Travel bookings by Japanese give state hope
By Kelly Yamanouchi
Advertiser Staff Writer
Japanese travelers are slowly returning to Hawai'i as the effects of the Iraq war and SARS diminish and tourists look for vacation spots that are safe.
The end of the year is critical because the Honolulu Marathon in December and coming holiday vacations is usually a peak season for businesses catering to Japanese tourists, the state's highest-spending visitors.
On the face of it, the figures appear unspectacular: bookings for travel to Hawai'i were up 1.1 percent in October, down 1.1 percent in November and down 3.3 percent in December compared with last year, according to a survey of Japanese travel agencies released yesterday by the Japan Association of Travel Agents.
But the numbers put Hawai'i ahead of other major visitor destinations, including the Mainland, Guam, Saipan, Europe, Oceania (other parts of the Pacific), China and the rest of Asia, all of which showed greater declines. China, center of the SARS epidemic, showed the largest decline in bookings with a 67.2 percent drop.
The booking levels for Hawai'i also signal an ongoing recovery from double-digit declines in Japanese tourism earlier this year when travelers stayed close to home during the launch of the Iraq war and the spread of SARS.
Hawai'i tourism industry officials cautiously cheered the latest booking numbers.
"Things are looking a little better," said Gilbert Kimura, Japan Airlines' director of passenger and cargo sales in Hawai'i. "People know that Hawai'i is very safe, it's clean and it's a very convenient place. ... If they think about traveling, I think Hawai'i will be one of the first places that they want to come back to."
Still, the Japanese tourism industry faces a long and difficult road ahead to full recovery. Visitor numbers from Japan are far off the highs of the mid-1990s when about 2 million Japanese traveled to Hawai'i annually and helped fuel the tourism industry boom.
A recent forecast by the Hawai'i Tourism Authority showed about 1.4 million Japanese visitors are expected this year, down 5.6 percent from last year.
"We shouldn't say, 'Wow, this is (back to) normal,' " said Ryokichi Tamaki, vice president of Jalpak International Hawai'i Inc. "We lost everything after 9-11 and the Iraqi war and SARS."
For now, the recovery remains fragile.
"We should keep in mind that arrivals and spending are still below pre-9-11 levels and businesses which cater to Japanese customers have plenty of lost sales ground to make up after two years of losses," said Sharon Weiner, a Hawai'i Tourism Authority board member.
Beyond fading fears from the war and SARS and confidence in Hawai'i's relative safety, the nascent rebound is driven by a favorable yen exchange rate and Japanese travel agencies pushing Hawai'i as a destination.
"We try to recover Hawai'i first because Hawai'i is like the image of overseas travel," said Yujiro Kuwabara, general manager of tour planning and marketing in Hawai'i for Japanese travel agency JTB.
The Honolulu Marathon on Dec. 14 is attracting about 2,741 entries from Japan at last count in late October. The Japanese runner entries are up about 7 percent from 2,554 at the same time time last year, according to marathon spokesman Pat Bigold.
Many entries roll in nearer to the deadline, but early indications are good, he said. There were 17,266 entrants from Japan last year.
Jalpak's Tamaki foresees a 2 percent to 5 percent increase in bookings for November and December.
Kimura of Japan Airlines is more optimistic. He estimates the airline will see the number of passengers to Hawai'i grow from a 3 percent increase in October, 10 percent growth in November and as much as 15 percent to 20 percent growth in December compared with last year. Japan Airlines flies about 65 percent of all travelers from Japan to Hawai'i, he said.
Kimura said the Japan government's campaign to encourage foreign travel to Japan could also boost travel between Japan and Hawai'i, particularly if it spurs an increase in flights.
Japan Airlines recently reduced Japan-Hawai'i flights by about
20 percent, cutting flights from regional airports in Sapporo, Sendai, Niigata and Hiroshima. But since then, load factors, which show how full planes are, have increased from about 70 percent to nearly 90 percent, Kimura said. If these factors continue to improve, Japan Airlines will add flights next year, he said.
Meanwhile, a Northwest Airlines spokesman said the airline has no plans to reinstate its Kansai to Honolulu flights that it canceled in August, but said Northwest is constantly evaluating the market and could renew the daily flight if demand warrants it.
One development that might hurt Japanese travel later this year is the spacing of Japan's holidays, which usually allow two peaks in visitor arrivals. This year, travel agencies expect only one surge, in late December.
While early January usually brings in another influx of visitors, fewer are coming because workers need to return to their jobs by Jan. 5.
Advertiser staff writer Dan Nakaso contributed to this report. Reach Kelly Yamanouchi at 535-2470 or at kyamanouchi@honoluluadvertiser.com.
