1. Rebuilding Hawaii Tourism
Hawaii Tourism Authority
Phone: krw0930@msn.com
E-Mail: krw0930@msn.com
Rebuilding Hawaii
Tourism
Hawaii Tourism Authority
Kelsey Waite
3. Rebuilding Hawaii Tourism
2
Overview
Hawaii Tourism Authority is a government-sanctioned organization that is meant to fund efforts of
promotion for the state of Hawaii.
HTA works under the state legislature and the governor of Hawaii, Neil Abercrombie. The CEO and
President of Hawaii Tourism Authority is Mike McCartney (Hawaii).
Here is HTA’s Total Budget for 2011.
Brand Management Category FY 2011 Budget
(in millions
Access/Airlift Development Programs $6.1
Hawaii Culture $1.7
Natural Resources $3.0
Safety and Security $0.5
Tourism Product Development $3.0
Workforce Development $0.2
Leisure Marketing $37.1
Sports Marketing $7.1
Business Marketing $10.3
Opportunity Fund $3.5
Communications & Outreach $0.3
Total Brand Management $72.8
As seen above, Hawaii Tourism Authority’s major aspects are Marketing, Sporting Events, Product
Development, and Tourism Research. HTA also oversees the Hawaii Convention Center and the
money that goes towards Hawaii Culture is spent on festivals and events that highlight the local
culture.
Hawaii Tourism Authority invests in sporting events such as PGA golf tournaments, the NFL
ProBowl, and XTERRA World Championships. The Hawaii Convention Center is in the top 15 in the
United States. Three of the largest events from 2010 hosted here were the Baptist World Alliance,
Alzheimer’s Association, and the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans Conventions.
4. Rebuilding Hawaii Tourism
3
Goals
In this document, there will be an assessment of the current procedures and how they can be made
even better to improve the state’s tourism revenues.
This will help both Hawaii Tourism Authority, and the community of Hawaii. My plans are to ensure
the growth of tourism to the beautiful state of Hawaii by recognizing problems, and implementing
valuable solutions.
HTA VALUES:
As an organization, and among ourselves and others, we value:
Openness and respectfulness.
Collaboration and partnership.
Our host and multi-ethnic cultures.
Social responsibility to our community.
Excellence and integrity in who we are and what we do.
By following our values, we will be able to move our organization in a positive direction. I will start
this by locating recent problems, and then state solutions that could reverse the decline of tourism
since 2008.
5. Rebuilding Hawaii Tourism
4
Issues : United States Recession
The United States saw a large drop in the DOW during the third quarter in 2008.
This caused Hawaii air travel to drop by 13.5%. It affected both international and
homeland flights. In 2007, the annual flights throughout Hawaii were 36,364,056. In
2009, the annual flight number was 30,293,737 (more than 6 million less than 2 years
before).
The number of flights have been getting higher, yet there is a deficit from the
previous years that needs to be undone. This effort has been stalled due to another
problem that lowered tourism in Hawaii more recently.
6. Rebuilding Hawaii Tourism
5
Issues : Japan Tsunami
In the following chart, you can see how Hawaii was starting to recover. Yet, in the
second half of the stats, you can clearly see a fall in numbers from Japan. This fall
will be detailed farther in the page.
Visitor Arrivals February 2011 February 2010 % Change
U.S. West 578,634 517,554 +11.8
U.S. East 141,737 127,816 +10.9
Japan 102,906 95,141 +8.2
Canada 58,598 48,958 +19.7
Visitor Arrivals March 2011 March 2010 % Change
U.S. West 237,910 230,065 +3.4
U.S. East 159,441 148,774 +7.2
Japan 89,779 109,339 -17.9
Canada 68,356 50,745 +34.7
7. Rebuilding Hawaii Tourism
6
Issues : Japan Tsunami
This fall in travel from Japan was caused by the March 11, 2011 Earthquake and
following Tsunami. Historically, Japanese travel significantly less in the aftermath of
a national emergency or disaster. In the month since the natural disaster, we have
seen a 17.9% drop from Japan alone.
These numbers are significant because Japanese tourists make up 17% of Hawaii’s
total visitors.
Another large impact on Hawaii Tourism Authority from the disasters would be the
cancellation of a Japanese convention that had an estimated 1,400 attendees. This
dropped the bookings of the Resort hosting the convention from 92% full to 54%. This
is dramatic for a 1600 room resort.
The last problem for Hawaii associated with the tsunami, is the powerful waves that
reached the coasts of Hawaii. A local resort, the Kona Village Resort, is still closed
due to the damaged caused by the tsunami. 24 of the 125 bungalows were either
severely destroyed or became unattached and started to float out to sea.
The waves caused $30 million worth of damage to Hawaii tourist businesses across
the state.
8. Rebuilding Hawaii Tourism
7
Solutions : Seminars to the Public
Hawaii Tourism Authority already is set to host a series of seminars to business and
other government officials. The seminars are planned to discuss the effects on the
tsunami on all aspects of Hawaii.
This would be beneficial to local business owners or managers so they can be aware
of any changes they need to undergo to move forward in making money.
The only problem with this seminar series is the cost.
For each person for each seminar the cost is $30.
The issue is that the larger resorts may decide to bring in a manager from each
aspect of their business. This could be up to 20 participants from each resort, which
can cost over $600 for one seminar. The pricing could be even more detrimental to
smaller businesses especially in a time when they are losing customers.
My solution to this problem is to offer a discount to businesses with more people
attending, as well as a package deal if the business attends all the seminars.
