Q. While the overall tourism business in Hawai'i has been doing fairly well, the Japanese market has dropped off over the past year or so. Is this affecting your business?

A. Not yet. We've been going steadily and the decrease in tourist count hasn't affected us yet. But we are assuming a lot of businesses are going to be having some budget cuts this year. For example, if they advertised in four magazines before, now it might just be three magazines or two magazines. Or a one-page ad might go to a half page.

Q. You mentioned that you are looking at ways of diversifying. Can you elaborate?

A. One thing we're going to start this year is a separate Big Island magazine. The Big Island is one island out of all the islands that has been seeing increases in Japanese tourists, about 14 percent or 15 percent a year. Of course, the overall number is small, but still the popularity has been increasing a lot. One of the main reasons is the Japanese media like that dynamic with nature, the volcano and Mauna Kea. There is also a spiritual element that is very popular in Japan.

Q. Why do you think the number of Japanese visitors to Hawai'i overall is declining?

A. As far as I know the popularity is still there. And I think Hawaii Tourism Japan has been doing a great job in promoting Hawai'i. And because of their advertising background they have secured a lot of media coverage over the years. So more and more people are into Hawai'i. But last year the hotel availability was a big issue, and airlines cut flights. Also the price increased a lot. After 9/11, Hawai'i was considered cheap and reasonable for what they could get. But now price is catching up and exceeding what they can get (elsewhere).

Q. In addition to your Aloha Street magazine, www.Wincubic.com also operates a Web site. How do the two products complement each other?

A. Aloha Street is a mixed media product. Before they (Japanese visitors) come — and their average stay is very short, just four or five nights — they have to look at the Web site and check every single detail they are doing in Hawai'i and they make a precise plan. So that's why the Internet is a perfect tool. According to one survey, 70 percent of people look at our Web site before they come.

Q. What kind of growth has the magazine experienced?.

A. Our revenue has grown almost 15 times since we started the magazine in 2001. We print 125,000 copies per issue and we publish quarterly so our annual circulation is half a million. Japanese visitor arrivals are about 1.5 million a year so we reach about one third of them. We have a lot of original content and the magazine is designed to achieve the quality Japanese people are used to. People even take it back to Japan. It's a free magazine here, but people pay for it in Japan. We have about 3,000 subscriptions.

Q. How long have you been with the company?

A. I started at this company in 2001 as a chief editor. It was a hard time, right before 9/11. We started as an Internet company. We tried to create Japanese hotel reservation system. But it was difficult, so we shifted to a media company.

Q. What brought you to Hawai'i?

A. I was working in advertising in Tokyo. I was 32 years old and back then the Japanese economy was having serious problems. I thought if I didn't do anything at the time, maybe I would just continue this boring life. I took a chance and came to the University of Hawai'i and studied English for six months. Then it was recommended that I go for my MBA so I decided to go to HPU, which was more open to foreign students.

Q. Your company is involved in some charity work through a program called the Aloha Street Nature Project. How did that come about?

A. Maybe two years ago there was an expo in Nagoya, Japan, that focused on environmental issues and ecology issues. Also, the environmental ministry there started promoted the concept of saving energy. Japanese people are into that kind of thing. They like saving forests and saving energy. And we wanted to contribute somehow to the local environmental cause. So to connect those two parties we launched a calendar with local photographs. It's a beautiful calendar with ocean, mountains and sunsets — all the beauty of Hawai'i. The Japanese people loved it and they bought it so we made some money on it and we donated $5,000 to the Outdoor Circle last year. This will be the second year.

Q. Were you surprised at the popularity of the project?

A. We did a survey before we launched the calendar and we found that more than 80 percent of the people wanted to participate in a volunteer program here if they know it is available, like a beach cleanup. They just don't know how to participate. We got a lot of e-mails from people who wanted to volunteer, but they couldn't find any information. And we found that the visitors bureau and travel agents were getting a lot of the same kinds of inquiries.

Reach Alan Yonan Jr. at ayonan@honoluluadvertiser.com.