Posted on: Tuesday, August 21, 2001
Tourism Talk
Creating a Hawai'i experience starts with concierge
By Michele Kayal
Advertiser Staff Writer
There are a few select people who need only hesitate — briefly — to completely change your mind on something: your mom, your boss, the concierge.
Sandi Minamishin knows that a nearly imperceptible pause on her part can instantly steer a guest away from a restaurant or a tour.
"They can tell in my voice," the Moana Surfrider concierge says of her gentle dissuasion.
Minamishin's job is not to stomp on someone's buzz, but she does it when she has to. Because she never wants anyone to hear that telltale pause when they ask a friend: "So, how was your vacation in Hawai'i?"
The Hawai'i Visitors and Convention Bureau estimates that 25 percent of all Mainland visitors ask a concierge for suggestions on what to do, where to go, and what to eat in the Islands. Minamishin and her colleagues are Hawai'i's front line tourism troops, and their influence on its image is as real but intangible as that breathy little pause.
They also make up the invisible hand of Hawai'i's tourism economy. They not only keep the visitors happy, which keeps them coming, but they also drive business to activities vendors, restaurants, shops and other attractions that power the state's $11 billion tourism industry.
It is a duty she and her colleagues take seriously, and her ultimate goal is to make the visitor happy. Which isn't always easy. A recent day in her life behind the concierge desk at Waikiki's oldest hotel went something like this:
Sell stamps.
Check a guest's airport limo reservation
Direct a young man and his toddler to the hotel's keiki program — in Japanese.
Stow a stroller.
Accept rented cell phones for return to the rental company.
Direct an Indian family to the Hilo Hattie shuttle. Explain what a hibiscus is.
Make a taxi reservation to the airport for a group of four that has an 11-foot surfboard.
Cancel newspaper delivery to the teenager in room 590, but keep it coming to the parents in 594.
Assure an elderly visitor that his bags will be picked up in time for his cruise on the Patriot. Make sure it gets done.
Direct a man to the Chart House — in Japanese. Call the restaurant to make sure it hasn't moved.
Arrange a sunset dinner with a "kirei" view. Doublecheck time of sunset in newspaper.
Arrange for flowers in a honeymoon suite, a request of the groom for his bride.
Direct a couple to Pearl Harbor. And the flea market. And explain how each place works.
Find out about Statehood Day activities for someone who thinks he maybe, possibly, heard somewhere there might be something going on.
Use two phones at once — one to speak to a guest, one to check his airport limo reservation.
Recommend circle island tour. Recommend self-driving route around O'ahu. Urge visitors to stop for shave ice.
Concierge, a French word, may have come from the Latin for "fellow slave," but some guests think they're gods. One of Minamishin's funniest stories is about the woman enraged by a dozen consecutive days of rain.
After blaming Minamishin for the weather, the woman gave her a credit card number and demanded to be sent somewhere — anywhere — that had sun by the end of the day. It was a Thursday and she wanted to be back by Sunday.
Minamishin worked the phones and the National Weather Service to find out that Tahiti was her best bet. ("Little did I know, half the world was raining," she remembers.) Through an entire day, she set up the flights, the hotel, the ground transportation, then called the irate guest to confirm everything before charging it to the card.
But when the woman picked up, soothed, perhaps, by having unburdened herself to Minamishin earlier, she had changed her mind. Oh that? Forget it. I don't really need to go.
"I don't know what I said, but I had to be cordial," Minamishin says. And she didn't even get a tip.
But Minamishin doesn't mind.
"If you look for tips, you're going to be disappointed," she says. "We're here to help."
