Isles popular aisle despite
25% drop in Japanese weddings

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By Russ Lynch
rlynch@starbulletin.com

Despite the huge downturn in travel from Japan that followed the Sept. 11 hijacking attacks on America, many wedding parties are holding on to their Hawaii bookings for this fall.

The numbers are down 25.1 percent, but Hawaii is still getting its traditional half-share of Japanese planning to hold their wedding ceremonies overseas, according to a new survey from Japan's biggest travel agency, JTB Corp.

The company said 314 couples booked trips to get married in Hawaii during the last three months of this year. That is down from 419 couples last year, but still 43.4 percent ahead of the 219 couples who set out to get married in Hawaii in the last quarter of 1999.

Wedding parties usually involve parents and other family members and friends as well as the bride and groom and are considered good business for Hawaii.

With Japanese arrivals to the islands running about 60 percent below last year's level for much of the time since Sept. 11, the wedding figures appear to be good news

However, there is no question the numbers would have been much higher without the Japanese reluctance to travel that followed the air disaster. JTB said total bookings for overseas travel for weddings and honeymoons, to all destinations, were up more than 35 percent before Sept. 11, but the terrorist attacks and the war in Afghanistan have brought them down 38.5 percent compared to last year.

This year Hawaii is getting 25.5 percent of all Japanese overseas honeymoon business, down 3.1 percentage points from last fall but still the No. 1 destination in the world for Japanese honeymooners.

JTB said the average overseas stay by honeymooners is 7.5 days. Figures from the Hawaii Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism show that through the first eight months of this year, Japanese visitors of all types had an average stay of 5.9 days, so honeymooners clearly beat the average.

JTB studied the bookings at its main offices in Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka by some 6,000 wedding and honeymoon couples.

Meanwhile, overall passenger arrivals from Japan picked up substantially over the past weekend.

Honolulu Airport figures gathered by DBEDT showed 5,729 arrivals from Japan last weekend, a 20 percent increase from the weekend before, but 52 percent below a year ago.