THE sad fact is that one of Hawaii's greatest treasures, Iolani Palace, is visited by only about 72,000 people a year. Eighty percent of these may be tourists. The present pace means most of Hawaii's 1.2 million residents would never set foot inside this grand old place in their lifetimes -- not even many of our 220,000 or so Hawaiians and part-Hawaiians. Making Iolani Palace
more accessibleBy contrast, around 1.4 million people a year visit the USS Arizona Memorial, which is free, and over 900,000 visit the Polynesian Cultural Center, which costs lots of bucks.
The happier fact is that the Iolani Palace numbers are about to change.
By the end of 1998, short tours will be added that may double the visitor flow and eventually increase it even more.
The present tour, offered five days a week, costs $8 for adults (except for periodic kamaaina Sundays), takes 45 minutes, is limited to 440 people a day, and requires donning cloth shoe covers. Reservations are suggested but these days there frequently is room for walk-ins.
Iolani Palace, completed in 1882, was the seat of successive Hawaii governments from the monarchy into statehood. I remember hurly-burly legislative sessions there after I started covering Hawaii politics in 1946. They continued until the new state Capitol was occupied in 1969. Then the palace was turned over to a non-profit Friends group to be restored as a museum.
The state paid for restoration and originally subsidized the Friends of Iolani Palace to the tune of $750,000 a year but has been phasing that down to zero funding as of July 1 -- a reality the Friends have been conditioned to accept with grace rather than protest.
Even the Friends' managing director, Jim Bartels, sees advantage in being forced to seek more visitors to keep the operation afloat financially.
The initial response will be to supplement the standard reservations-recommended walk-in tours with shorter no-reservations unguided visits to the palace basement to see eye-catching displays of the royal jewels, crowns, feathers, guns and more.
The crowns now are in the throne room, where they fall flat with visitors in the dim authentic lighting of the monarchy period. In brilliantly lighted basement showcases their diamonds will sparkle again along with a gift from the czar of Russia considered to be one of the world's greatest diplomatic jewels.
These short, less expensive visits may be more compatible with schedules of commercial bus tours. Bartels is working with visitor industry people to see that they are. We island residents will benefit from them, too.
The new, pressing need for better marketing of the palace also will lead to more events on the palace grounds, more attention to royal anniversaries, more education programs, and night events to capture the excitement of 1886, when electric lighting was first introduced to Hawaii. Throngs waited in the night and gasped when the first light illuminated the palace.
BARTELS is 53, part-Hawaiian, educated at Punahou School and the University of Hawaii, and the beneficiary of a summer fellowship at Colonial Williamsburg, probably America's most successful historic restoration, a magnet for millions.
Bartels says that the challenge here has been to preserve the original palace in pristine shape -- far, far too pristine, by my lights. By contrast Williamsburg, with an immense budget founded on Rockefeller grants, lets visitors throng through its buildings, then repairs and replaces its restorations as needed.
There are wonderful treasures inside Iolani Palace. Soon they may be easier for all of us to see. This is great news for Kamehameha Day 1998!
A.A. Smyser is the contributing editor
and former editor of the the Star-Bulletin
His column runs Tuesday and Thursday.