LEADERSHIP CORNER
Atlantis president sees strong tourism comeback
Interviewed by Kelly Yamanouchi
Advertiser Staff Writer
 |
Title: President and chief executive officer of Atlantis Adventures
Age: 46
Organization: Atlantis Adventures is a submarine and ocean tour company with 13 locations around the world. Williams oversees about 200 employees at all Atlantis Submarines locations in Hawai'i, including on O'ahu, the Big Island and Maui; Atlantis Cruises on the Navatek I; and Sea Life Park for marketing. The 16-year-old Hawai'i business had 2003 gross revenues of $32 million, up from $30 million in 2002. Williams is also president of the 200-member Activities & Attractions Association of Hawaii.
High school: Hilo High School
College: University of Hawai'i-Hilo and UH-Manoa, with a major in social psychology.
Little-known fact: I live on Maui and commute to O'ahu daily.
Breakthrough job: Working for Thrifty Car Rental as a rental agent at the age of 21.
Life-changing event: Meeting Glenn Furuya (president of Leadership Works). I call him my guru of leadership. He made me see what leadership was about.
• • •
Q. So what is leadership about?
A. People get that mixed up, between management and leadership. Leadership is really helping people to be successful. In leadership, it's empowering people, helping coaching and understanding that you can make a difference. I'm really lucky we have good employees here and good leaders.
Q. What is a major challenge for you?
A. Just continuously making sure we are able to get good people. It's a tight job market right now. Continuously making sure we challenge our people, too.
Q. Where do you look for people?
A. Everywhere, traditional and nontraditional. Internet, newspaper, word of mouth. We do a lot of business with the Japanese side, so we need bilingual speakers, and that's usually a challenge. You have to look very hard to make sure you have the quality of person that (can come into) your culture, your atmosphere, your climate, and be well-received.
Q. How is tourism doing now compared to years past?
A. The market is much better now. North America is really good, and Japanese are coming in really strong. We're really fortunate we're seen as a safe haven, and that has helped us.
Q. Which location is doing best right now?
A. Maui and O'ahu would be our strongest at this moment. Maui's market is really hot, and cruise ship has helped that, too. I think the cruise ship is a great business. It doesn't stress the environment from an infrastructure (standpoint), and you know they're putting in lots and lots of marketing dollars, marketing Hawai'i.
Q. How did Atlantis do last year?
A. It was one of the better years we've had in a long time, since 1997. Five-hundred thousand passengers.
Q. How do things look like they'll shape up this year?
A. It's early in the year, but it looks good. ... January, we lost days. It's wind, actually, that really hurts us. Now, Navatek is a little different story because of the way it's built. We don't really lose a lot of weather days on the Navatek — maybe one or two in a year. Safety is always our first concern, so if there's any kind of judgment one way or another, we don't judge. ... we'll cancel it before we take any chances. Weather is a big factor for us in January, so we made it through the weather better than we did last year.
Q. What are your target markets?
A. North American, Japanese, kama'aina, military — pretty much hit the whole spectrum. Cruise ship industry. Between west-bound and east-bound ... they're kind of equal.
Q. What did the Japanese ratio use to be?
A. At one time in this company, it was 70 percent of the business (from 1995 to 1998). I kind of like the ratios now, because it makes you a little more solid. Being at 70/30, when the Japanese market started to weaken, that did affect our business.
Q. How much does kama'aina business make up?
A. Maybe 10 percent of our business, and that kama'aina would include military... (and) school kid groups, because we do programs like living-classroom programs, a program where we go into schools and discuss what they're going to see under the water. And then we do the whale-watch program.
Q. From the perspective of attractions in Hawai'i, what are the biggest challenges?
A. We actually believe that some of the reasons why people come to Hawai'i is actually to do a lot of activities. And to do that, we work hard to try to let people know of all the different types of activities we have. We have from submarines to bike rides down Haleakala to Polynesian Cultural Center to luaus, museums, attractions. And at the present time, we're doing better than we did last year.
Q: How do the attractions' interests differ from the rest of the tourism industry, and where do they intersect?
A: We're all interested in making sure that Hawai'i has its fair share of tourists. And the marketing of Hawai'i is very important, its brand. So I think we share all of that. Attractions just haven't been able to get recognition of the types of memories that we provide to guests. We would like more (first-time visitors) than a hotel.
Q: How do you increase the proportion of first-time visitors?
A: Show them different things to do. Show them the reasons why they should come to Hawai'i. I think that the ads that we do now are good ads. I would just like to see more action, activity.
Q: Has there been any impact on Atlantis from the whale-watching tour accident in December that led to the death of a 3-year-old boy?
A: I haven't seen an impact on our business. I do think that was just very unfortunate.
Q: How are Atlantis' plans going, to sink the Carthaginian II ship at Lahaina harbor?
A: Carthaginian II was a whaling model sitting in Lahaina harbor. Right now it's being cleaned up to become a home for fish. We got control of it, so we're hoping to sink it. ... We're going through the permitting process. We're really excited. It's good for the environment, too. Artificial reefs, from our experience in Waikiki, they bring back life to the reefs and coral, and it's good. It'll add, obviously, to our show, but it's also a good thing for the environment.
