Posted on: Tuesday, October 16, 2001

Island Voices
Save our economy by being radical

By Ernest Watari
Chairman and CEO, PKF Hawai'i

The real scare of traveling during this very delicate time has left many Hawai'i businesses and our government struggling to come up with answers. We can hunker down and cut back on our spending and government can create tax reform, expedite construction projects, release funds for tourism marketing, etc. But will any or all of these combined do the trick?

I don't really think so. We need to think outside the box and get a little radical to come up with ways to encourage visitors to come to Hawai'i.

For the longest time, we have been favoring our own residents by offering kama'aina rates for a variety of activities, including entertainment shows, interisland airfares, hotel rooms, golf, restaurants, to name a few. The basic golden rule in business is "the customer always comes first." In the case of our tourism industry, our customers (visitors) are treated as second class. They don't get priority boarding on interisland airlines (although they pay premium fares) — the kama'aina do. Visitors pay premiums for golfing (yet don't get premium tee times). They don't get special kama'aina rates at hotels and restaurants.

We can start turning things around by treating our visitors as "no ka oi." Let's start giving them preferential seating and preferential rates, better than the kama'aina rates.

We need to immediately put Hawai'i "ON SALE" at a minimum of 50 percent off until the end of the year. That is, 50 percent off airfares, hotel rooms, restaurant meals, golf, entertainment and other activities and attractions, and retail purchases, etc., etc.

To further entice visitors to come to Hawai'i, the state government should offer a free gift certificate (of, say, $50) to every visitor who arrives in Hawai'i, redeemable at any business establishment in Hawai'i. In addition, offer the visitors a chance to purchase additional gift certificates up to $200 at a cost of $100 (another 50 percent promotion). This will surely recirculate throughout our economy. Businesses would then be able to redeem these gift certificates at any bank at 75 cents on the dollar (effectively giving a 25 percent discount to the government as their way of contributing to this effort).

Is this radical enough? Maybe not. But it would at least be a start to get Hawai'i's economy jump-started.