"See The World Through Hollywood's Eyes"tm
Company Background
What is a Movie Tour ®? Is it a movie reel taken from theater to theater on a tour of the country? Is it people taken from theater to theater to view different movies? Is it flying around in airplanes from place to place watching films on the airplanes screen? Nope, none of the above.
The term was created in 1996 by Bob Jasper and Jerri Wassink to give a unique identity to their first of a kind service. At the time, Bob and Jerri owned an exotic bird store on the beautiful island of Kauai in the Hawaiian Islands. In order to drive traffic to the store, Bob would take exotic parrots to a stunning waterfall and take tourists' photos with the birds for no charge. Each visitor would get five free photos made into post cards to mail home. The catch was, the visitors had to pick them up at the bird store. This created store traffic and, quite frankly, sold oodles of birds.
The waterfall Bob used, Wailua Falls, was famous everywhere for being in the opening scene of each Fantasy Island tv episode. What Bob noticed while there was that visitors were very interested in that little tidbit and often asked about other tv series and movies filmed on Kauai. This happened often enough that a light bulb went off in Bob's head. What if we had a bus, outfitted it with TV monitor and surround sound, and drove around Kauai showing people where other famous features were filmed, showing the scenes on the TV monitor at the exact spots they were filmed? Was this a hair brained idea? Would anybody really care enough to pay to take this tour?
Bob went home and told Jerri about his idea. She liked it, but she needed more assurances that there was a real market out there and that this was not just another excuse for Bob to lose a bunch of money. For the next six months, Bob and Jerri talked to Kauai's visitors. "What if we had this kind of tour, took you to visit movie locations, showed you the scenes and charged you about this much, would you do it?". Enough of those prospective clients replied in the affirmative that Bob and Jerri decided to take the chance. (Note: not having enough funds to finance the start-up themselves, Bob and Jerri convinced a partner to help with the costs. Within 18 months, they bought out that partner at a generous profit to him.)
Now the hard work began. The first thing to do was research Kauai's film history, find copies of as many of the features as they could (the company now owns the largest collection of Kauai made movies, tv episodes and memorabilia in existence) and begin writing a tour script. All this took about a year. They also had to get a permit from the Public Utilities Commission (an eight month process) and public performance licenses from the studios to show the scenes on board the vehicles. Whew! In addition, they had to design a vehicle that could perform the trickery they needed it to do (known as a 'Theater-On-Wheels™ tour bus). Then they had to convince private property owners to let them tour their lands, another first of its' kind on Kauai.
The more they learned, the better they felt. Blockbuster after blockbuster had been filmed entirely or in part on Kauai, the most recent famous one at that time having been Jurassic Park. In fact, they felt so strongly that Jurassic Park would be a tour hit, they molded almost their entire tour around it. BIG MISTAKE! While the film was popular, it wasn't enough to support a tour. Almost going broke their first year, Bob and Jerri quickly realized that variety was the spice of life and revamped the tour to include many more films and tv series, both old and new. These hits included South Pacific, Blue Hawaii, Donovan's Reef, Gilligan's Island, Fantasy Island and about 30 others. The overhaul, which expanded the demographics of the tour guests to young and old, worked, and the rest is history.
The company has grown to a fleet of buses and 4x4 off-road tour vans, all equipped with digital video and surround sound. At almost every stop, after watching scenes, visitors depart the vehicles for photo ops. The company even offers helicopter tours of hard to reach film locations. Movie Tours ® has been featured in numerous print articles by the major media (see our Press page) and has been filmed dozens of times by media from all over the world. Due to all this exposure, the term Movie Tour ® has been defined and associated with this highly successful company. In the years 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003, it received the Ho'oulu Award from accounting giant PriceWaterhouseCoopers for being one of the 50 fastest growing business's in Hawaii.
Movie Tours ® is now spreading its' wings. Owning a federally registered trademark on its' name, it has begun a licensing program to allow others to use the Movie Tour ® marks and develop their own business's under the banner. It will even sell you the ownership rights to the name in your area. In July, 2003, Monterey Movie Tours ® opened to rousing success. Boston Movie Tours® opened July 21, 2005 and San Francisco Movie Tours® opened in the summer of 2006. Coming in 2007, San Diego and Oahu, HI. Negotiations are under way for other cities. Very soon, there may be a Movie Tour ® near you!