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La‘amea Paleka welcomed 263 Chinese visitors with a hula yesterday at the Honolulu Airport. The group was the first of the year to travel directly to Hawaii from China aboard a chartered flight.

The first chartered direct flight full of high-spending Chinese tourists touched down at Honolulu Airport yesterday with 263 passengers eager to shop and see the islands through the Chinese New Year over the next six days.

Chinese visitors are expected to spend an average of $368 per person per day this year, compared to just $275 per day for every Japanese tourist, said David Uchiyama, vice president of brand management for the Hawaii Tourism Authority, who welcomed the Chinese guests at a special airport reception that included hula dancers, live Hawaiian music, lei, soft drinks and plenty of picture-taking.

By comparison, spending for all Hawaii tourists averages just $178 per day, according to the HTA.

So yesterday's arrival of high-spending Chinese visitors from a specially chartered flight is "significant," Uchiyama said. "This is going to have a big impact on the state."

Last year, Hawaii saw the arrival of 66,048 Chinese visitors, who each spent an average of $357 per day. This year the HTA expects to see 82,146 Chinese tourists, a 24 percent increase.

Li Xiu Ying, a retired teacher from Szechuan province, and her husband, factory manager Quing Shi Luo, deplaned from the chartered Airbus 340 yesterday full of smiles.

Their flight originated in Beijing, picked up more passengers in Shanghai Pudong International Airport east of Shanghai, and then took seven hours and 10 minutes to land in Hono-lulu -- a time Li said through a translator was "very fast."

When asked how she plans to spend six days in the islands, Li rattled off a response.

"Shopping," the translator said. "She wants to go shopping."

Li is particularly eager to buy high-end, designer goods in Honolulu that she can trust to be authentic.

"She's happy to come to this place that everybody in the world wants to see," said the translator.

Yesterday's flight was the first of three chartered by China CYTS Tours and expected to arrive in the first four months of the year, according to the HTA.

It follows the 2007 signing of a U.S.-China memorandum of understanding that helped make it easier for Chinese visitors to obtain travel visas to come to Hawaii.

Ted Liu, former director of the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism, flew in economy class aboard yesterday's flight, which, he said, represented the culmination of 18 months of work by the administration of former Gov. Linda Lingle.

Liu estimated that one-fourth of the passengers have been to Hawaii before by flying through Narita, Japan, or through South Korea. The majority of yesterday's passengers were families that included grandchildren and the elderly, Liu said.

"There was a lot of excitement on board, a lot of happy people," Liu said. "People were very excited about Hawaii."

However, there was no Hawaii literature onboard the Airbus 340 or any Hawaii-themed in-flight videos to get passengers excited about what they will see in the islands, which needs to be corrected, Liu said.

And once on the ground, some passengers spent 30 to 45 minutes filling out customs forms that could have easily been completed in advance in the air, Liu said.

But he was pleased that so many arriving Chinese passengers seemed eager to start their Hawaii vacations, which Liu expects will include plenty of shopping for luxury goods.

"They can get better value here, as well as the assurance that it's authentic," Liu said.

Many of the Chinese visitors planned to follow China CYTS Tours of major Oahu attractions while others designed individual itineraries.

The Hawaii Tourism Authority said the Chinese visitors will stay at the Hilton Hawaiian Village, Sheraton Waikiki, Sheraton Princess Kaiulani, Aston Hotels and Resorts, Ocean Resorts Waikiki and the Hyatt Regency.

"The series of Hawaii package products have been promoted in Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin and Shanxi Province and are designed to meet the different demands of Chinese travelers," Zhang Lijun, president of CYTS, said in a statement. "The tour package for this first group is specifically for individuals who wanted to travel during the Chinese New Year."

可以淺潛賞魚的的恐龍灣 / 無人居住的鯨魚島

最近天氣異常的好，讓人忍不住想要放鬆一下去擁抱陽光。如農曆新年期間正好有兩三天假期，不妨忙裡偷閒逃去夏威夷度周末。碧藍清澈的海水、蜿蜒的海岸、柔軟的白沙灘、隨風搖擺的棕櫚樹、崎嶇翠綠的山路、夕陽下草裙舞女郎曼妙的身姿、以及五彩遮陽傘下醇香的美酒，必能令人全身心放鬆。

