GET ON THE BUS!

In the 19th century, Harvard Yard was not a tourist attraction. John Harvard was sitting alone, halfway across campus, and in his place the Yard was dotted with outdoor substitutes for indoor plumbing.

Then came a century of explosive growth in tourism worldwide, growth in Harvard's international fame and, most importantly, growth of the University's indoor plumbing system, which cleared the Yard grass for more genteel uses.

One hundred years later, tens of thousands of tourists will walk the manicured paths of Harvard Yard this year alone, and souvenir sales will put at least $500,000 in royalties into College scholarship funds.

However, a spike in tourist visits in the past few years has created a series of logistical problems for University officials as they struggle to both welcome and control this accidental industry.

History

Harvard Yard, now one of the most well-known tourist sights in the U.S., was in the 1800s a "private male bastion," according to Secretary of the Faculty John B. Fox Jr. '59.

"There was no interior plumbing in the Yard, and so it was a private place," Fox said. "Except for Commencement, the general public did not enter, particularly women."

The Yard also lacked a centerpiece until the 1920s, when the John Harvard statue was pulled out of its original location near Memorial Hall and reset in its current place, under the flags of University Hall.

As tourism increased across the U.S. and the world grew smaller in the automobile and airplane age, visitors to Harvard also grew in number. However, Fox says tourists in the Yard were fairly inconspicuous until the early-to mid-1980s.

"The tourist industry in general has grown internationally," says University Director of Public Affairs Alex Huppe. "There are certain places that people want to see when they come to the U.S., and Harvard makes that list."

The University is ranked among the top five tourist sites in Boston, and John Harvard is currently the second-most photographed statue in the country, trailing only the Lincoln Memorial. (The Statue of Liberty is technically considered a monument.)

The faces behind the cameras have also changed over the years, according to Square merchants catering to tourists. They say that the first wave of European and Japanese tourists has been supplanted in recent years by visitors from Latin America and other East Asian countries.

"We used to cater to Europeans--three years ago we had European flags hanging in here--but they just don't come in big groups anymore," says John C. Ballestas of J. August, a souveneir retailler on Mass. Ave. "It's mostly Koreans and Brazilians now."

Ballestas says that in his estimation most tourists in large groups from these countries are upper-middle class, with the true upper classes choosing to travel in much smaller groups of six to 10.

The majority of Harvard's tourist load appears while most students are gone--the peak season is the months of June and July, with numbers dropping off sharply after Labor Day.

Client Services Manager John Mitch of the Harvard News Office says that the number of visitors taking official University tours--a tiny fraction of the actual tourist load--climbs sharply in the summer, with six to eight 40-person tours on an average day.

Visitors pick up again in autumn, as "leaf-peepers" on their way to rural New England stop in the Square on their way north. But once winter sets in, tourism is usually frozen until spring.

"Come January, February, you could shoot a gun in here and not hit anybody--there's no one here," says Paul R. Corcoran of The Harvard Shop on JFK St. (the source of complimentary shirts for first-years).

From his station outside Au Bon Pain in Harvard Square, a Spare Change vendor who would identify himself only as "Greg D." said that all the tourists "checked out" of the Square for this year sin late October.

He says that, despite the ethnic shift and large groups of today's tourists, he has had no problems working with them.

"They come in big groups, but I can communicate with anybody," he says.

Why Harvard?

Dean of Students Archie C. Epps III says Harvard's tourist load grew as a result of publicity from the presidencies of Franklin D. Roosevelt '04 and John F. Kennedy '40, but he feels there is a simpler reason for the increase in visitors.

"What is responsible for this increase?" Epps says. "I think the single biggest factor is that when you arrive at Logan Airport from Europe, you watch a film on Massachusetts, which has a section on universities, and the only university shown is Harvard."

Rafael A. Torres, owner of Don Quijote tours, which specializes in tours of Boston for Romance-language-speaking visitors, says that foreign visitors are interested in seeing Harvard long before they reach Logan.

"People from overseas have a very high image of Harvard; they want to walk around in Harvard Yard because they have a picture of it in their minds," Torres says. "They want to touch it, feel it and take pictures of it. About 90 percent of my clients want to see Harvard."

Epps says that Harvard is the only U.S. institution of higher learning with an international reputation. He says he saw first-hand the power of the Harvard name abroad.

"I've traveled around the world twice, to China, Japan," Epps says. "Even in the remotest villages, you said Harvard and they understood, and that was in the 60s."

