A senior vice president is among 20 salaried DFS Group employees in Hawaii whose jobs have been eliminated in a corporate restructuring. DFS cuts 20 in Hawaii
By Erika Engle
eengle@starbulletin.com
San Francisco-based DFS Group Ltd. issued a statement yesterday announcing its reorganization and operational streamlining to reduce costs, citing "the travel retail industry's changing business environment."
DFS' regional operations will be consolidated into two groups, Pacific and Asia, comprising seven divisions.
The Pacific Group is headquartered in Hawaii and run by President Bob Coe.
"Our salaries are frozen -- and our responsibilities have changed," said Group Vice President Sharon Weiner. Other benefits have been severely reduced to cut costs, she said.
While DFS' business has suffered a severe downturn since Sept. 11, Weiner said, Hawaii's market share of Japanese visitors "has been eroding every single year since 1995."
Hawaii greeted 13 percent of Japan's international travelers that year, but "we're estimating our market share for 2002 at 7 percent," she said. That is despite an increasing number of Japanese travelers leaving Japan for international destinations.
Japanese visitors spend about three times more than those from the mainland United States, she said.
"We have some marketing to do" as a state, Weiner said. "That's why we're working as closely as we can with the (Hawaii Tourism Authority) and (Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau) to make sure we can contribute to their efforts to market Hawaii."
The Asia Group of DFS is headquartered in Singapore and comprises four divisions. The corporate offices remain in San Francisco.
DFS Group is owned by French conglomerate LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, and operates more than 150 duty free and general merchandise stores.