Tourism’s National Answer Office

So this woman comes back to the District of Columbia visitors center one day not long ago, and she’s baffled. She tells Vivian Curtis, the manager, that she followed Curtis’ instructions for finding this fabled Mall and she got there and--zippo.

It was just grass. It was just government buildings. Where was the shopping? Where’s this mall?

To know the nation’s capital (and the nothing-to-do-with-shopping Capitol Mall) the way the world knows it, there’s nothing like a summer-day visit to Vivian Curtis and her colleagues at the information counter operated six days a week by the Washington, D.C., Convention and Visitors Assn.

For out-of-towners bearing questions--and 90,966 stopped by the center in the shopping plaza of the Willard Inter-Continental Hotel last year--Curtis and company have the answers, usually.

But such questions.

Which hotels have the best ocean view? (Sensible: It’s the East Coast.)

What about Seattle? (Hey, this is Washington, remember?)

Will Niagara Falls be frozen? (No earthly explanation for that one, though someone also thought the Statue of Liberty was here.)

Is the White House the Capitol? (Common corollary: Is the Capitol the White House?)

The no-mall-on-the-Mall problem. (Think about it: How are they supposed to know that capitalizing the “m” means no Nordstrom’s? How are people from the rest of the country--where mall means covered shopping center--supposed to know that this one is a 1.5-mile grassy strip that extends from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial, with the Washington Monument, the Smithsonian Institution and the National Gallery of Art in between?)

And, of course, they want to know when and how they’ll be meeting President Bush on the White House tour.

“A lot of them,” Curtis said, “are under the impression they’re going to shake the President’s hand, that he’s going to be waiting in one of those rooms.”

To all such misimpressions, Curtis and the others apply a solid philosophy: “No question is a stupid question,” Curtis said.

Not when tourism is what it is to Washington.

Though visits are running behind last year’s pace at the Smithsonian museums (12.2 million visitors through June, compared with 13 million last year) and at the visitors center itself (36,741 compared with 40,463), the Convention and Visitors Assn. projects a “normal” year--19 million out-of-towners spending $3.7 billion, said Tom Murphy, an association spokesman.

And although tourists sometimes ask the seemingly silly, their observations and interests are far more likely to reveal deep fascination with all the things Washingtonians no longer give a glance.

They are burning to see the White House, said Imogene Bingaman, who’s been a volunteer at the center since it opened in 1983. But they are perplexed that the White House is open only two hours a day, she said.

They love to see their nation’s money made, said Adranne Busby, who has been at the center two years, though at first many think coins are made at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (coins are made by the U.S. Mint at different locations). They are, however, just as happy to watch bills being born, she said.

They adore the Metro. Most don’t have a subway where they live, and many have never seen one. “It’s a tourist attraction,” Murphy said.

Basically, it seems, they like Washington. Clean, they tell the center’s helpers. Beautiful. Friendly. They like the low skyline. They like the food. And although many do worry about the city’s violence, they come to believe it’s not where they are.

“It’s very big in comparison to France,” said Jean-Michel Hespel, of Lille, France, who had never been to Washington before and could not wait to see the Library of Congress.

Visitors want to know the mundane. Where are the tours? Where’s a good place to eat? And Curtis estimated that every 10th question is: Where do I go? As in bathroom.

They also ask questions that take the workers by surprise. Busby, who is the only paid worker besides Curtis, said she often is asked where the adult entertainment areas are. (She looks it up, she said. This is a full-service center.)

One man wanted to know where the Internal Revenue Service was because his tax refund was overdue and he was going to demand it in person. Another man said he had an orangutan, and which hotels accepted them?

And when visitors call or stop to reveal some deep misunderstanding of the place, they usually aren’t foreigners, Curtis said.

“The overseas visitors know so much more,” she said. “They’re ready; they have their guidebooks. Whereas the Americans say: ‘Here I am. Show me.’ ”