Tourism Officials Eye Major Trouble for Hawaii’s Travel Industry

With arrival numbers showing that Hawaii’s visitor industry boom years have ended, there were plenty of challenges to discuss at the annual Hawaii Tourism Conference as marketers unveiled their newest strategies and identified growth opportunities from Europe, Asia, Oceania, Japan and North America.

While visitor numbers have rallied since their dismal January start, the forecast for both 2007 and 2008 levels in Hawaii is a virtually flat 1 percent gain.

Few of Hawaii’s visitor markets during the first six months of 2007 were up, but visitor industry marketers said that most markets were stable and generating demand for the product. Still, Hawaii’s visitor industry faces challenges on many fronts, they said.

The mortgage crisis has reduced travel demand from the mainland and visitors from foreign markets still are grappling with high fuel surcharges –that’s if they can even get the flights. And, while it’s true that Hawaii is uniquely positioned for growth from China and Korea, visitors from those markets still face visa hurdles.

The airline industry is struggling, and in the wake of those struggles has cut some long-haul flights to Hawaii. Cruise capacity is slated to be reduced when NCL Corp. pulls Pride of Hawaii out of the market in 2008, and fuel and labor costs have deterred other companies from ramping up their island schedules.

While hotels have been renovated, Hawaii’s tourism product needs renewal to compete with newer, cheaper, closer destinations and even Gov. Linda Lingle has said that the state’s tourism product needs to find an innovative way to deliver more culture and authenticity.

While arrival numbers are flat or down across most markets, the industry is concerned that labor challenges and room reductions could prevent Hawaii from capitalizing on traffic from new growth opportunities.