New Costs:
$20 each (for 3 or more participants)
$100 for the entire seminar series (per participant)
9. Rebuilding Hawaii Tourism
8
Solutions : Conventions
Since Hawaii Convention is under the regulations and authority of HTA, it will be
simple to implement a few suggestions to this beautiful business. Since the Hawaii
Convention Center is ranked in the top 15 convention centers for the United States,
it needs to live up to its name.
The largest convention held here in 2010 was the International Foundation of
Employee Benefit Plans Convention. Roughly 12,500 people attended this convention.
When compared to large events (just in the United States) like E3 (45,600 attendees)
and GenCon (30,000 attendees), it is significantly smaller.
My solution is to put in a bid to host a convention called Comicon. Last year,
Comicon had an estimated 125,000 people in attendance. The contract for hosting
Comicon expires in 2015 for the San Diego location. If Hawaii puts it name in for the
running, this will create free marketing now, instead of the long-run benefits hosting
this event will have.
In the future, this will benefit Hawaii Tourism because according to surveying college
students (the usual age of Comicon attendees), students travel more with family
than any other group.
This is helpful to Hawaii businesses because while some will attend the convention,
their families will be out spending money in other locations.
It is apparent that perhaps less Americans will attend, but that is acceptable because
Hawaii is in a central location for international travel. Many people will fly in from
other countries to attend Comicon, because it closer to them than San Diego was.
10. Rebuilding Hawaii Tourism
9
Solutions : Marketing Outside the Box
Hawaii Tourism Authority contracts 5 separate companies to market the Hawaii name
as a great tourist destination across the world. These 5 companies include Hawaii
North America, Hawaii Japan, and Hawaii Europe.
When looking at the chart in the Issues : Japan Tsunami section, you can see that
Canadian tourism is up 34% from last year. This is a very significant increase that had
great potential.
I suggest we market more to Canada by taking $2.5 million dollars from the Japan
marketing fund to get the word out more in Canada. The marketing we are already
doing there is apparently working very well, so we need to simply increase the
volume and expand our campaign to more of Canada.
This includes buying more airtime to air the commercials already playing in Canada.
Also, buying space on Canadian news websites is quite low when compared to how
much money might come from it. We can use the same commercials and fliers we
use now, but expand its audience.
Canadians stay on average 13 days per visit compared to Japanese tourists’ 6 days.
Both the U.S. West and East have more tourists travelling to Hawaii than Japan.
Hawaii Tourism Authority needs to market to the younger generation. When
surveying students in college, students said they would travel during a recession in
order to “get away from stress,” so they may have less consequences from spending
money.
A way to market more to young adults would be through Facebook. By adding a link
to gohawaii.com from a Facebook page, younger adults would be more likely to plan
vacations and spring breaks online.
11. Rebuilding Hawaii Tourism
10
Solutions : Discounted Travel
Since Hawaii Tourism Authority already oversees the convention center, Hawaiian
Air, gohawaii.com, plans festivals, and invests in sporting events, I think it would be
a relatively quick process to create package deals for returning customers.
Many of Hawaii’s tourists are return visitors. In fact, 68% of Japanese and 81% of
visitors from the United States West are return visitors, which makes it very
important to keep those customers satisfied.
One way to keep them happy would be to give them incentive for booking 2 flights or
more per year. That does not mean fly twice, just booking, that way they can plan in
advance. I would like to see Hawaiian Air give each customer an I.D. number, that
way every time they book a flight through them it will be recorded. We can use
these numbers to give discounts to members who book 2 or more flights a year. By
going on line, it also gives us more money because they will not be using other travel
sites.
Another way to get people to use online sites for booking trips through us would to
give free or discounted admission to events and festivals in Hawaii during their stay.
This is possible because HTA organizes many of these events themselves.
Hawaii Tourism Authority must not forget about the people in Japan. They will
return to Hawaii, and when they do, they may have less money to spend than
previously. A way to ensure their return is to help them save while planning their
vacations. HTA can do this by keeping their presence at the JATA World Travel Fain
in Japan. This convention has an average attendance of 110,000 people every year.
Its attendance is made up of 70% travel agents and the rest are customers
themselves.
By supplying coupon booklets to the travel agents, we would be encouraging more
customers to travel to Hawaii. If for some reason people were thinking about going
somewhere else, savings could be a large incentive for Japanese travelers.
12. Rebuilding Hawaii Tourism
11
Conclusion
Hawaii Tourism Authority will continue making revenue even without using my
solutions. The only way for them to grow as a company is to implement new ways of
doing business.
In order to regain the influence they had in the 1990’s Hawaiian businesses should
take to heart the way savings marketing affect people when choosing where to
travel.
Hawaii Tourism Authority has the potential to bring much more money to the citizens
of Hawaii, by adding a few new techniques. They can prosper and with these
changes, HTA can afford to give more money to product development and Hawaiian
Culture.
13. Rebuilding Hawaii Tourism
12
Works Cited
Hawaii Tourism 2010 Annual Report.
Williams, Ronald.
http://www.hawaiitourismauthority.org/pdf/HTA_2010_Annual_Report_FINAL.
pdf
“Quake Sinks Hawaii’s Tourism”. Carlton, Jim. Wall Street Journal. 4 April, 2011.
U.S. GDP. Graph.
http://theexplosivegeneration.com/wp-
content/uploads/2009/02/_45429709_us_rec_466.jpg
Visitor Statistics.
http://hawaii.gov/dbedt/info/visitor-stats
Who We Are. Hawaii Tourism Authority.
http://www.hawaiitourismauthority.org/index.cfm?page=who_index&level1=w
ho_we_are
