Visitors climb from Down Under
Arrivals from Australia and New Zealand increased 26.5 percent last year

By Allison Schaefers
Article from: Star-Advertiser

Down Under has turned it into more of an up-and-over market for Hawaii’s visitor industry.

Arrivals to the islands from Australia and New Zealand jumped 26.5 percent last year and are expected to continue to climb, especially after flights are added in April.

“Last year was a record year for Oceania,” said Helen Williams, country manager of Hawaii Tourism Oceania, a contractor for the Hawaii Tourism Authority. “We had the most travelers that we’ve had since carriers switched to more efficient planes and quit stopping in Hawaii to refuel.”

As many as 172,962 visitors from Oceania came to Hawaii in 2010 and spent $341.7 million. That surpassed the Hawaii Tourism Authority’s arrival target by more than 6 percent and surpassed the spending target by more than 3 percent.

“We were really happy with our results and have good reason to believe that they will continue into 2011,” Williams said. “The global financial crisis didn’t have the same impact on Oceania as it did in other parts of the world. Travelers still have jobs, they haven’t lost wages or been furloughed and travel demand is high.”

This year the region is projected to be the fastest-growing major market to Hawaii outside of Korea and China. HTA expects arrivals this year will increase another 8.7 percent to 188,000 visitors while spending will rise another 9.8 percent to $384.6 million as travelers continue to take advantage of the favorable exchange rate and additional flights.

Tim Hutchinson visited Hawaii in 1993 and returned last fall with his wife and children and two other families to take advantage of bargains in the market.

“It’s much cheaper since our dollar is so good,” Hutchinson said.

In October, demand for commodities and high interest rates helped Australia’s dollar hit par with the U.S. dollar for the first time since it was floated in 1983. The Australian dollar has edged out the U.S. dollar several times since then. On Friday it was worth about 98 cents in the U.S.

Honeymooners Daniel and Maxine Viola of Perth, Australia, said the strong Australian dollar allowed them to stay at the luxury Halekulani Hotel and go on adventures at the Polynesian Cultural Center and Kualoa Ranch. They chose Hawaii in part because of how it looked in movies like “Jurassic Park” and “50 First Dates” and in the TV series “Lost.”

“We had a fantastic time,” Maxine Viola said. “We loved being where the films were shot. We loved the beaches, but we also loved learning to hula and exploring the island.”

Many New Zealanders also fell in love with Hawaii last year, and the growth trend looks to be continuing this year, said Darragh Walshe, New Zealand’s country manager for Hawaii Tourism Oceania.

“Demand is high,” Walshe said.

But with just one carrier, Air New Zealand, providing direct service with two flights a week and three in the winter, the biggest challenge remains a lack of passenger seats, he said.

“Air New Zealand will be putting on some additional flights this year to try to cope with demand, but we are working hard to lobby more flights from the market,” Walshe said.

Aussies have benefited from more flights. Their market should increase even more after Hawaiian Airlines increases its nonstop service between Sydney and Honolulu. The carrier will offer daily flights from April 6 to Aug. 1 to meet customer demand during the peak travel season. Starting Aug. 2, Hawaiian will offer nonstop service five days weekly between Sydney and Honolulu. The carrier’s expansion adds 19,000 seats this year.

“We know how much Australian travelers enjoy their holidays in Hawaii, so we are increasing our flight schedule during their favorite time of year to travel,” said Avi Mannis, Hawaiian’s vice president of revenue management and schedule planning. “This gives them greater flexibility in making their plans, and the timing couldn’t be better as Hawaii is a great value for Australians.”

Brisbane natives Jennie Lilliman and her husband, Kevan, couldn’t agree more. The pair are putting the finishing details on a two-week trip to Hawaii in May.

The couple, who have been to Fiji and Southeast Asia, have wanted to visit Hawaii for at least four years, and in that time six couples whom they know have chosen to vacation here.

“I do believe Hawaii is becoming more popular as a holiday destination, probably because of our strong Australian dollar, and also I have noticed more advertising for holiday specials,” Jennie Lilliman said.

