Hawaii Tourism Authority to Spend $3 Million to Attract Visitors
In response to a projected decline in visitors to Hawaii in 2008 the Hawaii Tourism Authority has approved $3 million in additional funds to market the state on the mainland.
HTA estimates a potential 11% drop in visitors to the Islands in 2008 from the 2007 total of 7.4 million.
The shutdowns of Aloha Airlines and ATA Airlines has removed over a million seats per year from North America to Hawaii. The resulting higher ticket prices are causing potential visitors to look elsewhere.
The $3 million allocated by the HTA, along with another $1.5 million from Hawaii hotels will be directed towards increasing air passenger traffic from the mainland to Hawaii.
Whether this will be a marketing campaign designed to increase demand or subsidies to airlines to increase capacity wasn’t clear to us.
In any case Hawaii is facing stiff competition from other tourist destinations. We’ve noticed out on the west coast Mexico’s resort areas are advertising heavily and offering steeply discounted rates to attract visitors.