Posted on: Tuesday, October 2, 2001

Tourism money vote set

Advertiser Staff

The Hawaii Tourism Authority is expected to vote tomorrow on allowing $2 million in marketing money slated for next year to be spent for emergency marketing efforts.

The authority's budget committee voted yesterday to recommend the board allow the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau to use the money for the first three weeks of an emergency marketing plan being developed in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the United States that have decimated tourism.

Budget committee chairman Gary Baldwin said he expects the bureau to present the details of its initial marketing efforts to the board tomorrow. Those efforts are expected to start Oct. 5, Baldwin said.

Baldwin said the bureau still has $3 million it has not spent this quarter that will be added to the authority's new allocation, for a total of $5 million for immediate efforts.

One of those efforts would be a trip by Gov. Cayetano and others to Japan next week.

The bureau could receive as much as $20 million for emergency marketing money from public and private sources after a special legislative session slated for mid-October.