'Ukulele virtuoso part of new marketing plan

By Sean Hao
Advertiser Staff Writer

Jake Shimabukuro, shown here at a performance in Waikiki in June, hopes to help reverse a steady decline in Japanese visitors to the Islands since 1997. Advertiser library photo • June 1, 2003

Shimabukuro, known for his frenetic 'ukulele stylings, will be featured in a print and television advertising campaign designed to provide Japanese visitors with additional reasons to come to the Islands.

"It's really a big honor and I feel a huge responsibility," said Shimabukuro, who was on Maui yesterday for a photo-shoot that will be part of the advertising campaign. "We're trying to promote the unknown, or unfamiliar places of Hawai'i.

"We want to present different attractions of each island to encourage them not just to come to (O'ahu), but to visit other islands. Hawai'i has a lot of character that you can't see just from visiting one island."

Tokyo ad agency Dentsu Inc., which won a state contract in September to market Hawai'i in Japan, came up with the idea of using Shimabukuro. The goal of the Dentsu campaigning is to raise the number of Japanese visitors by 5 percent next year.

The number of tourists from Japan has been on a steady decline since 1997. Through September Japanese visitor arrivals were down 13.4 percent year-on-year, following continued economic malaise in Japan, the war with Iraq and SARS.

The Shimabukuro campaign and other details of the state's marketing plans were revealed yesterday by five companies selected to promote Hawai'i for the next four years. Those efforts kick off in January when the state's tourism marketing contract held by the Hawai'i Visitors & Convention Bureau is broken up and doled out. HVCB will still market North America, but no longer will be responsible for Japan, Europe, Oceania, and the rest of Asia.

Other elements of the plans presented yesterday at the Hawai'i Convention Center include:

• Increasing flights to the state from Australia, New Zealand and Europe.
• Marketing Hawai'i as a "dream" vacation destination within Europe.
• Buoying traffic from China by targeting residents who already have U.S. visas, or are more likely to qualify for visas because they have family or business in the United States.

The HVCB had long held the exclusive contract to promote Hawai'i to the world, but the Hawai'i Tourism Authority voted in September to spread out the $25 million state contract for tourism marketing. That decision followed several controversies that enveloped the HVCB, including a state audit earlier this year sharply criticizing HVCB's operations and questioning its use of state money.

Under the new contracts expected to be signed by year's end, HVCB will still receive the largest portion of state tourism money as the marketer for North America, but Dentsu will market Hawai'i to Japan, Marketing Garden to the rest of Asia, The Mangum Group to Europe and The Walshe Group to Oceania.

Part of the tourism authority's goal was to find marketing agencies with greater expertise with various world markets while generating fresh ideas.

"Hopefully this will bring some new focus and energy to some of the stuff we've been doing," said tourism authority executive director Rex Johnson.

Reach Sean Hao at shao@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8093.