After a year of silence, the Hawaii Tourism Authority will answer questions on April 7th about an upcoming Zoom call from the World Tourism Network. The public is invited to participate and ask questions. How did Hawaii quietly bring so many visitors back?

  1. Tourism in Waikiki is booming again. Waikiki was packed with visitors this year’s Easter break.
  2. With record arrivals of domestic tourists, hotels and airlines consider this success a state secret to the Hawaii visitors industry.
  3. The balance between COVID-19 infections and vaccine is in place. The key is keeping it in place to make Hawaii the first place on earth where everything is “back to normal.”

With nearly 20,000 daily arrivals from the U.S. mainland each day and pre-clearing for many airlines so passengers can get to the beach as soon as they arrive, Hawaii is showing the world how tourism can get back to normal in Aloha – even without the state international visitors.

Waikiki on Easter Sunday

It appears that hotels and airlines want this popularity to be “unrecognized” and “less of a comment” due to company policy.

It also appears that even more local visitors flood the beaches compared to normal times.

Canadians, Japanese, Koreans, Chinese, Australians, New Zealanders, Malaysia, Singapore and Europeans are of course missing. There are hardly any foreigners, but hotels and restaurants are full, and shops can barely cope with the new domestic tourism demand.

If the United States opened its borders and combined the increased domestic potential with new flights and new domestic markets, Hawaii Tourism would be back to normal or more in no time. Is this good news or scary news?

What about social distancing? Forget about social distance on the beaches. Nobody asks, nobody enforces. Strict mask guidelines apply in hotels, restaurants and shopping centers. Some stores, including Apple Computer, still have strict policies that only customers with appointments can attend.

This seems to be very different in most other stores, restaurants, or entertainment venues.

It takes less than a minute for the waiters in the famous “cheesecake factory” to clean and disinfect the dining tables between the guests.

Large restaurants like Cheesecake Factory definitely do not have the required sanitary regulations, while many other restaurants place a lot of emphasis on keeping the facility clean and safe. Listen to the Waikiki Cheesecake Factory manager tell a guest to call Corporate for an explanation of why.

Most of the world’s travel destinations have already accepted that tourism will never be the way it was. Is Hawaii a rare exception in the world?

COVID-19 infections in Hawaii are still the lowest compared to any other US state, but have increased slightly recently. Hawaii is doing really well with vaccines. It seems like a balancing act between infection and the vaccine. Maybe in Hawaii the vaccine and tourism are the winners this time around.

In view of the economic crisis and high unemployment, this is definitely a positive development for the state of Aloha.

The Hawaii Tourism Authority, the state agency responsible for tourism, was quiet during the crisis.

Wednesday April 7th Pattie V. Herman, VP Marketing & Product Development Hawaii Tourism Authority will be a guest on one Zoom discussion of the World Tourism Network to provide more details and answer questions. ETurboNews readers are invited to register and participate. Go to https://worldtourismevents.com/event/is-hawaii-tourism-back/ and be part of this discussion.