Posted on: Wednesday, September 19, 2001
2 groups pull out of Hawai'i meetings
By Michele Kayal
Advertiser Staff Writer
The Hawai'i Convention Center has received two cancellations of events that would have brought about 3,000 visitors to the Islands because of last week's terrorist attacks.
Independent Insurance Agents became the second group to cancel when it called Monday, said Sandra Moreno, vice president of corporate meetings for the Hawai'i Visitors & Conventions Bureau. The group would have brought 1,200 people expected to spend an estimated $3.4 million during their five-day conference next month, she said.
The insurance sector has been one of the hardest hit by the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, along with airlines. Other bookings at the Convention Center so far are holding steady.
"What's going to happen is going to depend on what happens with the war we're involved in," Moreno said.
The first group to cancel was a Japanese travel event called Nidek that would have brought 2,000 people to the Islands. The event was scheduled for Sept. 13-14, however, when air service to the United States was uncertain.
Hotels around Hawai'i have also received more than two-dozen cancellations of corporate meetings and incentive trips, according to visitors bureau calculations.
Meanwhile, four Japanese groups called center officials yesterday to ask whether space was available for future events, said center general manger Joe Davis.
Moreno, who heads convention center marketing to out-of-state groups, said the visitors bureau is protecting business on the books by reassuring clients and keeping them updated.
To drum up new business in the tense economic atmosphere, Moreno said the bureau has shifted its focus from the lucrative East Coast and mid-Atlantic markets, which are preoccupied with the crisis aftermath, to groups that have canceled events they had planned to hold in international destinations.
"We're going after any business to see if there's any potential for Hawai'i, which may be viewed as a better alternative under the circumstances," she said.