歐胡島 Waikiki海邊飯店後院即是連片沙灘 / 商場內經常為遊客表演夏威夷草裙舞

夏威夷地處北太平洋，由130多個島嶼組成。夏威夷全年氣溫變化不大，沒有季節之分，2、3月間氣溫最低，8、9月間最熱。雖然10月到次年4月時夏威夷雨量最多的時節，但如果沒有這些來來就走的陣雨，留下絢麗的彩虹，夏威夷也就不會有彩虹州的美名。如果是第一次去夏威夷又時間有限的話，歐湖島（Oahu）便是體驗夏威夷的最佳選擇。

夏威夷皇宮 / 衝浪是冬天遊夏威夷必不可少的活動

歐湖島是夏威夷八大島嶼中的第三大島，島上人口占整個夏威夷州的75%。歐湖島全年氣候宜人，平均溫度在68至85度。歐湖島海岸線總長112哩，這裡除了舉世聞名的旅遊聖地威基基灘（Waikiki）外，夏威夷州府檀香山市（Honolulu）、伊奧拉尼皇宮（Iola i Palace）、珍珠港（Pearl Harbor）、恐龍灣 (Hanauma Bay)、鑽石頭（Diamond Head ）、日落海灘（Sunset Beach）、大風口（Pali Lookout）、波利尼西亞文化中心（Polynesian Cultural Center）都在歐湖島上。

亞利桑那號戰船 / 仿造日本京都世界遺產平等院

歐湖在夏威夷語中意為「聚集之地」，檀香山作為美國第11大城市，有著豐富的歷史、人文勝景，以及豐富多彩的活動。在歐湖不論走到哪裡，都能領略熱帶美景與品味當地獨特文化，這是夏威夷其他島嶼所無法相比的。白天可在熱鬧的威基基灘曬日光浴、衝浪，去專賣店林立的威基基商圈血拼，或徒步去人跡罕至、圍繞著瀑布與熱帶草木的小沙灘。也可以去恐龍灣潛水，與海豚嬉戲，或是來一次深海觀魚潛游。傍晚可以乘坐遊輪欣賞海上落日與草裙舞表演。到了涼爽的夜晚，除了享用各種美食，還可以去南部海岸參加雞尾酒巡遊。

夏威夷沿海海岸線變化多端 / 位於半山的鳳梨園也成為觀光勝地

必遊景點

1.著名海灘

歐湖島有沙灘的海岸線總長便超過50哩，海灘共139處，每處都有獨到迷人之處。冬季遊歐湖島，衝浪與觀鯨便是不可錯過的活動。每年冬天，萬歲波浪區（Banzai Pipeline）、日落海灘、威美亞灣（waimea）等歐湖北岸一系列海灘吸引著世界各地衝浪愛好者前來挑戰20至40呎的巨浪。

2.珍珠港紀念館

珍珠港是歐湖最受歡迎、也是行程中的必經之地。珍珠港事件紀念館直接建造在被日軍擊沉的「亞利桑那號」上，白色的紀念館既像艘戰船又像隻枕頭，代表讓陣亡士兵安息。因此，參觀亞利桑那號紀念館也是一種莊嚴的體驗，有1177名士兵長眠於此。每年紀念館都有大型紀念活動，無數來自世界各地的遊客都會聚集在此悼念這些素昧平生的士兵。在紀念館上可以看到海面上露出一截圓形的空桶，那是「亞利桑那號」第三砲台的砲座。天氣晴朗時，可以看到沉船的全貌。

3.波利尼西亞文化中心

波利尼西亞文化中心由摩門教楊百翰大學建於1963年，一座保存波利尼西亞人歷史與文化傳統的大型民族文化博物館。中心內有來自夏威夷、薩摩亞、塔希提、湯加、斐濟、新西蘭、馬克薩斯七個太平洋島嶼上的波利尼西亞人，分別組成七個村落。各村建築設施均保持本民族幾百年前的傳統風貌。透過村民的日常生活，反映他們原居住的七個島嶼的文化傳統與風土人情，每晚還有具有濃厚民族氣息大型的歌舞晚會。

貼心提醒

到歐湖可以進行自駕遊或跟團遊，自駕遊雖然自由，不過檀香山的汽油價格時常位居全美首位，成本略高。第一次去，可參加當地大環島遊或小環島遊，價格只有幾十元。也可以選擇坐公車，公車買票不找零，可以事先在ABC連鎖店購買公交通票。

若不想度假被猩紅起泡的皮膚毀掉，別忘了準備防曬指數SPF30以上的高倍防曬品，並使用遮陽帽與佩戴有紫外線濾層的太陽鏡。此外，夏威夷時常有陣雨與突發季風到訪，尤其是山間天氣變化無常，不想著涼就隨身備一件長袖薄外套。

