STAR-BULLETIN / 2001 During the days after 9/11, the National Guard patrolled Honolulu Airport. Drawing on lessons learned after 9/11, tourism officials are hatching a plan to aid the industry in the event of war with Iraq.

How the state hopes
to keep tourism alive

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By Tim Ruel
truel@starbulletin.com

Lessons learned in the hectic months that followed Sept. 11, 2001, will guide the state in reaching out to tourists when the smoke begins to clear over Iraq.

One idea being nixed is that of once-touted "Hawaii Value Pass," a card that was issued to visitors after the terrorist attacks for discounts at more than a thousand local attractions, restaurants and retailers. While it sounded like a good idea, working with all the merchants was not easy, and not worth it, according to state tourism officials.

"It's very difficult in a crisis to accomplish that kind of coordination," said Frank Haas, tourism marketing director for the state's Hawaii Tourism Authority.

Instead, the authority will direct its resources to promotional programs at the wholesale level of travel. The emphasis will be getting airlines to keep sending planes to the isles when passenger counts drop, according to a draft of the authority's new contingency plan for war with Iraq.

The authority, a state agency with a $56 million budget to market Hawaii to tourists, is preparing ahead of time for war's impact on travel, with cooperation from the Hawaii Visitors & Convention Bureau.

"War with Iraq appears inevitable, is very much in the global consciousness, and is already creating uncertainties about travel," the contingency plan said.

The military's largest air assault unit was ordered yesterday to the Persian Gulf, to join more than 100,000 troops. President Bush said he would welcome a second U.N. resolution to support a war to disarm Iraq.

The state's contingency plan, disclosed this week to the Hawaii Legislature, is straightforward, speaks in general terms, and relies on lessons from the Persian Gulf war of 1991 and 9/11:

>> People will stay close to home during a conflict.

>> There will be a drop in travel for a few months, assuming the war stays within the Middle East. If terrorism occurs on U.S. soil, the decrease in travel will last longer.

>> It doesn't make sense to advertise tourism during a crisis.

>> Once the conflict is ended, the Japanese will be slower to start traveling than Americans, Europeans, Australians and the Chinese.

Since the state has had a chance to learn from past conflicts, tourism marketing leaders plan to do things better this time.

Officials plan to be more clear, up front, as to exactly how much tourism advertising can be pulled in the event of war, and how much money can be recovered for other marketing efforts.

State Sen. Donna Kim, chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Tourism, said she was told after Sept. 11 that the state could recover $5 million by pulling advertising from the last three months of 2001. Later, she was told by the Hawaii Visitors & Convention Bureau, the state's contracted marketing arm, that less than $1 million was recovered, Kim said.

"I may not have known how much ... could be stopped and/or saved," when the question was first posed, said Tony Vericella, president and chief executive of the visitors bureau.

The Legislature later appropriated $10 million for tourism marketing.

The state is now developing a schedule that will spell out how much advertising can be canceled and how much money can be saved for other uses, Haas said.

Not everything can be canceled, Haas noted. "If you told me to cancel things today there are magazines for March that are already printed," Haas said.

In the event of military action against Iraq, the Hawaii Tourism Authority plans to cancel advertising for two months, as a starting point.

Bringing the advertising back, as well as other marketing efforts, will depend on how long a conflict lasts, and how bloody it gets.

Another recommendation from the state's contingency plan: Avoid deep discounting.

Hawaii hotel rooms were heavily emptied after Sept. 11, prompting major Waikiki hotel chains to cut rates, even though hotel management knew it would be hard to raise rates back. Hotel room revenue fell in 2002 to $2.43 billion from $2.5 billion in 2001, even though visitor arrivals rose slightly. In 2000, room revenue was $2.71 billion, according to consulting firm Hospitality Advisors LLC.

The state's contingency plan also calls for sending Gov. Linda Lingle, as well as past governors, on a "Aloha Mission" to Japan to meet with tourism officials. Then-Gov. Ben Cayetano went on a similar excursion, along with two former governors, John Waihee and George Ariyoshi, about a month after Sept. 11, at a cost of $207,000.