Sounds like Hawaii, but it's a Pacific island 5,000 miles west of here that's using the Aloha State as a model for tourism and is looking to local companies as the executors of the plan.

Cebu province in the Central Philippines has been the rising star of an emerging national economy. Now Cebu officials are turning an eye from light industry to tourism growth.

"Right now there's so much interest in Cebu as a major tourist destination in Asia," said Pablo Garcia, Cebu governor.

"And there's no other place in the world that has the tourism expertise as you people in Hawaii."

Garcia arrived yesterday to sign a sister state-province pact and promote ties between Hawaii and Cebu, which is about 450 miles south of Manila.

Since the 1980s, Cebu has earned a reputation as a powerhouse province of 3 million people that started seeing economic growth years before the rest of the country.

Cebu's "special economic zones" have attracted companies like Timex Watches Ltd., National Semiconductor Corp. and United Technologies Corp. The province expects a 12 percent economic jump this year compared with 6 to 7 percent nationwide. Cebu's exports topped $1.4 billion last year, about 10 percent of all Philippine exports.

The province - known for its ukulele makers and as the site of the killing of explorer Ferdinand Magellan by a local chieftain in 1521 - already attracts about a third of the country's overseas tourists. About 400,000 tourists, mostly Japanese, visited Cebu this year.

Garcia said Asiaweek magazine recently rated Cebu City No. 8 in a list of most livable cities in Asia.

Hawaii companies, facing a stale hotel-development industry at home, are getting in on the ground floor of Cebu's tourism development.

Projects in the works include:

A waterfront development in Cebu City modeled on Honolulu's Aloha Tower Marketplace.

Norman Y. Quon, a Honolulu development consultant, is president of the Cebu Hawaii Waterfront Development Corp., a pet project of Cebu City Mayor Alvin Gar

cia. The Honolulu office of Coopers & Lybrand, an international management, consulting and accounting firm, has worked on the project with Quon.

Quon, consultant for local developments such as Kuilima Estates at Turtle Bay, said the Cebu mayor has attracted investors but the project is still in the early stages. He sees potential for Hawaii's architects, planners, designers and others to cash in on "hundreds of millions" of investment. "It's like Hawaii in the 1960s," Quon said. "It's starting from the ground floor for the resort-tourism business."

A megaresort of 15 hotels, shops, condominiums, and golf courses. Hawaii's Edward K. Noda & Associates did the ocean-engineering feasibility study. Coopers & Lybrand has submitted a proposal for the full-market study.

"The Philippines is becoming the market to look to for the future," said Joseph Toy, Coopers & Lybrand director of hospitality consulting in Honolulu.

"Previously it was considered a risky country. That has turned around. Investors are being educated and seeing how the risk factors have changed."

Both projects could take 10 years to complete, officials said.

The state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism is hosting a lunch and discussion with Cebu officials Friday for companies interested in doing business in the province. Call 587-2766 for information.