Senator, tourism execs
attend London event
Donna Mercado Kim, Senate Tourism Committee chairwoman, accompanied Hawaii Tourism Authority officials on a five-day trip to London two weeks ago to view a major world travel trade show.
Kim said she was invited on the trip to the World Travel Market in London by Rex Johnson, the authority's president and chief executive officer. Also on the trip was marketing director Frank Haas.
Kim's travel expenses, estimated by Senate officials at $1,600 or less, were paid for by the state Senate, she said.
Kim held a series of Senate hearings last summer on an audit critical of the tourism authority and criticized the agency's decision to pay for a television station to go on a Japanese travel promotion trip. The station, KITV, later reimbursed the costs.
Kim said that on the London trip she met with travel officials, talked to former Hawaii travel promoters and attended a news conference given by Hawaii promoters.
"The trip was a real eye-opener," Kim said.
She called the travel show with 5,000 marketers "amazing," adding that some tourist destination areas had large two-story displays set up with waterfalls and entertainment.
The Hawaii display featured large graphics, but Kim said it was "in a bad location that didn't get much traffic."
Johnson said the trip was designed to review how the state's promotions were handled in Europe and if the state could draw more visitors.
While Hawaii once picked up about 300,000 visitors a year from Europe, primarily the United Kingdom and Germany, Johnson said the number has declined to about 110,000.
The European market could be a profitable one, Johnson said, because Germans stay an average of 13 days, and British visitors stay two weeks.
