HTA: Smaller planes
may hurt tourism

By Russ Lynch
Star-Bulletin

At least two major airlines serving Hawaii will phase out their big aircraft over the next two years and that could lead to a loss of available seats for tourists to the islands, says Robert Fishman, chief executive officer of the Hawaii Tourism Authority.

"This is a major storm coming. This is an issue we have to deal with," Fishman told a luncheon meeting of the Hawaii chapter of the Travel and Tourism Research Association.

Delta Airlines will phase out its L1011 wide-bodies as United Airlines will retire its DC-10s, Fishman said. He said the airlines have told the HTA that Hawaii gets as many incoming airline seats as its market deserves and if the market grows they will provide more seats. But Fishman said the airlines also need to worry about yield, the amount of money they can make from carrying each passenger, and in Hawaii's highly competitive leisure market yields are low, he said.

That's one reason the HTA will push its marketing efforts into the eastern states, all those east of the Rockies, where there are more people who have not seen Hawaii before and who will also pay more for the experience than the typical multi-repeat visitor from the West Coast. He also noted that he believed the Hawaii Visitors & Convention Bureau, which prior to the HTA's creation last year was the only tourism marketing organization paid by the state, is likely to be chosen to keep on doing that work, once the HTA decides later this year who will carry out its marketing strategies.

While he cautioned that the HTA is a long way from making a decision and reminded the audience that the HVCB has a contract to keep doing the marketing until the end of 1999, he said his guess is that it will be chosen for overall destination marketing. "It is one of the most professional groups of destination marketing people in the world," he said.

However, changes will have to be made in the way the HVCB does things, Fishman said, and he hinted that the HTA is likely to find contractors other than the HVCB to develop and promote events, such as sports tournaments, as distinct from broad marketing of the islands as a destination.