Oahu visitor industry takes new tack

The Waikiki-Oahu Visitors Association changes its name and its marketing campaign

By Russ Lynch
Star-Bulletin

Setting out on a long-term strategy to stop losing tourists to the neighbor islands and destinations outside Hawaii, the Waikiki Oahu Visitors Association today announced a new name and a broad five-year marketing plan.

Rob Solomon, an executive of Outrigger Hotels & Resorts and chairman of the marketing committee for what is now called the Oahu Visitors Bureau, told a meeting of the organization this morning that the goal is to get people to venture out of Waikiki.

Once they get to see everything else that Oahu has to offer, from Chinatown to North Shore surfing, they'll tell their friends and create new markets, he said.

Although, the organization has stressed that since it was founded in 1984, the group needs to re-educate the travel industry on what Oahu has to offer, Solomon said.

"We've been losing market share quite steadily over the last several years," Solomon said.

The old slogan, "The Beach is Just the Beginning," was used for 11 years and something new was needed, he said. The new one, "The Island of Oahu, Where Aloha Begins," was designed after extensive market research, OVB officials said.

Frank Haas of the OVB's advertising agency, Ogilvy & Mather Hawaii, and Sharon Weiner of public relations agency Stryker Weiner Associates, unveiled the new strategy which will include advertising campaigns telling tourists to "expect the unexpected" on Oahu.

The OVB, a nonprofit arm of the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau, gets $1.5 million a year in state funding through the HVCB and about $500,000 in membership dues. It attempts to multiply the impact of that money with cooperative advertising and marketing contributions from the private sector. The budget for the new campaign has yet to be drawn up, said Les Enderton, OVB executive director.

For Oahu, the big drop has been in westbound arrivals - those from the mainland and Canada. Enderton said projections show westbound visitors to Oahu dropping to about 1.7 million in 2003 from more than 3.1 million in 1990 unless action is taken.

An immediate goal for the OVB is to increase the annual flow of westbound travelers to Oahu by 100,000, about equal to a year's load on a wide-body jet or a year's business in an 800-room hotel.