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TheBuzz

BY ERIKA ENGLE

It’s the Big Island’s
time to shine

The annual Merrie Monarch hula competition last week had an unusually large number of eyes in Hawaii focused on the Edith Kanakaole Tennis Stadium via KITV; while eyeballs around the world could watch on the Web via thehawaiichannel.com, KITV's Web site.

The Big Island Visitors Bureau took advantage of the event's statewide appeal to air commercials encouraging travel by we local folks, but the effort won't end there.

"Our feeling is if it's good for locals it's good for visitors," said BIVB Executive Director George Applegate.

That rationale was behind the launch of the bigislandkamaaina.com Web site after Sept. 11. The success of that site led to the launch of hawaiispecials.com, which also promotes Big Island travel, but not necessarily by kamaaina.

The BIVB is kicking off a marketing blitz aimed at Hawaii's two biggest visitor markets -- the West Coast and Japan.

For four weeks starting April 15, Los Angeles and San Francisco viewers of the A&E, CNN, HGTV, Discovery, Food Network, Travel, VH1 and Golf channels on cable will see 30- and 60-second spots about the Big Island. Valued at $100,000, the prime-time and daytime spots are designed to spur late-Spring and Summer arrivals.

The Japan effort will include media calls, a news conference and a media luncheon with a focus on weddings, golf, guide books and niche publications, according to a statement.

The blitzes are planned for April 14 to 19 in Japan and the week of April 29 in San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Vancouver.

"The market is continually changing," Applegate said.

Visitor profiles show an increase in mainland travelers who come to the islands with a shorter lead-time before their vacations and that Americans are taking shorter vacations, Applegate said.

"If you interpret that, they want to get there by the most direct route possible," he said, "They want to get there, do it and go home."

There are six daily direct mainland flights to the Big Island, and "One flight on a 757 will give you 178 seats," he said.

"178 seats times six months is 33,000 seats, so we expect to do our best to support that effort by ... airlines and wholesalers and partners that fill those seats. That's why we launched the campaign," he said.

The BIVB is not picking up the entire tab for the ads and the blitzes. "Being just an island chapter with limited funds, we try to leverage, in several ways," he said.

"There is no bad island, every island is special in a different way," but the ads will emphasize "why our island is probably what they're looking for," said Applegate.

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Erika Engle is a reporter with the Star-Bulletin.
Call 529-4302, fax 529-4750 or write to Erika Engle,
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., No. 7-210,
Honolulu, HI 96813. She can also be reached
at: eengle@starbulletin.com