Mike McCartney and the emergency effort to boost tourism

Hawaii arrivals by air, down 13% from year-before levels in both January and February, are down 15% so far this month, with even deeper declines on Maui. Hotels are cutting room rates up to a fifth from last year to get the visitors they're getting. It was against that backdrop that the incoming CEO of the Hawaii Tourism Authority, Mike McCartney, appeared on "Sunrise" Friday morning to be interviewed by my friend Steve Uyehara. McCartney agreed, in response to questions, that there was potential in such markets as Europe and China, but compared it to growing pineapples -- it takes time -- so these markets do not represent any immediate hope for goosing tourism. McCartney said for him the big thing to do right now is to target U.S. West vacationers who book their travel on the Internet. There is some basic math that explains the situation. All our Japanese tourism adds up to less than our visitor traffic to Maui, and our international tourism from countries other than Japan is, frankly, negligible. On an average day -- in this slump, I mean -- we may get 3,000 visitors from Japan and 300 from other countries. In the long run, the pineapple timeline, there is enormous potential from international markets, but this can't possibly help our immediate situation. We get more than 15,000 mainland visitors a day (in good times, often 20,000) and this is where even incremental boosting of visitor traffic can do a lot of economic good. There are people on the West Coast who already know and love Hawaii, could use a vacation, and have stable income that allows them to do it. These are the people we need to reach. And the message to reach them with, in Howardspeak, is, "Hey! Our hotels are slitting their own throats to fill rooms. You'll never get a cheaper Hawaii vacation!"