Countywide : Yellow Pages Turning Into <i> Paginas Amarillas </i>
For the first time in San Diego County, Pacific Bell in September will begin distributing a Yellow Pages directory in Spanish, the general manager for the venture said Wednesday.
American Telephone and Telegraph Co.’s Florida subsidiary first published a separate directory for Spanish speakers in Miami four years ago, before the breakup of the company. Annual Las Paginas Amarillas have been started since then in New York, Los Angeles and Orange County.
Sales representatives from Pacific Bell began selling advertisements for the directory--which will be distributed free to more than 150,000 Latino households south of Interstate 8--last week, said Carlos Mejia, general manager for Las Paginas Amarillas de Pacific Bell in San Diego.
Las Paginas Amarillas will not be a direct translation of the standard English-language Yellow Pages published by Pacific Bell, but will be a separate directory consisting of advertisements and listings from businesses that specifically want to appear in the Spanish version, Mejia said.
“Our research has shown that seven out of every 10 Hispanics either can only or prefer to do business in Spanish,” Mejia said.
Publishing a Spanish-language directory has turned out to be a wise business decision for Pacific Bell, Mejia said. The 350-page Spanish-language Yellow Pages distributed to about 450,000 Latino households in Los Angeles last year made about $1 million in profits for the company, he said. By law, income from directories, such as Yellow Pages, must be used to subsidize telephone rates.
About 130,000 of the directories will be distributed to households with telephones from Southeast San Diego to the Mexican border, with an additional 20,000 to go to the more affluent neighborhoods of Tijuana.
“Looking at the type of volume of shopping that crosses the border into San Diego, distributing them in Tijuana was something we couldn’t ignore,” Mejia said.