The opportunity to sail around the islands on Norwegian Cruise Line’s home-ported Pride of America and spend extra days ashore in Waikiki won out over a holiday in Canada and Alaska, she said.

“For this trip we have combined the cruise with some ‘land’ time in Waikiki, and we are both getting very excited,” Lilliman said.

While the cruise price was comparable to an earlier Southeast Asia cruise they took, she said the hotel rate was higher than offerings from Australian and Southeast Asian hotels.

“We figured just go for it,” she said. “You only live once.”

Sarah Short, who visited Waikiki in 2009 when the Queen Mary 2 docked here, is returning in September to celebrate her mother’s 70th birthday.

Although Short had considered Bali and Thailand as possible trip destinations, the memory of brief time that she spent in Hawaii called her back.

“I had to come back. It’s stunning,” Short said.

While Hawaii has long been a destination favored by Aussies, demand seems to be growing, she said.

“We like the weather, the relaxed atmosphere and friendly people,” Short said.

Although leisure trips have dominated the reasons that Oceania visitors have come to Hawaii, business and incentive travelers are showing more interest, said Michael Murray, Hawaii Visitor and Convention Bureau vice president of sales and marketing for corporate meetings and incentives.

“There is great optimism in terms of the results from last year and the momentum that is building,” Murray said. “We have great accessibility in terms of lift, and the exchange rate is doing very well. These things provide a great platform to nurture relationships and to cultivate new relationships.”

HVCB kicked off a large marketing blitz on Feb. 11 with an Aloha Friday trade show and reception in Sydney. Its efforts were augmented by marketers from the Kauai Visitors Bureau, Oahu Visitors Bureau, Maui Visitors and Convention Bureau, Big Island Visitors Bureau, Hawaiian Airlines, Hilton Hawaiian Village, Moana Surfrider, Sheraton Maui, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Waikiki, Waikiki Beach Marriott, Waikiki Edition, Kathy Clarke Hawaii and MC&A Hawaii.

Murray also brought a team of 14 salespeople to Australia earlier this week to sell the islands during the country’s largest annual meetings trade show, the Asia-Pacific Incentive and Meetings Expo. The event, which took place Feb. 14 to 16 in Melbourne, attracted some 2,000 meetings and event-buyers from throughout the Asia-Pacific.

Adele Tasaka, HVCB’s senior director of accounts, said she expects expo will bring a strong response in new business opportunities for Hawaii.

“Australia has historically been a reliable market for Hawaii’s meetings industry, and we’re confident our collective sales efforts this year will produce good results in attracting more group business to Hawaii,” Tasaka said.

Williams said Hawaii marketers at the expo have told her that event inquiries are up 400 percent from last year.

Economy will grow 2% this year, state predicts

A Hawaii economist forecasts employment to rebound only after other sectors improve

By Kristen Consillio
STAR-ADVERTISER

The state expects visitor spending to jump 9.2 percent this year. “We are encouraged by the continued improvement in our economy, especially with respect to our construction industry,” DBEDT Director Richard Lim said yesterday in a statement.

Hawaii’s economy will grow slightly faster this year than previously expected, but job recovery won’t be realized until 2014, according to a state economist.

Boosted by a strong rebound in visitor spending and construction jobs, the state revised yesterday growth projections for overall gross domestic product — the broadest measure of economic activity in Hawaii — to 2 percent this year, according to a quarterly report released yesterday by the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism. That’s up from the 1.8 percent increase predicted in November.

IMPROVED OUTLOOK
Percentage changes forecast through 2013:
2011 2012 2013
Visitor arrivals 4.0 2.5 2.5
Visitor spending 9.2 5.6 5.4
Honolulu inflation 2.2 2.3 2.3
Wage and salary jobs 1.3 1.5 1.8
Personal income* 1.0 1.7 1.9
Gross domestic product* 2.0 2.1 2.4
* Adjusted for inflation

Source: State Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism

However, it will take three years for jobs to return to the 2007 peak level of about 631,000, Eugene Tian, acting state economist, said yesterday.

