Dex adds Spanish, on-the-go books

The Hispanic community and people on the go will benefit from two new Dex Media phone directories hitting porches starting today.

The company, official publisher for Qwest Communications International Inc., has added a Spanish-only Yellow Pages directory and a portable version of its English-language Yellow Pages to its portfolio of publications to be distributed through September.

Dex En Espanol will be delivered to neighborhoods with a high percentage of Hispanic residents. It also will be available at the Utah Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, businesses and other locations in Hispanic neighborhoods and at Hispanic cultural events.

Content from the Spanish-only directory also is in a separate section of about 60 percent of the English-language Yellow Pages in the Salt Lake area, but supporters on Wednesday said the stand-alone publication will be popular.

Sylvia Norman of Wells Fargo Bank and a member of the Hispanic chamber's board said it will "facilitate our consumers, so they have easier access to the needs of whatever products they might use."

Dex En Espanol will have an initial printing of 40,000 copies.

"If you specialize in the Spanish-speaking market, you're obviously going to recognize the value of this product," said Shawn Salazar, a sales representative in the Dex Media office in Murray. "However, you don't have to speak Spanish or consider yourself an ethnic business to benefit from the consumers who speak Spanish and spend American dollars. Being an English-language seller in a Spanish-language directory simply tells the Hispanic community that they are welcome in your business."

Several people spoke of the Hispanic community's economic wallop.

"In short, we in the Hispanic community have money to spend, and businesses who would like us to spend it with them need to make us feel not only comfortable, but also welcome," Salazar said.

"It is a step that manifests the growing population, not just of Hispanics, but other minorities as well in the state," said incoming chamber board chairman Joe Reyna of Zions Bank's Su Banco.

"If your business is not targeting the Latino population, you are going to be left behind, and this is the right moment to ask your marketing department to consider marketing to Latinos, because this is the right time. And in the next five years, this population is going to keep booming in the state of Utah."