Golden Week expected to be dull glimmer
By Kelly Yamanouchi
Advertiser Staff Writer
Every year, Hawai'i's tourism industry would gear up for a flood of Japanese visitors who spent liberally and filled hotels during the annual rite of spring called Golden Week.
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Those days were indeed golden for Island businesses, many of which could count on a predictable spike in revenues as the holiday sent thousands of Japanese travelers abroad.
In 1999, flight loads of Japanese tourists chose Hawai'i as their destination for Golden Week, their most popular time for travel. This year's world events are clearly taking their toll as bookings fall far behind.
With Japanese tourism's continuing decline, however, travel to the Islands during the popular vacation period is expected to drop more than 30 percent from last year. Instead of the daily average of 4,381 travelers who arrived in Hawai'i from Japan during Golden Week in 2002, only about 3,000 Japanese may visit on an average day this year.
The period when several national holidays allow workers to escape for a week of vacation typically has been a peak period for tourism. But in recent years, fewer and fewer Japanese have been coming to Hawai'i during Golden Week.
"Generally, the hotels are quite busy" at this time, said Daisy Aio, director of tourism consulting for hotel consultancy PKF Hawaii. "It's not going to be that great this year."
This year's Golden Week, which began Friday and runs through May 5, comes as Japanese travel to Hawai'i declined as much as 30 to 40 percent over last year because of the war with Iraq and outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome.
Japanese travel during the weeks before and after Golden Week also tend to peak.
According to state figures, a daily average of 2,485 Japanese came to Hawai'i from April 18 through last Thursday — the seven-day period leading into Golden Week. That's about 36.6 percent below 2002 levels and about 44.7 percent below 2001 levels.
Golden Week arrivals dropped by 14.8 percent last year from the 5,142 who came in 2001. The number is expected to decline even more this year.
"Golden Week we know is going to be slow," said Noelani Wheeler, director of marketing for the O'ahu Visitors Bureau. "It is going to be slower than the prior year."
In anticipation of the drop, Japan Airlines announced last month that it would reduce flights from Tokyo to Honolulu from four to three daily.
Business is about 30 percent down from last year, and even with the reduced flights, planes are only about 65 percent full, said Gilbert Kimura, director of passenger and cargo sales for Japan Airlines in Hawai'i.
World events are clearly taking their toll. Because of the "continuing war and SARS, I think many people are not traveling at all," Kimura said.
"All we're hoping is that the war ends pretty quickly and that there will be a cure for SARS so that everything will be back to normal. Those are the two major things that are hurting tourism, he said."
At Starwood Hotels & Resorts, Japanese bookings in Waikiki are down 50 percent from the same week last year, said Keith Vieira, senior vice president. Neighbor Islands are faring slightly better, with a decline of about 30 percent, he said.
"The overriding concern is some of the Japanese are afraid to go to the airports because of SARS. That seems to be the one major comment we're hearing," Vieira said.
He also worries that flight cuts become "somewhat self-fulfilling — less flights, you're going to have less people."
For businesses that sell to a mix of international and domestic customers, travel from the Mainland has been up as much as 20 percent on some days over last year, which may temper the severity of the decline. At Starwood, Vieira said, travelers from the Mainland would help offset the decline in Japanese visitors.
Duty-free retailer DFS Hawai'i, which earlier this month agreed to pay the state $25 million in delinquent rent, is forecasting that its Golden Week business will fall about 40 percent, said DFS Group vice president Sharon Weiner.
"It's quite an important time for our business," Weiner said. "So it's obviously a very disappointing time for us, and hopefully next year when the world settles down things will look better."
The slide in Japanese tourism this year is prompting many in the industry to work harder to stimulate travel later in the year. The O'ahu Visitors Bureau is planning to make sales-promotion and public-relations trips to Japan in May to encourage travel to Hawai'i.
"Knowing that Golden Week is going to be really soft this year, we need to compensate as much as possible for the slowness," Wheeler said.
While "there's not a heck of a lot one can really do" to coax Japanese to Hawai'i if they are afraid to travel, he said, the visitors bureau is looking for opportunities to run promotions in Japan and special events to attract Japanese, similar to the Honolulu Marathon in December and Honolulu Festival in March.
Aio is optimistic that Japanese travel will recover in the second half of the year. "I think they'll be coming back," she said.
Reach Kelly Yamanouchi at 535-2470, or at kyamanouchi@honoluluadvertiser.com.