“Employment is still lagging the economic growth,” he said. “The job recovery will be coming later than the other indicators in the economy.”

The biggest upward revision among the various economic indicators was visitor spending, which DBEDT now predicts will grow 9.2 percent to $12.66 billion in 2011, as a result of a boost in tourists from higher-spending markets such as China and South Korea, as well as higher hotel room rates. DBEDT previously forecast an 8.4 percent increase.

Tourism will exceed the 2006 peak level of 7.6 million visitors by 2013, moving the economy from recovery to expansion, according to the report.

The job market also is improving, with the growth in payroll jobs revised upward to 1.3 percent this year from the 1.1 percent rise previously forecast, primarily due to new building projects.

The construction industry reversed 29 months of declines when it began to add jobs in October. The value of commercial and industrial building permits increased 32.5 percent last year, DBEDT Director Richard Lim said yesterday in a statement.

“We are encouraged by the continued improvement in our economy, especially with respect to our construction industry,” he said.

Borders bankruptcy won’t affect Maui stores
Two branches on Big Island, Kauai will be shut down

By MELISSA TANJI, Staff Writer
Article from: The Maui News

KAHULUI – Maui shoppers are pleased that the two Borders bookstores on the island would not be closing despite Borders’ parent company filing for bankruptcy protection Wednesday.

The Borders Books Music Movies & Cafe at Maui Marketplace and the Borders Express store at the Queen Ka’ahumanu Center will remain open and are not affected by the bankruptcy, store officials said Wednesday morning.

Kevin Tanaka, the service manager at the Maui Marketplace store, said it was “business as usual,” and customers were waiting outside the store’s door before it opened, which is a common occurrence.

Only two stores in Hawaii will be closed, one in Kailua-Kona on the Big Island and the other in Lihue on Kauai, according to a bankruptcy filing.

The company said it will close about 200 of its 642 stores in the next few weeks. It cited cautious consumer spending, negotiations with vendors and a lack of liquidity as reasons for its troubles.

Kihei resident Stella Saadnia, who visits the Maui Marketplace Borders about once a week, said she likes the store’s variety of CDs, books and magazines and enjoys its cafe, where she can meet people and hang out.

“I like that it has a lot of different things,” she said outside the store Wednesday morning.

She also said it would be sad if the store were on the chopping block, noting that she still likes to read books despite the trend of people turning to electronics to read stories.

“I like the old-fashioned way,” she said.

Pukalani resident Robert Tomlinson said he feels the same way.

“I have a library at home,” he said outside the Maui Marketplace store. He added that he reads five books at a time and loves to give books away as gifts. Tomlinson said Borders has a good selection of Buddhist books as well as other religious books.

The Borders stores in Kahului and the Barnes & Nobles bookstore in Lahaina are the only two large major bookstore chains on the island.

Borders store officials said the Borders Express store at Piilani Village in Kihei closed about a month ago. Borders Express stores at the Whalers Village in Kaanapali and Lahaina Cannery Mall closed in January 2009.

Some times I get so caught up working I forget to take a moment to slow down and enjoy Hawaii for what it has to offer. So for all of those who are trapped in poor weather and are over worked, take a deep breath and take a mini vacation with me.

In other news, and in an effort to enjoy my dog’s company more, Deagle and I will be blogging pet related information such as pet friendly complex reviews, top picks, and quarantine processes.

Aloha from Maui

Fed Forecasts Faster Growth as Economy Improves

By SEWELL CHAN
Published: February 16, 2011
Article from: NYTimes.com

WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve revealed Wednesday that its policy makers had substantially upgraded their forecasts for how much the United States economy will grow this year, though they expect unemployment to remain painfully high for some time.

Top Fed officials now expect the output of goods and services to grow by 3.4 percent to 3.9 percent this year, up from the previous forecast, released in November, of 3 percent to 3.6 percent. But their grim outlook for the job market was largely unchanged: 8.8 percent to 9 percent unemployment this year, only one-tenth of a percentage point lower than in the November forecast.

