some guides let tourists hop off to snap photographs in the lobby of the hospital where Obama was born.
The Obama-only tours also touch on places where the President-elect played basketball, where he went to the movies, the lookout he frequented with his friends, the state park where he picnicked with his grandparents.
The local Baskin-Robbins shop where Obama worked as a teen has created Swirl of Change-chocolate, caramel and nuts in vanilla ice cream-to boost its business, though tourists appear to be more interested in other things than the flavour.
"They ask if he worked here - always," Politico. com quoted Cheryl Fernandez, a store manager, as saying.
A writer in Honolulu created a Web site, obamasneighborhood. com, that serves a virtual guide to Obama's Hawaii years, including a Google map marking all the Hawaii places Obama has lived. (ANI)