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Don’t bother our
complaint department
-- they’re feeding now

THE Kona Village Resort on the Big Island has beefed up its complaint department, but the new employees are not mere seasonal hires.

The up-sized staff is a small herd of donkeys, known in the area as Kona nightingales for their nighttime braying. The department was established with the resort's founding by Johnno Jackson in 1965 and there are no plans to update its name to something more modern, such as customer service or customer care.

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PHOTO COURTESY KONA VILLAGE RESORT Ulrich Krauer, general manager of the Kona Village Resort, greets two of the hotel's donkeys.

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The new additions are Keiki and Aloha, who are six months and a year-and-a-half old, respectively, according to Laurence Mountcastle, the resort's sales and marketing director.

Technically, Keiki is not on the staff yet, but is "in training," he chuckled.

Parents Kau and Pili are two of three donkeys the resort adopted when feral donkeys were rounded up from the area's lava fields last year. With the Kona coast's increased traffic, letting donkeys cross Queen Kaahumanu Highway at whim was not a good idea, so a local consortium placed the donkeys in paddocks. The third donkey adopted by the resort is named Hauoli.

The resort's five donkeys are in a paddock topped with the complaint department sign. They are not something that visitors typically expect to find in Hawaii.

"It's a little touch of the historical aspect of Kona Village," Mountcastle said.

Founder Jackson had a pet donkey -- Lani -- that slept behind the reservation office at night. When guests would approach Jackson with a complaint or comment, "he'd tell them, 'Just go around the corner to the complaint department,'" said Mountcastle. There, guests would find Lani -- stubborn, but a good listener.

Guests have pictures taken with the resort's donkeys and with the still-standing "Donkey Crossing" signs out on the highway.

The signs double as a landmark when hotel staffers give incoming guests directions from the airport.

"We tell them, 'If you get to the donkey signs you've gone too far, turn around,'" Mountcastle said.