French Fest canceled as sponsors 'regroup'
By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer
The 2002 French Festival has been canceled, a victim of the continuing economic impact of Sept. 11 in Hawai'i.
What would have been the sixth-annual weeklong festival was tentatively scheduled for November. But the festival's steering committee last week decided to cancel the event and instead plan ahead for 2003.
This year, "at every level, everybody really needed to regroup and regain their energy after Sept. 11," said Joyce Okano Reed, regional vice president for Chanel and the festival's president. "When we really looked at the numbers, we decided we should hold off another year until everybody was more solid in terms of their financial commitments."
About 20 hotels, retailers and other tourist-based Waikiki businesses sponsor or participate in the festival, which features French fashion shows, wine tastings, cooking demonstrations and other events centered on French culture.
Chanel was willing to stay with the festival this year, Reed said, but with expansion plans "taking a lot of our energy, holding off until next year is fine with us."
The festival has an annual budget of about $3 million, including donations and in-kind services, said festival spokeswoman Sheila Donnelly Theroux. It receives an annual $150,000 allocation from the Hawai'i Tourism Authority.
Some hotels and retailers could measure the results of participating in the festival through room occupancy or sales products marketed specifically for the festival, Reed said. Others, she said, only saw results "measured more in terms of the amount of publicity that the festival generates for the state."
The festival has never counted attendance, either, Reed said, because it's nearly impossible to track the number of people who visit high-end stores or free events.
The festival was born "as a rallying point to try and market Hawai'i as an upscale tourism destination," Reed said. "We were trying for a shopping angle to make Hawai'i more than just the surf and the sun. But it was much more diverse than that."
Lately, the festival had included more educational programs, such as free French lessons.
"It is a loss from a tourism point of view but also from a cultural point of view," said Patricia Lee, honorary consul of France in Honolulu.
One of the regular participants, the Halekulani hotel, already had its own culinary workshops at its five-diamond La Mer restaurant before the festival began. The classes later became one of the events along the festival's stops.
Even though the celebration of French culture is dead for this year, the Halekulani will continue with its classes.
"It was a nice complement to the festival," said Joyce Matsumoto, the hotel's director of public relations. "We wanted to support any event that would support Hawai'i."
Reach Dan Nakaso at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8085.
