Visitors to the Marriott Resort & Beach Club enjoy the surf
at Kauai's Kalapaki Beach last week. Four years after Hurricane
Iniki, tourism on the Garden Island is finally showing signs
of a sustained recovery.
Photo by Chris Cook, Special to the Star-Bulletin

While the numbers of visitors are smaller this summer than in the summer of 1992, the hotels that have reopened are fuller, according to figures released recently by the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau.

"Things have generally gone well this summer for Kauai's visitor industry," said Randy Tanaka, executive director of the Kauai chapter of the HVCB. "Last summer was a good one, if we are ahead of that it will be a win from this summer."

Kauai hotel occupancy rates for the first six months of this year were almost 70 percent, compared with 55 percent for the same period in pre-hurricane 1992, according to Parnell-Kerr-Forester.

And Kauai's visitor count for July was up 10.5 percent over July 1995, according to the HVCB. The arrival of east-bound travelers, most of them from Japan, rose by 25 percent.

That still means fewer visitors than before Iniki, however, because not all hotels have reopened. Some 6,952 rooms are open compared to 9,689 in August 1992, according to a recent Kauai County count.

The numbers hold hope for Kauai's visitor industry, Tanaka said.

The luxury Princeville Hotel was well-booked this summer, said Geoffrey Johnstone, director of marketing and sales. "We had a pretty good summer, and are happy with our occupancy, which showed good growth on last year."

Signs more visitors are coming include the start of rebuilding at Obayashi Corp.'s Sheraton properties at Poipu and the gradual reopening of other accommodations.

Nalani Kaauwai Brun, a tourism specialist for Kauai County's Office of Economic Development, said more tourists arrived earlier this year.

"The odd thing is our high season and low season are apparently not the same this year," Brun said. "Previously, June and July were busy, but this year we had a busy season earlier; this may be due to the bad winter on the mainland."

A trend toward mainland schools going year-round, or moving ahead the first day of school into late August, is also causing a drop-off sooner in the season, said Margy Parker, executive director of the Poipu Beach Resort Association. "Before the hurricane, strong summer business used to last longer," she said.

"From everyone I've talked to, July was much slower than expected in Poipu. However, August was great," Parker said, "though some smaller businesses have had roller coaster situations this summer."

County figures show the bulk of the 2,737 lost visitor room counts come from the still-shuttered Coco Palms Resort at Wailua Beach with 390 rooms; Obayashi Corporation's Sheraton Kauai Beach Resort and the Sheraton Kauai Garden Hotel with a combined 455 rooms; and the Stouffer Waiohai Beach Resort at Poipu with 459 rooms.

The Sheraton Poipu properties are scheduled to reopen for the 1997-98 tourism season, but with fewer units because of conversions to condominiums.

LIHUE - Bed and breakfasts are a growing industry on Kauai, fed by tourists wanting an experience off the well-trodden hotel track.

The 225-plus bed and breakfast rooms open this summer are enough to fill a moderate-sized resort. The number is more than three times the 62 that operated in August 1992, before Hurricane Iniki ravaged the island.

Tourism specialist Nalani Kaauwai Brun of the Kauai County Office of Economic Development said there are probably even more bed and breakfast operations. Brun said some don't show up in the telephone book Yellow Pages or through a visitor industry network she uses.

Wynnis Grow, a transplanted New Zealander who has run the Classic Vacation Cottages B&B in Kalaheo for more than a decade, said her best marketing is through word of mouth.

"We don't get the person who is watching the dollars, but someone who wants to be a name and not a number," she said. "They like to get the feel of Hawaii and get off the beaten track."

Most of Grow's clients come from the Pacific Northwest, with Europeans not far behind, she said. And most of her guests are repeat visitors, some on their sixth or seventh trips to Kauai.

Lee Roversi, owner of the North County Farms bed and breakfast in the coastal pastures south of Kilauea, said visitors returned to the establishment almost immediately after Hurricane Iniki.

"They came back faster than they did to the regular hotels," she said.

Visitors to the organic farm come from from "literally everywhere, but mostly from the West Coast," Roversi said.