American tourists like things that are familiar.

There's always a line to get into TGI Friday's in Times Square. Wal-Mart sells regional souvenirs in every store. So many people come home from China with stories about how happy they were to find McDonald's in Beijing after suffering through Chinese food that didn't taste like the Chinese food you get in America.

American tourists are going to like the new Waikiki Beachwalk.

The new development along Lewers Street is all familiar American brand names with just splashes of tropical exotica, the type of which will make Bob and Edna from Sunnydale comfortable on their vacation.

The Denny's is still there on the makai end, and there's a Yardhouse, Ruth's Chris, Jamba Juice and Starbucks going in. A mai tai might be "traditional" (as the Waikiki Beachwalk marketing material puts it), but why take a chance on something strange upsetting your tummy when you can have your usual?

There are enough touches of what the tourist industry likes to call a "Hawaiian sense of place" to give it an exotic feel. It's not a sense of place like, say, Ma'ili or Kalaheo, but it's better than the dark, brooding concrete canyon that was there before this redesign.

In one of several interior accents shops along the new beachwalk, you can buy a bag of fake seaweed for $7.50. Perfect for decorating your bathroom in a "beach oasis" theme, and best of all, it doesn't smell fishy like the real stuff.

Another store offers a puka shell necklace for $95 (but this is hand-strung and the shells are graduated in size and kind of rough, like they were actually picked from a beach — not like the perfect white button-looking kind mass produced in the Philippines).

There are shops offering koa and milo items made in Hawai'i, but it's more a "world market" than anything else. A tourist walking out of a gallery of work by an Australian photographer tells her husband, "My favorite is the shot of the Grand Canyon."

Hovering over all of this are curved awnings that the Web site describes as glass canopies inspired by the movement of the ocean and the 'iako and ama of canoes. In years to come, these will look dated, but for now they go along thematically with the intermittently spouting fountain — another architectural feature that says "2000s."

There are shopping promenades exactly like this in places like Boulder and Palm Springs. That's what Americans want on vacation — to go someplace new but feel like they never left home.

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.