Mark Dunkerley, the President and CEO for Hawaiian Airlines has high expectation for the Chinese market, but notes that the state of Hawaii is not ready to handle the surge of tourists who are expected to come from China. Dunkerley stated, "Where we are with the Chinese visitor is simply where we were back here with the Japanese visitor. We start at ground zero in relative terms, and the very same exercise of building a visitor experience which appeals to the Chinese visitor, who is very different than the Japanese visitor, is as much a task and a challenge today to the Chinese as it was in the '70s and '80s as we started getting the Japanese visitor coming.For us to be a good destination of Chinese visitors, the level at which Mandarin-speaking services are available in the community has got to expand dramatically. It's got to be represented in the restaurants, not just on the menu, but also in the ability of waitstaff to speak in Mandarin. It's got to be represented in small boutique retail and hotel reception. If we cannot create that, like we did for the Japanese, then we're setting ourselves a very, very tall bar to get over. So there's a lot of work to be done."
Mark Dunkerley noted that approximately 3 percent of Japan's population visits the United States each year. Of that, approximately half (1.5 percent) visits Hawaii each year. Dunkerley added, "If you take that 3 percent and apply it to the Chinese population and extrapolate it out, you would get to 39 million coming to the U.S.. In other words, 10 times the size of the Japanese visitor base. And if you take half of that roughly, you will get 15 million visitors to Hawaii from China. That won't happen overnight, and it may not actually ever happen, but it gives you a sense the demand from China could represent."
Source: Honolulu Star Advertiser, 4-25-2014, www.staradvertiser.com
Posted by Jeff Uyemura-Reyes, Principal Broker, REALTOR®
Global Executive Realty, LLC
www.myhawaiihomesearch.com
www.myhawaiicondo.com
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