Support our NO. 1 industry
By: Bryna Stankiewicz
9/9/2009
With our number one economic driver being tourism, this puts us all in the visitor industry business. At the beginning of the year, The Chamber with the support of Hawaiian Airlines sponsored the Q Mark Research Resident Tourism Study. In the survey, 85% of residents felt the State should do everything it could to bring tourists to Hawaii during the downturn. As we all know, there is a direct or indirect impact on all of us when the industry as a whole suffers a decline in visitors because we are all in this together.
At the Annual Tourism Marketing Plans Conference presented by the Hawaii Tourism Authority last week, there was some positive news with the announcement from DBEDT that visitor arrivals were up 1.3 percent in July. It was reported that this was the first increase since February of 2008. An important note was that the arrivals from the Western U.S. were up 7.7 percent from last July. This was attributed to the marketing campaigns to the Bay area and the Western U.S. on the part of the Hawaii Visitors & Convention Bureau (HVCB) and hotels such as the Marriott, along with the lower prices of hotels and related visitor industry business.
It may be just a small increase in visitors but it is a positive sign the visitor industry with the support of business, government, and community leaders, is working hard to stay competitive and is making head way. With the Western U.S. having the highest visitor numbers, additional campaigns this fall will focus on California and the Western U.S Region, specifically hitting Los Angeles.
It was also reported that additional markets such as South Korea and China are reporting increases and reflecting potential for future growth. Supporting efforts to encourage travel from these markets along with expanding into newer markets is very important now. Although the increase may not be immediate, it is critical to the long term success of Hawaii’s tourism economy, and for that matter, the State’s continued economic growth.
However, the down economy, swine flu, and other global concerns continue to impact Hawaii’s visitor industry. As reported by DBEDT, visitor arrivals from critical markets such as Japan and Canada remain down due to some of these factors and overall visitor spending over the last 7 months was down 16 percent.
The process of recovery will be challenging, but we must continue to be proactive and support the tourism industry. The success of the tourism industry is dependent on business, government, and community leaders working together.
Message from Chamber President Jim Tollefson
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