Mark A. Griffiths, of Melbourne, Australia, says he made a stop at Harvard part of a vacation to the American Northeast because of its international academic reputation.

"I'd just heard about it overseas," Griffiths says. "It has a great reputation as a center for learning, but I didn't appreciate it as a center of architecture until I got here."

Michigan native Linda L. Lopez says that the combination of the University, its architecture and the many area shops brought her to Harvard Square.

"I just wanted to see the Square, and I'd heard about 'Pahk your cah in Hahvahd Yahd,'" Lopez says.

Not all visitors are "pure" tourists, visiting as part of a nonworking trip--many are here for a seminar, conference or workshop run by a University school or affiliate. Others are attached to high school students on college tours.

"If you are looking for a job in Buenos Aires, and you have a degree from Harvard, you're probably going to get the job, because people will say 'you went to Harvard, maybe you are smart,'" says Dr. Carlos G. Fernandez, an Argentine bank official attending a seminar at the Kennedy School of Government.

Director of Admissions Marlyn McGrath Lewis '70, whose office sends thousands of prospective students on tours every summer week, says that her office has become an unofficial tourist bureau for 'admissions tourists.'

"We want to have an influence on them--impress is not really the word," Lewis says. "We want to familiarize them with how beautiful and wonderful [Harvard] is."

In Harvard Yard last week, Frank J. and Geri R. Caspers of Philadelphia said they were motivated to visit the Yard by a far simpler event--the tour bus stopped.

"Hey, we got off the bus," Geri Caspers said.

"That's right. We got off the bus and rubbed the toe," her husband added referring to an age-old myth that rubbing John Harvard's toe will bring luck.

The Logistics

Tourists coming into Harvard Square are funneled through channels official and private. Prospective students come into Lewis' office in Byerly Hall and are treated to the ubiquitous information session before setting off on a student-led tour.

Huppe says the News Office is expanding its space in Holyoke Center in the hopes of attracting unattached tourists.

"We're transforming the arcade to be more of a gateway to the University," Huppe says. He says plans for expansion include more publications, a Harvard history timeline and online resources.

"People come to Harvard Square and don't know where Harvard is," he says. "Harvard has a legitimate interest in the way people are welcomed."

Independent tour operators, with whom Huppe says the University has "virtually no" connection, account for the largest groups of tourists to visit campus.

The city of Cambridge cleared off the parking meters on the North side of Mass. Ave to accommodate their buses, but otherwise these operators are completely independent. They pay no fee to Harvard and for the most part have no communication with the University at all.

"It doesn't cost anything [to stop at Harvard], and that's big attraction," says Dan Finn, whose New World Tours designs custom tours of the Boston area. "It's also a good lunch stop because everyone can go into Harvard Square."

Evie F. Jamison, a bus driver for G&W Tours, says that her tours stop at Harvard for about one hour of a one-day tour, with tourists spending about 30 minutes on a tour and 30 minutes shopping in the Square.

"They love Harvard; they keep asking, 'Are we near Harvard Square?'" Jamison says. "They always want to see MIT and Harvard, but when we get to MIT they just want to drive by."

Jamison says that tour guides will often point out the Coop and other Square shops.

"For some reason they always seem to know about the Coop," she says.

Money, Money, Money

Over 1.2 million tourists visit Cambridge annually, leaving a minimum of $1 billion in the city's economy. In a city where Harvard is by far the biggest visitor draw, shops around the Square scramble to get a piece of the tourist pie.

"It's really helpful when the tour bus stops right outside," says Ballestas, whose store faces the tour bus parking zone across Mass. Ave. "The bus driver just sort of herds them in."

Across the Square, Coop President Jeremiah P. Murphy '73 says that he doesn't do "anything in particular" to bring in tourist business, but adds that "I think a lot of people who visit Harvard Square eventually come through the Coop."

"The key to tourist business is how well you get the busdriver to direct people to your door," Murphy said. "There definitely are people in the area who try to convince the bus driver to do that."

Area merchants say that some establishments do cater specifically to tour guides in the hopes of bringing in large groups.

"We had a group of Koreans come in here, and the tour leader asked if we gave discounts, and we said no--everything's priced as marked," Ballestas says. "They all just walked out."

Use of the Harvard logo on merchandise was almost completely unrestricted until 1989, when the Trademark Office was created to tackle "offensive" use of the Harvard name and begin to collect copyright royalties.

