Lingle’s Japan trip aims
to raise tourism to islesShe plans to meet with airline
and government officials
Linda Lingle leads a 33-person delegation on a tourism promotion trip to Japan on Saturday, her first trip abroad as Hawaii's governor.
The goal of the trip, Lingle said, is to increase the number of visitors to Hawaii from Japan and to increase the available flights to Hawaii from Japan. She is scheduled to return July 11.
Accompanying her will be Maui Mayor Alan Arakawa and Kauai Mayor Bryan Baptiste. City Managing Director Ben Lee will represent Honolulu Mayor Jeremy Harris, and Big Island Executive Assistant Andy Levin will represent Mayor Harry Kim.
Lingle will also meet with Hawaii armed service personnel stationed at Yokota Air Base and Camp Zama Army Base in Japan.
Besides meeting with executives of major airlines serving Japan and Hawaii, Lingle also will discuss U.S.-Japan relations with the American ambassador to Japan, Howard Baker, and his wife, Nancy Kassebaum.
Next Wednesday, Lingle is scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.
Masatoshi Muto, Japan's consul general to Hawaii, said he thinks Lingle will have an easy time pitching Hawaii to Japanese travelers.
"I think Japanese people are traveling," Muto said. "It depends on what you can offer and what you can tell the Japanese people what Hawaii has to offer. I think the governor will be successful in that."
More than 1 million senior citizens in Japan are fans of hula and Lingle has said she hopes to stress the new interest.
"There are tens of hundreds of hula schools in Japan," Muto said.
Hawaii remains the most popular U.S. destination for the Japanese, according to economic research reports, but Japanese visitor arrivals remain well below year-ago levels.
Lingle said that her trip, which is funded by the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau, will attempt to raise those numbers.