A Big Island hotel's experiment with flying in Filipino workers to help in a tight labor market has been cut short by the sudden availability of employees from the earthquake-damaged Mauna Kea Beach Hotel.

Fairmont Orchid Hawaii officials said yesterday that they will suspend the program to recruit workers from the Philippines and will instead focus on hiring displaced employees from the Mauna Kea, which announced last week that it was closing for repairs.

The decision temporarily halts a plan that was criticized by a major hotel union that wants the hotel to hire locally but supported by local Filipino leaders.

Twenty-five foreign workers already have been hired and will stay for their full nine-month contracts.

The Fairmont Orchid, which had been struggling to fill more than 100 employee vacancies over the past year, had arranged with the U.S. Department of Labor to bring in up to 45 workers from the Philippines.

About 20 of the workers — relatives of current Fairmont employees — arrived last week and began work yesterday. The others will arrive this week.

But with many of the 420 employees of the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel expected to be laid off early next year, Fairmont Orchid officials said, they hope to hire some of those people.

Prince Resorts Hawaii closed the Mauna Kea because of structural damage from the Oct. 15 earthquakes. Prince Resorts Hawaii president Donn Takahashi estimated hotel repairs will take at least a year.

"At this point, given the number of colleagues that are potentially available to work with us at Mauna Kea, there's no need to fill these (vacancies) with off-island candidates," said Fairmont Orchid general manager Ian Pullan.

Fairmont Orchid officials welcomed the new workers from the Philippines with a breakfast reception before regular company orientation sessions yesterday. Hotel sales and marketing director Randy Parker spoke with the workers in Tagalog, said spokeswoman Aven Wright-McIntosh.

"It really was for us here at the Orchid the most exciting day," Pullan said. "We've been working toward this for a long time."

UNITE HERE Local 5, which represents workers at 23 Hawai'i hotels, said worker shortages should be remedied by improving job benefits, which would help properties fill their openings. But ILWU Local 142, which represents Fairmont Orchid employees, supports the seasonal work visa program as a temporary fix to relieve employees who have had to take on extra work because the hotel hasn't been able to fill its vacant positions.

Pullan said the Filipino program reunited a hotel employee and his son, who had not seen each other for 20 years.

Hotel payroll administrator Gina Perez and her cousin, Meriecon Tangonan, were able to meet for the first time. The hotel brought over Tangonan, a 28-year-old mother of two, from the Philippines to work as a housekeeping attendant.

"It's a great opportunity for us Filipinas to work in this hotel," said Tangonan, who was a homemaker in the Philippines and is in Hawai'i for the first time. "It's a great challenge for me to be working in a different country, in a big hotel like this."

Perez moved to Hawai'i from the Philippines with her parents when she was 8 and had not known her cousin. Tangonan is staying with Perez's parents in Kohala, and the two cousins plan to carpool to work.

"It's like a family reunion," Perez said. "It was really exciting to see her."

Takahashi, of Prince Resorts, said that at this point it's unclear how many of Mauna Kea Beach Hotel's employees will be laid off. The hotel is working on creating other jobs, such as in security and construction, for some workers while the property is repaired.

Some employees also will be moved to the Hapuna Beach Prince Hotel, and Prince Resorts also is working with the ILWU to organize a job fair with other hotels on the Kohala Coast, he said.

The Mauna Kea Golf Course and clubhouse will remain open, as will the resort's regular lu'au and clambakes.

Takahashi, who with hotel general manager Charles Park spoke with at least 240 employees on Friday and Saturday, said the hotel closure "was a very, very tough message to deliver this time of year."

"But all the employees took the news so well," he said. "They understood what happened, and more of them than not said, 'We just want to come back to work when the hotel reopens.' So the expression of that kind of sentiment makes me want to work harder to get it back as soon as possible."

Prince Resorts' parent company, Seibu Holdings Inc. of Japan, owns the Prince hotels.

Reach Lynda Arakawa at larakawa@honoluluadvertiser.com.