1. By: Minami Iguchi, Cindy Yang, Asami Noda, Virginia Taylor
Grace Guslander
By: Minami Iguchi, Cindy Yang,
Asami Noda, Virginia Taylor

2. History & Background
1910 － Born in Rudy, Pennsylvania 1948 － Moved to Oahu, Hawaii 1953 － Hired as a manager of Coco Palms on Kauai 1965 － Made it the best-known resort in all of Hawaii 1965
Only 24 rooms with four employees – transformed into best-known resort with 35 acres of property and 393 guests rooms

3. 1969 － Married Lyle Guslander, who run Coco Palms 1985 － Retired 1992 － Coco Palms closed due to Hurricane Iniki 2000 － Passed away when she was 89

4. Accomplishments 1965 － Named “Outstanding Hotel Manager of the Year”
among an international selection
1979　－ Named “Man of the Year”, the first woman to
win the title
2007　－ Inducted into the Hawai‘i Hospitality Hall of Fame

5. Marketing Techniques Nightly Cocktail Party Complimentary banquets
Special dinner party
She acts as hostess for over 100 guests and greets most of them by name.
Complimentary banquets for customers guarantee that nobody will forget Grace or Coco Palms.
Invitations to her special dinner party with Hawaii’s most influential residents mixing with carefully selected guests were most wanted on Kauai.
She combined fantasy, mystery, Polynesian culture and palm trees to create a world that tourists loved to visit, and thousands of hotel rooms around the Pacific succeeded based in part on that vision.

6. Aulani Resort Lobby Today
Coco Palms Lobby
Aulani Resort Lobby Today
Vision of hawaii, design elements repeated in one of the newest hotels. More Polynesian than hawaiian.

7. Clam Shells
There were the giant clam shells imported from the South Pacific to serve as bathroom sinks. And the monkeys in the zoo set back in the palms. Artifacts from across the Pacific adorned the place.

8. Torch Lighting
The ceremonial torch lighting ceremony "Call to Feast," which took place every evening at 7:30pm, for 40 years, was the original such event, copied in recent years by many other resorts and hotels in Hawaiʻi.

9. The Legend of the Frog
Let not the calls of the frogs disturb you here at Coco Palms. Just remember these are the love songs of those who live in the lagoon.
One such circumstance came about when guests complained about the noise the frogs in the lagoon made enough to keep them awake in the pre-air-conditioned days at Coco Palms. Grace could not find a legend about the frogs, so she commissioned one, a special legend that justified and romanticized the frogs and their infernal noise.
“Legend of the Frog” was published and distributed by Coco Palms Resort. It is now a part of Kauai’s history in song and story.

10. Elvis Presley movie Blue Hawaii
Most of the last 20 minutes of the movie was shot on the Coco Palms, which made the Coco Palms Resort achieve early exposure and fame in the 1961.
The wedding ceremony, portrayed in the final scene where Elvis croons "The Hawaiian Wedding Song" to Joan Blackman as they ride their flower bedecked double hulled canoe through the lagoon to the Wedding Chapel, is credited with creating a high demand for weddings at the Coco Palms Resort. Prior to its close in 1992, the Resort hosted over 500 wedding ceremonies annually.

11. Hawaii’s Tourism is going more authentic Hawaiian.
Criticism
The story of Frogs isn’t a real Hawaiian legend?
The Torch was used by Hawaiians as a light source when walking or fishing at night, not for the ceremony.
Today… What’s not Hawaiian?
Hawaii’s Tourism is going more authentic Hawaiian.

12. Now, many resorts in Hawaii are hoping to change those images, edging away from these kitschy marketing inventions and toward real-life Hawaiian traditions that can make the trip to the islands more special for travelers.
The Hawaii Tourism Authority is distributing a new guide to advertisers, travel reporters and others involved in disseminating information about Hawaii that attempts to clarify what is and isn't Hawaiian.