[ OUR OPINION ]
If ever there was a wake-up call to Hawaii's lethargic travel industry, the latest report from the Japan Travel Bureau should be it. For most of a decade, the state's tourism has been sluggish in large part because the travel industry has been complacent. It had things too good for too long and evidently has forgotten how to compete. Stale attractions,
lax attitudes kill
Hawaii tourism
THE ISSUE Hawaii has slipped behind South Korea, Europe, the mainland United States and China as a tourist destination for Japanese.
The survey by the JTB, which claims to be the world's largest travel agency, said that Japanese visitors, once a mainstay of tourism here, would be down by 18 percent this summer. Recent figures from the state's Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism show that Japanese visitors this year are already down by 20 percent compared to a year ago.
The travel industry will be tempted to point to Japan's economy, which is languishing in the doldrums, but that argument doesn't stand up. For a Japanese to travel to the mainland United States or to Europe costs as much or more than to Hawaii. Visiting neighbors in South Korea or China costs less, of course.
Among the underlying reasons for the downturn is that Hawaii has become old hat for many Japanese travelers. Some years ago, a Japan Air Lines executive explained that when Japanese first go abroad, they like to travel on a Japanese airline, stay in a Japanese hotel, eat Japanese food, and go sightseeing or shopping as a group behind a guide with a little flag. On the second trip, they like the discount fares and room rates but want to strike out more on their own. On the third trip, they really want a new experience.
Travel executives in Hawaii appear not to have realized that. They have been intent on presenting the same old activities when fresh thinking is called for. Events that stress Hawaiian culture, if effectively packaged, could become a new attraction for repeat Japanese tourists.
Revised flight schedules should be considered. Most flights from Japan leave in the evening and fly overnight, dumping out red-eyed visitors early in the morning. Have any travel or airline executives looked at a calendar and a clock recently? Hawaii has become more of a family resort than before and getting the prostitutes off the street in Waikiki would burnish our image a bit. Erasing the cavalier attitude of many in the service industries also would help.
The slide in Japanese tourism is part of a bigger picture. The number of visitors from the western United States is up but a tad, those from the eastern states are down, and those from Canada way down, more than 23 percent. Meantime, the travel industry appears not to have done much to attract visitors from South Korea and Taiwan, both of whose economies have bounced back since the meltdown of the late 1990s. Nor has it done much to cultivate China, a potentially huge market. The World Tourist Organization estimates that 100 million Chinese will be able to travel abroad within a decade or so.
The gaming industry will most likely use the JTB report to push gambling here as a new attraction. If gambling that appeals to Japanese is introduced here, expect the yakuza (organized criminals) to be on the next plane right behind the tourists.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Linda Lingle has proposed breaking the "T" out of DBEDT and giving tourism a cabinet officer of its own. As tourism is the state's leading non-governmental source of income, the idea is worth considering. The voters might like to hear what other candidates have to say.
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