Growth expectations were lifted by an improvement in consumer spending in the fourth quarter, though Fed officials were uncertain how long that would last, according to minutes released on Wednesday of the Fed’s policy meeting in late January.

“On the one hand, the additional spending could reflect pent-up demand following the downturn, or greater confidence on the part of households about the future, in which case it might be expected to continue,” the minutes noted. “On the other hand, the additional spending could prove short-lived, given that a good portion of it appeared to have occurred in relatively volatile categories such as autos.”

At the meeting, the Federal Open Market Committee, the Fed’s main policy arm, voted unanimously to continue a plan announced in November to purchase $600 billion in Treasury securities, the second round of a strategy that is intended to push down long-term interest rates and lift share prices. The strategy, known as quantitative easing, has been controversial — critics say it could set the stage for future inflation and asset bubbles — but the Fed has been fairly unified behind it.

The minutes indicated that Fed officials saw a diminishing risk of deflation, a protracted fall in prices of the sort that has afflicted Japan for more than two decades. That fear of deflation was a principal factor behind the decision in August to set the stage for the bond purchases.

Other economic reports issued on Wednesday supported the Fed’s view of an economy starting to gather some steam. The Commerce Department reported that new home construction rose by the largest amount in 20 months, and the Labor Department reported that wholesale prices rose sharply in January, driven up by gasoline and pharmaceuticals. Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, the index rose by the most in more than two years.

The Federal Reserve’s own report on industrial production in January was more mixed. Factory output rose for the fifth straight month, spurred by strong car and struck sales, but utility and mine output fell, leaving the overall level of production lower, the first month-to-month decline in 19 months.

For their part, investors have been bidding up stock prices steadily since late November. In midafternoon trading, the S. & P. 500 index was about 0.6 percent higher for the day and 6.2 percent higher for the year.

The minutes painted a picture of a committee that was not quite certain about how long and painful the recovery would take from the 2007-9 recession — the longest downturn since the Depression.

“On the downside, participants remained worried about the possible effects of spillovers from the banking and fiscal strains in peripheral Europe, the ongoing fiscal adjustments by U.S. state and local governments, and the continued weakness in the housing market,” the minutes stated. “On the upside, the recent strength in household spending raised the possibility that domestic final demand could snap back more rapidly than anticipated. If so, a considerably stronger recovery could take hold, more in line with the sorts of recoveries seen following deep economic recessions in the past.”

Although food and energy prices have increased recently, especially in fast-growing emerging markets, the committee did not have a consensus on whether that development would lead to higher inflation in the United States, noting that the factors affecting businesses’ ability to pass higher costs through to their consumers were “complex and hard to monitor in real time.”

The minutes noted that most Fed officials viewed the large slack in the economy — that is, the economy’s underperformance relative to its potential — as “likely to remain a force restraining inflation,” and believed that while price declines were unlikely, inflation was likely to remain below its desired level (2 percent or slightly below) “for some time.”

Some participants also said that if the public doubted the Fed’s willingness to reduce its huge balance sheet — by selling the financial assets it acquired as a response to the crisis — when the time comes to do so, “the result could be upward pressure on inflation expectations and so on actual inflation.”

In recent months, the Fed chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, has been adamant in saying that the Fed was ready and willing to curb inflation — and could even raise interest rates at a moment’s notice if it needed to.

The committee’s unanimous vote in January to consider the $600 billion bond-buying program, which is to continue until the end of June, surprised some observers, because a small but vocal minority on the committee had questioned the need for the program. But the minutes revealed that for now, the committee was unified on continuing the purchases, viewing the risks to doing so as manageable.

“A few members noted that additional data pointing to a sufficiently strong recovery could make it appropriate to consider reducing the pace or overall size of the purchase program,” the minutes stated. “However, others pointed out that it was unlikely that the outlook would change by enough to substantiate any adjustments to the program before its completion.”