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‘Hawaii’s ambassador’
spread aloha on mainland

Anne Holt's decades in the visitor industry
took her from northeast to northwest

OBITUARIES

By Wilma Jandoc
Star-Bulletin

Anne Holt was known as an ambassador of aloha to the mainland.

Holt got the reputation during years of work for the Hawaii Visitor and Convention Bureau.

She died in San Francisco on May 25 after being struck by a delivery truck. She was 71.

A part-Hawaiian, Holt was born and raised in Honolulu, the sixth of 10 children. She graduated from the University of Hawaii and worked as public relations coordinator for the Visitors Bureau in 1958.

Holt served as the bureau's northeast regional manager in New York for years and was its northwest regional manager in San Francisco from 1978 until her retirement in 1994.

Keala Kam, her sister, said being a goodwill ambassador for the islands suited Holt.

"It was just part of her inner feelings. ... That's her personality and beliefs."

Holt worked and made friends with many people in the travel industry and the media. The late San Francisco columnist Herb Caen was among them.

Even the young Peter Jennings was in love with her and used to call when she was working in New York, joked nephew George Kam, former owner of Local Motion.

"She was the epitome of a Hawaii ambassador on the mainland," said Sandra Albano, a former marketing director at Sheraton Hotels who knew Holt more than 30 years.

"It was very natural for her to exude the aloha spirit. ... Everything about her was Hawaiian."

Holt treasured her family and friends, and was there when they needed help, George Kam said.

"Her hobby was entertaining," he said, and she would host parties and dinners just to get people together. And not just travel industry people.

Holt counted many people among her friends. She ate at the best restaurants and gave the leftovers to homeless people. Kam recalled the time Holt took out to dinner a woman who was a gift-wrapper at a department store.

"She was just crying after that and telling me how special Auntie Anne was," he said.

"She saw greatness in everybody," he said.

She was an elegant woman, always well-dressed, Kam said. Though she never wore muumuus, Hawaii was always in her heart.

She represented the romance of the islands at a time when Hawaii was just being opened up to travel from the mainland.

"Everyone who has met Anne Holt fell in love with her and Hawaii," said Stanley Hong, former president of the Visitors Bureau and now president of the Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii.

"Whenever I visited San Francisco, she would convince the manager of whatever hotel I was at to fly the Hawaiian flag alongside the American flag," Hong recalled.

"She never missed an opportunity to promote Hawaii."

Holt was unmarried and had no children. She is survived by one brother and five sisters.

Services are scheduled Wednesday at St. Andrew's Cathedral in Queen Emma Square.

Visitation will begin at 8:30 a.m., with the service starting at 10 a.m. The family requests casual attire and no flowers.

Holt was cremated in San Francisco and her ashes will be buried beside her mother, Victoria Holt, at a private service in Oahu Cemetery at Nuuanu.