Courses Ikuyo Nitta can only hope for the days when the big-spending Japanese will fly in and tee off.
in the rough
Japanese golfers have
disappeared from isle linksBy Tim Ruel
truel@starbulletin.comThe manager of the New Ewa Beach Golf Club said she has never seen such a lull in the business of Japanese golf. The semi-private course has discounted its greens fees to $30 on weekdays to attract more local golfers, but that only means less money coming in. Overall revenues are down 30 percent to 40 percent.
"It's really, really tough," Nitta said.
The paucity of Japanese tourists, and the continuing stagnancy of Japan's economy, is playing itself out directly on Oahu's golf courses that cater to the Japanese.
Since Sept. 11, the 18-hole New Ewa Beach has attracted fewer than 50 Japanese players each week, with the single exception of Nov. 3, which is the Japanese holiday Culture Day. Even then, the 135-acre links only attracted some 60 Japanese players, less than what Ikuyo had been hoping for.
New Ewa Beach had once depended on the Japanese for 90 percent of its business. Members would typically flood in around Christmas and the beginning of the year, Nitta said. But bookings this month are not looking good. "Right now, it's really open," she said.
At the public Ko Olina Golf Club, bookings for tourists are down 20 percent to 30 percent over the next few months, said golf director Jim Richerson. Until Sept. 11, Japanese visitors made up one-third of the course's players. The Ko Olina links has not cut staff, but has shortened working hours to make up for lost play, Richerson said.
Bookings as far ahead as March are looking up, said Lesly Ann Komoda, golf operations manager for the Kapolei Golf Course. But good bookings don't mean you're out of the woods, she said. "We can lose them just as quick as we book them," Komoda said.
Facing less business, the Kapolei links has cut roughly 20 of its 100 or so employees. Most Oahu courses that cater to the Japanese probably have either fired some staff or shortened hours, Komoda surmised. "We're just kind of hoping and riding the wave and biding time," she said.
In October, Hawaii received 67,440 Japanese visitors, fewer than half the 146,880 visitors that came during the same month last year, according to the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism. For Oahu, the October trend was much the same. That month, major carrier Japan Airlines cut 23 percent of its flights to Hawaii.
In contrast, in the months leading up to Sept. 11, Japanese visits had been holding relatively steady. For January through August, 1.19 million Japanese came to Hawaii, compared with 1.21 million a year earlier, a decrease of 1.7 percent.
"Our numbers are very reflective of the overall tourism numbers to the island," Richerson said.
"[If] they're not coming, they're not coming. There's nothing you can do," said Ken Terao, golf operations manager at the Hawaii Prince Golf Club in Ewa Beach.
Tiger Golf & Tours, a Waikiki firm that ferries Japanese tour groups to golf courses on Oahu, used to run one bus a day, said principal Mike Kwak. Now, it's more like one bus a week. A December booking of 10-30 people just canceled. "It's all down," he said.
The Japanese typically don't like to visit a country that is at war, observers say. Making matters worse, the yen has weakened since Sept. 20, going from 116.4 yen per dollar to 125.5 as of Friday. The Japanese who do come to Oahu don't spend as much.
The tradition of buying expensive omiyage gift items at the golf course shop is not so popular anymore, said Nitta. "They're not going to spend anything," she said. "Now they're just going to go for the after-Christmas sale."
Because of the drop in visitors, the demographics of the average Oahu golfer have dramatically shifted on certain courses.
Before Sept. 11, 40 percent of the golfers at the Hawaii Prince were from out-of-state, primarily from Japan. Immediately after the attacks, the out-of-state golf segment at the Prince plunged to 16 percent of the market, then fell even further to 10 percent by October, said Terao. The numbers improved slightly in November, bringing the balance to 20 percent from out-of-state compared with 80 percent kamaaina.
"You can imagine the impact of that as far as rate goes," Terao said. Nonresidents pay $135 green fees at the Prince, while residents pay $45 for weekdays and $55 for weekends.
Rather than cutting its fees to encourage more local business, the Prince is offering more perks, such as unlimited golf or a free lunch, Terao said. As a result, the number of local golfers has stayed about the same as before, he said.
Other courses reported that they had used lower greens fees to garner more local golfers. But that still means less revenue.
Oahu's courses are facing financial trouble, Nitta said. A links on this island is not cheap, she said. Tokyo-based Kosaido Development Co. paid $38.3 million for the New Ewa Beach course in 1997. Plus, real property taxes are high, Nitta said. Her course shells out $135,000 annually. Although the tax recently dropped from $200,000, it is still a major expense, she said.
On a positive note, Nitta points out that New Ewa Beach is buoyed by its parent company, a major publicly held commercial printing firm in Japan that owns golf courses around the world. For the six months ended Sept. 30, the firm reported a 10 percent increase in earnings, to $9.9 million from $9 million.
Other courses, like Ko Olina and the Prince, are able to draw from a local hotel owned by their company.
On the down side, there are more than 80 golf courses in Hawaii, with about 15 of them in the Leeward area alone. It's all about sharing a well-sliced pie, Komoda said.
Arguably, the only good to come from Sept. 11 for Oahu golf has been the delay of the much-anticipated opening of the Royal Kunia Golf Club in Waipahu.
The course was developed in 1994 but never opened because the previous owner never paid $13 million in impact fees demanded by former Honolulu Mayor Frank Fasi. The links went through foreclosure, receivership and were nearly bought by the city government. Last year, JAC Hawaii bought the 164-acre course for $11.5 million. The city dropped the fee, and JAC planned to open by this month.
The opening was delayed until April because the company wanted to open the course on a better note.
Plus, the greenskeepers said the links could use more work, said Alan Goda, attorney for JAC Hawaii.
For other courses, that avoids segmenting the market even further.
"Royal Kunia definitely will impact our play," Komoda said.