Posted on: Tuesday, August 5, 2003
HVCB quantifiesJapan trip publicity
By Bruce Dunford
Associated Press
The weeklong Hawai'i tourism promotion trip to Japan led by Gov. Linda Lingle in early July produced positive media exposure for the Islands worth three times the cost of the trip, the Hawai'i Visitors & Convention Bureau reported yesterday.
Lingle, however, said the proof of the trip's value still depends on an upturn in visitors from Japan.
In its weekly report on travel industry developments, the bureau said the governor's tourism promotion trip, which cost $231,000, produced 136 million "impressions" worth more than $759,000 in positive media exposure for Hawai'i and its visitor industry. Impressions mean the number of people who saw or read something about Hawai'i.
HVCB's public relations firm, Weber Shandwick-Japan, estimated that articles in newspapers and magazines reached 97.1 million readers worth an estimated $306,558 while television coverage reached 13.4 million viewers, valued at $390,795. Japan's population numbered about 127 million as of July 2002, according to the CIA World Factbook.
Exclusive interviews with Lingle and other Hawai'i tourism officials reached 25.6 million people, worth $62,042, it said.
Lingle led a 44-member delegation that included tourism officials, former sumo wrestler Konishiki, beauty pageant winners, Maui Mayor Alan Arakawa, Kaua'i Mayor Bryan and a representative of Big Island Mayor Harry Kim.
Before the Republican governor returned from the trip, Democratic leaders in the Legislature had launched an inquiry into why HVCB paid $4,100 in expenses for a KITV reporter and cameraman to accompany the delegation. The station later said it would reimburse the bureau.
Lawmakers grilled HVCB's since-resigned president, Tony Vericella, Hawai'i Tourism Authority Executive Director Rex Johnson and Lingle's communications director, Lenny Klompus, about the arrangement.
Vericella told lawmakers it was thought that having a TV news team join the tourism promotion would be appropriate as part of the bureau's duty to keep Hawai'i's tourist industry and community informed of its efforts.
He and Johnson said it was the governor's office that wanted KITV on the trip, but Klompus said it evolved during joint planning for the trip when KITV inquired about going along.
Lingle made no apologies for having KITV accompany the delegation and said more Hawai'i media should have made the trip.
After the trip, Lingle said she wanted HVCB to do a "good analysis" of the trip's benefits.
The governor said yesterday that she hadn't seen the HVCB's report, but said it doesn't appear to be the information she was seeking.
"I was talking about visitor counts over the next couple to a few months," she said. "Our goal was to increase the number of visitors coming into the state and I think that's important that we measure."
