Posted on: Sunday, March 10, 2002

Japanese tourist numbers increasing

By David Butts
Advertiser Staff Writer

Last week, Japanese arrivals in the Islands reached 90 percent of their year-ago level for the first time since Sept. 11.

Employees at the shops and hotels that depend on Japanese visitors can be forgiven for not popping open champagne bottles and dancing down Kalakaua Avenue.

It has been a grueling six months for the likes of DFS Hawai'i, Outrigger Hotels & Resorts and Atlantis Submarines.

Japanese arrivals to Hawai'i dropped by more than 60 percent in the weeks following the terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon.

More than Mainland tourists, the Japanese were gripped by the fear of flying, fear of getting stuck overseas and concern among tour organizers that they would be held responsible if any calamity befell their customers.

But since reaching a low point in late October and early November, the Japanese tourists have been slowing coming back.

By January, international arrivals, mostly from Japan, were down 28.8 percent from a year earlier at 156,798. And on Wednesday, state statistics showed Japanese arrivals were down less than 10 percent over the previous seven days.

"The market is really coming back," said Hawai'i Tourism Authority board member Gilbert Kimura.

Japan Airlines, which cut its flights to Hawai'i by 23 percent in October, recently said it would start adding flights, with hopes of reaching preiSept. 11 levels by summer.

And while many businesses complained that the Japanese who are coming are spending less, state statistics show spending is on the rise. Japanese tourists spent 9.6 percent more per person, per day in the last three months of 2001, according to airport surveys of about 1,300 Japanese visitors a month.

Hawai'i has seen a quicker recovery of Japanese tourists than the Mainland. JTB, Japan's largest travel company, said its bookings to Hawai'i for this year are down 25 percent while bookings to the Mainland are off 45 percent, according to Travel Journal International.

This could reflect a feeling in Japan that Hawai'i is a safer destination than the Mainland.

"They know Hawai'i is part of America, but as an impression, they feel Hawai'i is not America," said Taka Kono, publisher of the Japan Report.

Kono also credited Hawai'i's marketing effort, including Gov. Ben Cayetano's trip to Japan in October, with helping to bring the Japanese tourists back. "Without their action, we would not recover so fast," he said.

Still the challenges for Hawai'i's tourism industry don't end with the recovery from the shock of Sept. 11.

Japanese tourism was in decline well before Sept. 11. From a peak of 2.2 million Japanese visitors to Hawai'i in 1997, the number dropped to 1.87 million in 2000.

Turning that trend around will keep the Waikiki work force plenty busy in the coming years.