LEADERSHIP CORNER
Prince Resorts vice president has suggestions for tourism board
Interviewed by David Butts
Advertiser Staff Writer
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Title: Vice president, Prince Resorts Hawaii, member of Gov. Linda Lingle's Tourism Summit
Age: 51
High school: John Muir High School, Pasadena, Calif.
College: UCLA, B.A. in economics
Breakthrough job: Bellman at Westin St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco
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Q. Is the Hawai'i Tourism Authority moving in the wrong direction?
A. The setup of HTA, what it was originally intended to do, was the right thing. But if you look at the board right now, there are not that many tourism-related individuals on that board. There are a few attorneys and politicians and they are trying to get their people on, but you really need a balance.
While the politicians really help us in many ways, they don't know the intricacies of our industry and the timing. The timing in the tourism industry is really critical. If you don't get in there you've lost it to a competitor. That's what I've learned in 32 years in the hotel industry and that's what a politician can't get up to speed on.
Q. What is a recent example of something where you needed to respond quickly?
A. Like when Japan Airlines started cutting flights by 50 percent at the start of April and Golden Week. A group of people should have gone to Japan Airlines and said, "What can we do to work together? Where do you need help?" before they made that cut. Once they make that cut, it gets in the press and the people aren't going to come. When you lose air seats like that it is really huge.
Q. Is HTA not nimble enough to respond that way?
A. The budgets are set. To try to move that money from here to there because priorities have changed is very difficult because it requires a lot of different approvals. HVCB (the Hawai'i Visitors & Convention Bureau), in my opinion, needs to have the ability to move quickly to capitalize on those opportunities. If we don't, it's gone. It's like a hotel room. If we don't sell it that night, it's gone forever.
Q. What is the proper role for the HTA?
A. They should not be involved in the marketing and sales and promotion of the Islands. That should be HVCB's job. HVCB needs to have a little more of a flexible hand to do that. Right now it's pretty much you have got to get this approved before you do that.
HTA should help to plan for the next two to five years. They should be looking down the road. What do we need to have to keep Hawai'i successful and then short-term HVCB is carving out all of this.
Q. What do we need to do two to five years down the road?
A. We need to take a look at all the cultural things that Hawai'i represents so well and so uniquely — the beauty, the aloha spirit, the Hawaiian, the culture.
Q. Should private industry support the culture more?
A. I think we need to do a better job. We are not as good as we should be in that aspect.
Q. You are under pressure to control cost and make a profit; is it possible to support artists to work around the hotel?
A. I look at it a different way. If you don't do that and you don't value that type of culture, you're never going to get to that point (where you benefit). You have to make a commitment, however small it may be. Once you make the commitment, you will see the rewards come back.
Q. Japanese tourism has been on a decline since 1996. Is that going to change?
A. It's a country of one race, one language and basically everybody kind of goes this way and they do this. Hawai'i was the place for so many years. People started to get on that bandwagon and all come to Hawai'i. But if you look at the younger people now, they are just not going to Hawai'i. They are saying, "We want to go to New York, we want to go to Europe." They've become worldwide travelers. So our market is not going to see the amount of repeat business that we would normally get from them unless we do something different to keep them attracted here and it's not the shopping.
The Japanese are always looking for something new. They want to be on a little adventure because it's exciting, and Hawai'i may not be as much of an adventure as it used to be.
Q. The Mainland has picked up the slack for the drop in Japanese tourism. Are you shifting some of your focus toward attracting more Mainland customers?
A. The Japan market will always be important to us. That's where we have 72 of our hotels. Here we are definitely looking to the Mainland to fill up the gap.
Q. How did Golden Week this year compare to years past?
A. The supposedly Golden Week was dismal. We just didn't see them. It was a pretty significant drop.
Q. What percentage of your jobs pay over $50,000 a year?
A. It's hard to know because many of the positions are tip categories. If I were guessing, I would say it is in the low 30s.
Q. With competition from low-cost destinations, is there any hope that number will go up?
A. We definitely want to pay people for the job that they do and everyone in our industry works really, really hard. You're going to make a good living being in our industry. If I would have stayed in that job (as a bellman), I would have had a pretty comfortable life. You always had money in your pocket and you were always happy because you are always taking care of guests.
It has very good growth potential, but I think there comes a point where pricing is not going to ramp up like it has in the past. Up slightly, like 3 to 5 percent, so incomes are going to grow parallel to that and not above that.
The people we have in our industry, a lot of them have two jobs to supplement that, so they can ramp that up. I'd say on Maui, of my hourly employees, I'd say a good 65 percent have second jobs. On Maui, many of our employees work the 7 to 3 (o'clock shift) and then they are on the 4 to 12 at another hotel. And they are doing that five days a week. I really admire them for that. That is really hard.
Q. Do you think you get the best out of them if they are working a second job?
A. We'd like to hope we get their best. The priorities have changed over the years. Everybody wants a home. You need to have a good income stream. I really applaud people that can do that. I work 12 hours at my job. Could I give another four without being brain-dead? That would be pretty hard.
If you ask what is the percentage of people that have been in our industry five years or longer, that would be a very high percentage. That's where it breeds consistency and people moving up.
