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Four Seasons at Wailea
debuts on Mobil
Travel Guide

THE renowned Mobil Travel Guide to hotels and restaurants has included Hawaii for the first time -- and the Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea was the only five-star recipient added to the lodging list this year.

Nationwide, Mobil granted the five-star designation to 31 lodgings and 14 restaurants.

Mobil gave four stars to the Four Seasons Resort Hualalai on the Big Island, the Halekulani and the Kahala Mandarin Oriental on Oahu and the Ritz-Carlton Kapalua on Maui.

The overall list is bursting with Four Seasons and Ritz-Carlton properties in various locales around the country.

Four Hawaii restaurants made Mobil's four-star echelon -- Gerard's and Spago on Maui and La Mer and Chef Mavro on Oahu. Spago, in the Four Seasons Wailea, replaced Seasons, which at one time had five diamonds on the competing AAA list.

AAA has been covering Hawaii for years and its 2005 listing of five-diamond hotels and restaurants is expected to be released within days. Oahu's AAA five-diamond recipients for 2004 were the Kahala Mandarin Oriental and for the 14th consecutive year, La Mer restaurant at Halekulani.

Mobil's inaugural "America's Best Hotel & Resort Spas" guide, released in January, listed six Hawaii spas among the four-star winners and two received three stars.

Rejuvenating retail

Answers for independent retailers facing a challenging business environment are offered in a new, free report being distributed by Retail Merchants of Hawaii.

"Challenges of the Future" was underwritten by the Illinois Retail Merchants Association and the George H. Baum Community Charitable Trust, in cooperation with the National Retail Federation Foundation.

The report is designed to help independent retailers identify trends affecting retailing; to understand marketplace obstacles that have led to business failures; and to see strategies for success.

"It's hard for us to get our hands on this kind of information," said Carol Pregill, president of Retail Merchants of Hawaii. "We don't have the resources to generate a project of this magnitude."

Retail Merchants members have received the report, which also is being distributed by the rest of the 50 merchants' associations around the country.

Hawaii people often take issue with the Peoria paradigm, as in, "If it plays in Peoria, it'll play anywhere," but Pregill expects many Hawaii retailers will benefit from the report, despite Hawaii's uniqueness.

"I think the globe is so much smaller now. We can look to our uniqueness in climate and the breadth of products that we have that are unique retail products, but good, basic business principles should transcend sun, surf, snow."

The 64-page report will be available for free starting Monday at www.rmhawaii.org.

Still bidding

Two Hawaii FM radio licenses up for grabs are still among the top draws of 288 available nationwide in the ongoing auction by the Federal Communications Commission.

Nevada-based Kemp Communications Inc. closed out yesterday's Stage 1, Round 10 action with a bid of $1.8 million for a license in Nanakuli while Indiana-based Bechtel Broadcasting LLC finished the day with its $1.6 million standing high bid for a license in Wahiawa. The company bears no known relationship to engineering giant Bechtel Corp. The bids were among the six-highest cast yesterday.

Maui-based Visionary Related Entertainment LLC, the only local company in the running, is bidding $165,000 for a license in Kurtistown on the Big Island.

The auction resumes today with 398 remaining qualified bidders, 58 fewer than started the bidding last week.

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