The USS John C. Stennis arrived in Pearl Harbor on Tuesday. The ship is taking part in Rim of the Pacific military readiness exercises.
$25M boost expected
from RIMPACOfficials at the Navy Exchange
have seen a marked increase
in the number of visitors
With 10,000 soldiers from Schofield Barracks deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, the influx of some 18,000 sailors, airmen, Marines, soldiers and Coast Guardsmen for this month's RIMPAC international war games is expected to provide a much-needed boost to the state's economy.
"It re-emphasizes the importance of the military to the Hawaii economy," said Jim Tollefson, president and chief executive of the Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii.
This year's Rim of the Pacific international military readiness exercises are forecast to pump an estimated $25 million into the state's economy as troops from eight countries convene on Pearl Harbor and other Hawaii installations through July 27.
That would more than double the estimated $11 million spent by roughly 11,000 troops who took part in the last RIMPAC two years ago, when the war on terrorism prompted countries to scale back participation in the biennial event.
Returning for this year's event is an aircraft carrier battle group -- the USS John C. Stennis -- which counts more than 6,200 sailors on its six ships.
The U.S. sailors are being joined by troops from Australia, Canada, Chile, Japan, Peru, South Korea and the United Kingdom.
"You can definitely tell when the foreign ships and the sailors are in port," said Dawn Cross, marketing manager for Navy Exchange stores in Hawaii.
"The number of people visiting the store increases, and the number of people getting off our buses increases."
After a slowdown in 2002, Cross said business is expected to be better than ever at Pearl Harbor's new Navy Exchange mall, a $554 million, 340,000-square-foot complex billed as the world's largest Navy Exchange.
The complex, which features a two-story waterfall and a 75-foot-high rotunda topped by a Wyland mural of life-size humpback whales, opened in October 2002, three months after the RIMPAC exercises ended that year.
Cross said more than 20,000 people visited the mall June 26, three days before the RIMPAC exercises officially got under way.
"It's a huge boost in terms of not just sales, but morale as well," Cross said. "You're bringing in new customers into your store, and they get to purchase merchandise they might not have in their countries."
One of the most popular items is international telephone calling cards, Cross said, noting that the mall had to add extra pay phones at the complex to accommodate the volume of callers using the cards.
"Any day, there's a line of people at the pay phones," she said.
RIMPAC:
www.cpf.navy.mil/rimpac2004
