Many Hawai'i retailers count on added JAL flights

By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer

It was the middle of a typical day in Waikiki, and Dooney & Bourke on Kalakaua Avenue sat empty, except for the store manager and a sales clerk.

Lina Mun, operator of Lina's Jewelry on Duke's Lane in Waikiki, is one of the many local business owners who are hoping that Japan Airlines' decision to increase its flights from Japan to Hawai'i will translate into growth in revenue from Japanese tourists. JAL plans to add one flight per day each from Tokyo and Osaka. Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser

But inside Dooney & Bourke's quiet store front, manager Henry Wu can almost feel the sales of his leather goods improving with last week's announcement by Asia's largest airline that it will increase the number of daily flights from Japan to Honolulu.

"It's going to get a lot better," Wu said. "It has to."

In Waikiki, those who depend on Japanese tourism suffer in times like these, when Japanese citizens travel less because of the Iraq war and the threat of SARS.

But in July, Japan Airlines plans to add one more Honolulu flight per day each from Tokyo and Osaka. JAL will increase its Osaka flights from seven to 14 per week. Its 14 weekly Tokyo flights will jump to 21, which is seven fewer than normal for the summer season.

By August, JAL officials hope to be flying their normal 28 Tokyo trips per week.

"Sounds good," said Lina Mun, who sells jewelry at Duke's Lane. "We love it."

Tourists these days are mostly interested in low-cost items, such as puka shell necklaces, she said. "Only $5 kind they like."

A few minutes later, Lindsay Stickle of Denver bought a $5 mouse pad for her father that featured a picture of Diamond Head.

She put it into a shopping bag loaded with similar $5 and $10 items. "I did spend as much as $30 once," Stickle said.

Stella Nam's jewelry business has been hit equally hard. At the same time, her husband — a JAL customer service representative — had his hours cut back at Honolulu Airport.

Hiroki Urano, left, of Fukushima, Japan, exchanges yen for dollars with the help of Mike McGahey, who operates a currency-exchange kiosk in Waikiki. McGahey says because his business depends mainly on Japanese visitors, the past two months have been the worst in his five years of operation. Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser

"People just don't spend as much as before," Nam said.

Hawai'i retailers have seen their hopes of a Japanese resurgence crushed before. And despite expert warnings of the past few years, many of them continue to rely on Japanese tourism.

For them, much of the talk of the past few days has focused on the increased Japan Airlines flights, said Walter Lassen, who was running Waikiki's Lassen Gallery for his artist son, Christian.

"Everybody's very hopeful that it will help," Walter said. "A little boost would go a long ways."

Revenue at Lassen Gallery is off at least 50 percent, he said, and the store has cut employee hours 30 percent as a result.

Any improvement in the number of Japanese arrivals "will be noticeable rather quickly," Lassen said.

Mike McGahey makes his living exchanging foreign money from a kiosk along Kalakaua Avenue and had to lay off two part-time workers recently.

He pointed to a sign that advertises the currency he'll exchange — Australian, British, Canadian, Euro — and tapped a finger at the raised letters spelling out "YEN."

"That's what keeps me in business," he said. "My business pretty much survives on the Japanese."

In his five years exchanging money, McGahey said the past two months have been the worst.

"It's the slowest I've ever seen," he said. Sales, he said, are "easily" down 50 percent.

That translates to no more parttimers. No vacation. And certainly no new car that he had hoped to buy this year.

But customer Hiroki Urano, a 29-year-old "salaryman" from Fukushima, Japan, gave McGahey reason for optimism.

Japanese attitudes are changing, he said through an interpreter, and travel to the United States was "no problem now."

• • •