On Politics
By Richard Borreca
Sunday, September 16, 2001
Lowell Kalapa, local economist and director of the Hawaii Tax Foundation, was looking to get out of town. Isle tourism could be
terror’s next causaltyHoping to book a flight for his already planned vacation, Kalapa called a travel agent two days after the attacks in Virginia and New York.
"She told me you don't want to fly now," Kalapa said.
If that sentiment holds, Hawaii could be on the cusp of serious trouble.
After the tragedy, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom and Germany announced cancellations of all flights to the United States through Sept. 14.
Japan's major tour operators and travel agencies halted all packaged tours to Guam, Saipan, Hawaii, the mainland, Canada and Mexico for the same period.
The Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau dropped an "Experience Aloha! Hawaii on Tour" promotion in Detroit planned for this weekend and stopped TV ads ready to go in Japan and the mainland.
Tony Vericella, bureau director, who has the numbers to count Hawaii's visitors one Mai Tai umbrella at a time, says they are expecting an initial "big hit," but aren't sure it will last.
"We would expect corporate travel and then association meetings to slow down," he said.
The key is leisure travel, our tourist trade. Will they feel safe enough to keep on traveling?
Kalapa recommends that the state and tourist leaders get real busy finding out what is going to happen and then make sure the tourist industry doesn't crash.
"I think the sentiment of a lot of people is they do not want to fly. They feel it would just be safer and cheaper to throw the kids in the minivan and go to the Grand Canyon this year," Kalapa said.
"Somebody in the visitor industry should be sitting down to figure out how to show that Hawaii is the safest place to be," Kalapa urged.
In a brief statement, made only after asked if something was planned, Gov. Ben Cayetano's office said Cayetano "is setting up a meeting with business leaders to discuss and develop a strategy to respond to the potential impact of the tragedy on Hawaii's economy."
Vericella says there are a lot of meetings planned as the tourist industry measures the situation.
There are already some strong signs that tourism is going to be in big trouble.
Las Vegas has already seen a dramatic slowdown and the week's terror attacks are expected to drag it down further, according to Mary Riddel, associate director for the Center for Business and Economic Research at University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
In San Francisco, a California dentist convention with 14,000 members just canceled because of the attacks.
Perhaps most ominously, just this weekend Continental Airlines, citing an expected drop in air traffic, planned to cut its own flight schedule by 20 percent and furlough 12,000 workers.
Legislators are already saying that something more must be done, but Hawaii, in fact the entire tourism industry, has no experience in dealing with a war to be fought against terrorism when one of the top weapons is a commercial airline.
Some, like Sen. Donna Mercado Kim (D, Aiea), chairwoman of the Economic Development Committee, feel that an advertising campaign is not needed, but she still worries that Hawaii must do something.
And Sen. Fred Hemmings (R, Kailua) thinks we start lowering state growth predictions and figure out how to operate government with less money. He is also calling for the Legislature to go into emergency session.
Betting against America and our economy is never wise, but expecting tourism to fly high without a lot of help may be a sucker bet.
Richard Borreca writes on politics every Sunday in the Star-Bulletin.
He can be reached at 525-8630 or by e-mail at rborreca@starbulletin.com
