News junkies get fixes on road

By Chris Oliver
Advertiser Staff Writer

One week before 9-11, Borders Books & Music on Maui made available a new service for Maui visitors. Through a company called NewspaperDirect.com, travelers could order certain hometown and foreign newspapers published the same day containing articles, photographs, editorials even advertisements in an 11- by 17-inch hard-copy format.

"It was a scary week," said Borders bookseller Val Toro. "But we felt connected to what was happening because we could print up so many copies of newspapers, especially the New York editions."

To date, the Kahului bookstore is the only Hawai'i client of NewspaperDirect.com, which offers 170 newspapers for distribution across the globe. The Norwegian Cruise Line also offers passengers the option of signing up for Mainland and overseas newspapers when cruising interisland and to Fanning Island, Kiribati, under its Ocean News Daily Newspaper Service ($3.95 per copy).

The technology enables clients such as Borders and Norwegian Cruise Line to print copies of major newspapers ranging from the Wall Street Journal, Le Monde and the Times of India to more obscure newspapers from such countries as Ecuador, Croatia and Poland. Same-day editions cost $2.50 to $6.50 each.

"It's an easy way for news-hungry travelers to keep up with events elsewhere in the world," said NewspaperDirect's vice president, Richard Miller. "We originally focused on the hotel market, especially hotels with premium and business travelers. But what we found is that a lot of people on the beach or sitting by the pool also like getting their newspapers, and they want them in the original format. The ... tabloid-size hard copy we offer provides this."

The service offers an alternative to reading newspaper Web sites, Miller said. "Until we have portable screens with unlimited power, paper editions aren't going away."

It's an interesting idea, said Dexter Suzuki, director of new media at The Honolulu Advertiser (which is not affiliated with NewspaperDirect.com).

"As Hawai'i is a global visitor destination, we need to look into uses of technology to help promote what Hawai'i has to offer, not just as a visitor destination but also for business," he said. "When you pick up a daily newspaper, it gives you information about everything, not just from a visitor's perspective, but how it is to live in the Islands."

NewspaperDirect's clients include major hotel chains, the Norwegian Cruise Line and Qatar Airlines. and recently have expanded to expatriates, government officials and a Caribbean oil company. "We're looking for a local partner to distribute on O'ahu," Miller added.

NewspaperDirect prints about 75,000 newspapers a month from more than 40 countries, in 25 languages. The company eventually aims to print about 50,000 newspapers a day, Miller said.

The technology shortens the distribution time: A digital file of the newspaper is sent in portable document format (PDF) via the Internet from the publisher to NewspaperDirect's operations center and then on to local distributors such as Borders on Maui and the cruise line.

Paper copies are printed at the very last step. This allows readers to pick up a stapled, laser-printed copy of, say, the China Daily just hours after it comes off the presses in Beijing.

"Our intent is that whether you're on the Norwegian Star or an oil rig in Saudi Arabia, you can read Le Figaro or the London Times at the same time as people in Paris and London are picking up their own copy," Miller said.

On Maui, Toro said, Borders prints a wide variety of newspapers for customers, some of whom live on the island for several months and others who are there on short vacations.

"Often hotels will contact us, especially if they have conventions involving overseas visitors," she said. "Visitors can check the list of papers available from NewspaperDirect.com, and if the one they want is on the list, we can print it immediately. Just now we have steady requests for Russian and German newspapers."