Economy
Hawaii bid for Chinese tourists hurt by air access
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-12-03 10:46
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 Professional triathletes compete in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii on October 10, 2009. [Agencies] |
HONOLULU: Hawaii is competing with California, Nevada, particularly Las Vegas, and other US tourist destinations for a vast and largely untapped new market segment: Chinese travelers.
To be a Chinese tourist these days is to be a widely sought traveler.
Hawaii has beaches and its famed "Aloha spirit" as its siren call. Las Vegas offers gambling and its entertainment-oriented attractions. San Francisco, California, can boast high-end shopping, a flourishing Chinatown and the Golden Gate Bridge.
Beset by one of the worst recessions in decades, the US tourist destinations are spending significant sums on marketing campaigns in China's most populous regions and are urging US Embassy officials and Chinese airlines to ease logistical burdens of flying to the United States.
At least for now, however, Hawaii is more difficult for the Chinese to reach by air than the other locations, and thus is drawing fewer tourists from the already lucrative and growing Chinese economy.
"It could be huge" for Hawaii, said Ted Sturdivant, who has long published a Hawaii travel guide for Chinese, Japanese and other foreign tourists.
Attracting more Chinese tourists "will bring back a lot of jobs" to Hawaii, Gov. Linda Lingle said recently, after returning from a tourism and economic mission to China.
About a half-million Chinese traveled to all US destinations last year, and that number is expected to grow by double digits in each of the next four years mainly because of China's growing economy and new wealth, according to the US Travel Association. Tourism officials note that the Chinese middle and upper classes each rivals the size of the US population, so luring just a fraction would produce huge numbers.
"Everybody looks at China and sees a country with 1.3 billion people and a growing economy, and they say, 'Oh, my God, it's the greatest travel market that ever was,"' said Frank Haas, an instructor at the School of Travel Industry Management at the University of Hawaii.
Hawaii's tourism market has generally been propped up by two regions, the US West Coast and Japan. Both market segments declined this year, as did the number of Chinese visitors, despite a late 2007 Chinese-US agreement to lift some travel barriers.
To lure the Chinese, the Hawaii Tourism Authority has budgeted almost $2.7 million this fiscal year for marketing there and in South Korea, said David Uchiyama, HTA's vice president of marketing. That includes $447,000 to participate in the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai, which begins in May.
For the Chinese traveler, however, preparations for a trip to the United States still can be a hassle. Only the US Embassy in Beijing and four consulates, mostly on China's eastern coast, handle visa applications, which require in-person interviews. However, traveling in groups, which tourism experts say Chinese prefer, can ease those impediments.
Then there is the problem of getting to the United States. There are nonstop flights from Beijing and other Chinese cities to popular US destinations, but Hawaii is not among them. Traveling to Hawaii usually means a stop at busy Narita Airport outside Tokyo.
That could change next year if China-based Hainan Airlines follows through with plans to begin flying to Honolulu from Beijing nonstop. Even so, Hainan at first will fly only once a week to Hawaii. In comparison, Japan has about a dozen daily flights to the islands.
