Matson Navigation Company
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Matson Navigation Company, a subsidiary of Alexander & Baldwin, is a private ocean transportation company with roots extending into the late 19th century. It is credited with introducing mass tourism to Hawaii with the opening of the Moana Hotel (now known as the Moana Surfrider Hotel) and the Royal Hawaiian Hotel in Waikiki on the island of Oahu.
Primarily a purveyor of cargo, Matson also introduced into service a number of passenger liners to capitalize on the burgeoning tourist trade. From the early 20th century through the 1970s, Matson liners sailed from the west coast ports of San Francisco and Los Angeles to Honolulu and points beyond, including a handful of South Pacific ports of call as well as Australia and New Zealand. Two of their earlier passenger-cargo liners, the SS Maui and the SS Wilhelmina, were the first passenger ships to place their engines aft. Among the famed "white ships of Matson" were the Malolo, Lurline, Matsonia, Mariposa and Monterey. With the advent and expansion of routine air travel between the mainland and the islands, Matson's famed passenger service was greatly diminished and the liners were eventually retired from transpacific service and virtually gone by the end of the 1970s.
Matson is still the dominant cargo transportation company in Hawaii. Visitors to the islands will notice that the vast majority of cargo containers at any Hawaiian port bear the company's logo. Matson's main competitor in the U.S. domestic market is Horizon Lines.
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