Posted on: Tuesday, January 11, 2005
Isles hope to score with sports fans
By Jaymes Song
Associated Press
As temperatures drop across the nation, winter-weary sports fans will be treated to more than 60 hours of television images of swaying palm trees lining fairways, white sand bunkers and football stars sweating in the Hawai'i sun.
Matt York • Associated Press The state is spending the bulk of its $8 million annual sports marketing budget in January and February to host eight televised sporting events taking place on three islands.
"We're trying to portray Hawai'i as a place that's much more multidimensional than just a sun-and-surf destination," said Frank Haas, vice president of marketing for the Hawai'i Tourism Authority. "Part of that is attracting people who are pursuing active lifestyles and sports."
The Hawai'i events kicked off last week at the Kapalua course on Maui with the PGA Tour's season-opening Mercedes Championships. The tour moves to Honolulu this week for the Sony Open, where local teenage sensation Michelle Wie will take on the men for the second year in a row.
The month wraps up with the Hula Bowl college all-star football game on Maui, more golf with the Champions Tour's season-opening MasterCard Championship on the Big Island, followed by the tour's Turtle Bay Championship on Oahu's North Shore.
February will feature the Champions Skins Game on Maui, the NFL Pro Bowl in Honolulu and the LPGA Tour's inaugural SBS Open at Turtle Bay, which will be televised throughout Asia.
Tourism officials say the exposure and media attention is priceless in promoting Hawai'i's multibillion-dollar tourism industry, the lifeblood of the Islands' economy.
By the time the six golf events and two football games are completed, more than 60 hours of sports programming on 20 different days will have been beamed from Hawai'i into living rooms across the United States and Asia.
As the winter freeze deepens, the more inviting the images of balmy 80-degree tropical days will be.
Haas said the airtime for events such as the Sony Open is like a 12-hour commercial for Hawai'i.
The winter events also help lure travelers during the spring, traditionally the slowest travel period to Hawai'i, he said.
The Pro Bowl costs the state $4.75 million to host. The state spends another $2.3 million to host the golfing events and $880,000 for everything else, which includes the Xcel Pro Surf Contest and the Ironman Triathlon World Championship.
The 2004 Pro Bowl alone generated $29.5 million in visitor spending on everything from hotel rooms to dashboard hula dolls. About 22,000 visitors last year reported they came to Hawai'i specifically to attend the annual all-star game.
"There's some prestige associated with that event," Haas said. "The Pro Bowl is where the NFL sends its best players as a reward. You could make a giant leap, saying, 'If it's good enough for the NFL, it's good enough for me.' "
The NFL has also found success in Honolulu with the Pro Bowl — the game has sold out every year since moving to 50,000-seat Aloha Stadium in 1980.
It's all a strategic effort to lure more visitors to the Islands.
Vijay Singh tees off during the final round of the Mercedes Championships in Kapalua, Maui. The tournament is among the sporting events that tourism officials hope will attract more visitors to Hawai'i.
