The September 11th attack
Fewer sightseers among arrivals
By John Duchemin
Advertiser Staff Writer
Air travelers to Hawai'i since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks are significantly less likely to be sightseers and fun-seekers — but are more likely to be here for some specific purpose, such as a honeymoon or a visit with friends, according to a new survey.
Gregory Yamamoto • The Honolulu Advertiser
The number of pleasure and sightseeing visitors dropped from 60 percent of U.S. travelers surveyed before the attack, to 42 percent of those surveyed after Sept. 11, according to a survey conducted by Omnitrak Group Inc.
The Waikiki tram, usually full of tourists from Japan and the Mainland, is nearly empty at the intersection of Kalakaua and Monsarrat. A survey of air travelers has found that far fewer visitors to the Islands include sightseers and fun-seekers.
For Japanese travelers, sightseers dropped from 61 percent before Sept. 11 to 26 percent after the attack.
The survey is one of the earliest attempts to try to quantify and analyze visitor trends in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center and part of the Pentagon. Tourism businesses have been operating less on hard data, and more on gut instinct and anecdotal evidence since the attack.
With air travel shut down for several days, airport security tightened and would-be travelers postponing or canceling trips, the travel sector has been hit hard — meaning tourism-dependent places like Hawai'i have been hit harder than most.
Air travel to Hawai'i was off between 30 percent and 50 percent from the previous year during most days in the latter half of September, according to state statistics. The shock to tourism has meant thousands of workers face reduced hours, pay cuts and layoffs.
The survey also found that the share of visitors here for honeymoons or weddings increased to 34 percent of the Japanese total, up from 23 percent before the attack; Japanese visitors here for shopping jumped from 6 percent to 18 percent of the total.
U.S. travelers here to visit friends jumped from 8 percent to 18 percent of the American total.
The survey reported its findings as Hawai'i embarks on a massive advertising campaign intended to revitalize the flow of visitors to the Islands. The state has approved a multimillion-dollar ad blitz, and Gov. Ben Cayetano, other state officials and people from the visitor industry plan to go to Japan this week to coax people to come to Hawai'i.
The numbers reported in the Omnitrak survey are by no means definitive. The margin of error is plus or minus 7 percent — a high number by survey standards — said Stephen Pratt, market research director for OmniTrak.
That margin means some of the changes from before to after Sept. 11 in OmniTrak's survey can be explained by standard statistical error. The error is high because the sample pool is small — Omnitrak interviewed 319 Mainland- and Japan-bound travelers.
The time frame also is short-term — the "before" interviews were conducted Sept. 1 through 10; the "after" interviews, Sept. 26 through Oct. 4.
But in Hawai'i's grim environment, with the tourism and economic slowdown, the state needs to pay careful attention to the characteristics of visitors still coming, says Omnitrak president Pat Loui.
"This finding confirms that on a short-term basis we should target those who we know are inclined to come to Hawai'i," she said.
