Tourism Hawaii hotels and tour operators reported yesterday afternoon that there were no recent cancellations caused by events in Iraq, though some pointed out that business from Japan has been slowing in recent months.
execs cautious
Hotel and tour operators say
they have not seen an increase in
cancellations, but Japan travel slowsBy Tim Ruel
truel@starbulletin.comArrivals from the West Coast have been stronger and have made up the drop in Japanese arrivals, but there are signs that cancellations may be on the way.
"We have people inquiring at the moment as to cancellation fees," said Ken Phillips, spokesman for Pleasant Holidays, the travel agency that sends the most visitors to Hawaii.
At the same time, the state's lead tourism marketing agency, the Hawaii Tourism Authority, is moving to cancel advertisements that promote Hawaii to consumers, mainly in magazines and television. The authority is calculating how much money can be shifted to other short-term marketing efforts, such as public relations.
"We're basically shifting from a long-term strategy to a short-term strategy," said Frank Haas, tourism marketing director of the authority.
The authority may also set up a crisis communications center for the tourism industry at the Hawaii Convention Center, although that might not happen immediately, Haas said.
Meanwhile, Hawaii tourism businesses were not seeing immediate reaction from tourists.
"So far we have not seen any cancellations," said Karen Winpenny, spokeswoman for Hilton Hawaiian Village, Waikiki's largest hotel.
That comment was echoed by Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc., as well as major Japanese tour operators Jalpak and JTB Hawaii.
"We would anticipate a drop in bookings at the outset of hostilities," said David McNeil, spokesman for JTB Hawaii. For now, business is steady, he said.
"We had a pretty long time to prepare and also the consumer had collected all this information pretty much in advance," said Ryokichi Tamaki, vice president of marketing for Jalpak, which has 170 employees in Hawaii.
Japanese bookings for March and April have been slow since the beginning of the year, and are down 20 percent from 2002, Tamaki said. He blamed the weak Japanese economy, not the pending war in Iraq, though business will surely get worse with the start of war, Tamaki said.
Japan's jobless rate hit 5.5 percent in January, up from 5.3 percent the previous month, the result of corporate cost-cutting.
Japanese visitor arrivals to the islands were down 6.7 percent in the first 18 days of March, compared with the same period in 2002, according to preliminary data from the state.
Japan Airlines will likely have to cut flights to Hawaii, said spokesman Gilbert Kimura.
Though the data could be revised, it indicates Japanese arrivals in March are not improving from March 2002, when arrivals were down more than 18 percent year-over-year because of 9/11.
Japan Airlines' Hawaii passenger arrivals in last month or so are down 10 percent to 15 percent, and steadily falling. Japanese travelers have shown no immediate reaction to the recent attacks in Iraq, said Kimura, but "there will probably be more of a drop in the number of passenger arrivals."
"We're not getting any kind of momentum," said Keith Vieira, senior vice president and operations director of Starwood in Hawaii, which owns the Sheraton, Westin and other hotel brands in Hawaii.
At the four Sheraton hotels in Waikiki, occupancy has been in the upper 70 percent, he said, while neighbor island properties have been faring better.
Outrigger Hotels & Resorts has said April has been better for bookings than April 2001, which was before the terrorist attacks.
What happens next is anyone's guess.
"It depends really on how long (the war is) ... and whether we have a counter terrorist attack or not; those are uncertain," Tamaki said.
At the Hawaii Convention Center, a meeting of the American Academy of Neurology, scheduled for late March, is still on. The meeting is expected to draw 7,000 attendees, down from an early estimate of 10,000.