"You cannot imagine--it is inconceivable--how many people are attempting to register the name Harvard," says Harvard's U.S. Trademark Coordinator Enrique J. Calixto. "It took a while to convince the University this was something they needed to do. The University didn't want to be seen as exploiting the Harvard name."

While half of Harvard merchandise is sold in the United States--most of that concentrated in eastern Massachusetts--Calixto says that the attraction that brings tourists to Harvard sells the Harvard name very well abroad.

"People call us for Harvard toilet paper, Harvard condoms, Harvard credit cards, but I can say no to these things because the University is now protecting its own mark," he says.

Calixto says that the biggest headaches for the Trademark Office are in foreign countries. In Korea, for example, one company is marketing "Harvard Eggs," with the promise that eating them will make one smarter.

All major souvenir merchants in the Square say they sell officially-licensed merchandise, meaning that 7.5 percent of the profits from every sweatshirt bought at the Coop is returned to the Trademark Office in royalties.

These royalties, which Calixto estimates $500,00 each year, are funnelled to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS).

Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles says that since 1991, the Harvard Corporation and FAS have agreed that this money should be put directly into undergraduate scholarships.

"We wanted to be able to say that yes, we do collect money from the use of the name, but it goes to scholarships," Knowles says. "I'm happy that we have a higher purpose."

Problems and Solutions

The most obvious problem tourists pose is one of pure logistics--the appearance of a large tour group in the Yard blocks traffic on paths and bottlenecks at the doors to buildings such as Widener Library and Memorial Hall.

Huppe says that large tour groups trying to enter Widener Library this summer had eventually to be turned away after repeated bottlenecks kept students and Faculty out.

Yard paths have been paved and cordoned off, and the semicircle of pavement in front of the John Harvard statue was laid in the 1980s to protect Yard grass. Otherwise, Huppe says that no steps have been taken to decrease tourist traffic.

"That's private property, but we're not contemplating changing the way we control it," Huppe says. "It's part of our research to see whether we could bring some measure of control to the process. The goal is not to make money, although we would like to break even."

"If someone is going to spend the money to come from Germany, Japan or the Netherlands, we should spend the time and money to welcome them," he adds.

University officials and administrators uniformly say they had heard no student complaints.

"One time a tourist was staring into our bathroom, but that's about the only problem I've had," says William A. Fokol '01, whose room in the J entry of Wigglesworth Hall is next to the Mass. Ave. gate through which most tourists enter.

"Once we sat out by John Harvard and handed out cheeseballs to the tourists, and sometimes we walk by and yell the [Statue of Three Lies] punchline before the tour guide can say it," Fokol says. "But [tourists] aren't an inconvenience at all."

In interviews of other first-years, none said that the tourists in Harvard Yard were anything other than a minor inconvenience. Still, some University Hall administrators say that tourist crowds sometimes make them attractions in themselves.

"All of us are affected by it," Epps says. "I can't go out of my office without facing the odd Polaroid."

A second, less visible problem results from the lack of contact between the University and private tour companies stopping at the Yard.

"You just can't control every tour group and every visitor. It would be great if everyone came through a central location," Mitch says. "But just think about the number of tours that go through here that nobody sees."

News office officials say that these independent operators frequently give out outdated or simply wrong information as part of their tour.

"I mean, just make up a story--you're a tour guide, and people want to walk through the Yard and hear some story," Mitch says. "I've heard dates wrong, building names wrong and the folklore wrong."

Finn says that his information is meticulously researched, and that he tries to present his tourists with an in-depth presentation in the Yard.

"I read from a number of different sources, not just tour books, because those are mostly wrong anyway," Finn says. "I think I do a fairly decent job for what I'm trying to achieve."

To combat misinformation, the News Office encourages tour groups to use undergraduate tour guides, usually taken from the Crimson Key Society. However, most commercial tours still use their own guides.

"We want the information to be accurate," says University spokesperson Joe Wrinn.

"Could [tourism] be managed better? Yes--through better publications and better connections to tour groups," Huppe says. These new publications include The Harvard Guide, a book-length guide to campus sights; a new line of informational postcards; and a historical timeline currently in the works.

"We've got to address the needs of literally thousands of people coming through every week, so they can learn a little bit about Harvard and at the same time don't disrupt the school," Wrinn says.

"We've got to make it so that people can expect something when they get here," he says, "without Harvard becoming Disneyland."