在夏威夷購物，如果不熱衷名牌，逛一下ABC連鎖店，便可以買到夏威夷群島各種紀念品，而且十分便宜。但是在檀香山，千萬不要和朋友約在ABC碰頭。ABC在夏威夷全州共50多家分店，但在檀香山便有41家，幾乎相隔不便有一間ABC。

到了夏威夷不要吃海鮮。夏威夷禁止商業捕魚，海產品幾乎都是從加州空運，價格昂貴。

HAWAII TOURISM ASSOCIATION COMMENTS ON STATE OF THE STATE ADDRESS

Hawaii Governor plans to juggle tourism dollars

“The truth is that our canoe, which is our beloved Hawaii, could capsize. We are in that unnerving moment, when we could all huli, when we could turn over. All of us are at risk, and all of us have to face this,” Hawaii Governor Abercrombie said, painted an alarming picture in his State of the State address on Monday, January 24:

“I will also reallocate funds from the Hawaii Tourism Authority to basic government services such as environmental protection, improvements to public facilities, and advancing culture and the arts. The amount we are spending in the name of marketing Hawaii has grown disproportionate to the amount we need to spend on Hawaii’s own infrastructure, social as well as physical. We need to reprioritize and reinvest in our Hawaii—in the things that make our islands unique.”

The governor proposed diverting about US$10 million out of the US$72.8 million the Hawaii Tourism Authority (HTA) receives in marketing funds.

Juergen Thomas Steinmetz of the privately-run Hawaii Tourism Association (HiTA), which is not affiliated with HTA, said: “The Governor understands the problems we’re all facing here in Hawaii. The Governor also understands the importance of tourism for our social welfare. I estimate at least 75% of all employment in Hawaii is directly or indirectly associated with the tourism industry. This industry is too important to experiment with. HiTA understands the challenges HTA is facing, but feels continuing with business as usual is not an option.

“We do not take enough advantage of our unique global brand of the Aloha Spirit. HTA has not done enough to maintain this global trademark for Hawaii. I went to 72 tourism and travel trade shows last year - trade shows in 57 countries - and I failed to see Hawaii at 69 of these events. Hawaii is not represented in global discussions. I just learned Hawaii has not even one member in the International Hotel & Restaurant Association. The new Hawaii Hotel & Lodging Association president, former Mayor Hannemann, did not respond to eTurboNews' and HiTA's repeated requests for communication. Hawaii is not represented at most global networking events. You won't find much of Hawaii to be involved at initiatives supported by UNWTO (UN World Tourism Organization, WTTC (World Travel & Tourism Council), tourism investment forums, global tourism marketing events, meeting and incentive industry opportunities, airline and airport communication events, or international think tanks. Hawaii doesn't capitalize on the fact that people in Europe love Hawaiian music, that music and food are an important element to promote tourism for the Thai Tourism Authority. Hawaii has much to learn to take advantage of such media avenues and cost-effective ways to be part of a global stage.

“We have a unique global brand. It does not take a lot of money in today’s world of technology to cater to this. Take the Seychelles as an example. The current CEO of the government-run Seychelles Tourism Board is Alain St. Ange. Alain has been the Seychelles ambassador for Hawaii-based global news publication eTurboNews for many years. Inspired by this idea to build a network of global tourism ambassadors, the Seychelles has developed an effective system with almost zero investment. The Seychelles has also built a global network of ‘Friends of the Seychelles’ journalists.”

Because of Seychelles’ fresh approach to tourism, a new record has been set by the number of tourists visiting Seychelles during 2010. The 2010 visitor arrival numbers is double the total population of the Seychelles or four times the working population of the island nation. The success of their tourism industry comes in the wake of a number of changes in operations, personnel, and marketing strategies that have been put in place since 2009, when Alain St. Ange took the helm of the industry as part of a government-private sector initiative to inject new dynamism into the tourism sector.

“I am the first person to say that the success we are witnessing is very much due to team effort and also to our determination to harness all available resources in our effort to grow visitor numbers such as our Seychelles Tourism Ambassadors program and Friends of the Press – Seychelles,” stated Mr.St. Ange.

Hawaii Tourism Association (HiTA) president Juergen Thomas Steinmetz has been a strong supporter of such a program for Hawaii to maintain its global brand and discover more tourism opportunities for the Aloha state. “Niche markets like India, Europe, Gulf Region, Brazil, and Argentina may feel like it is not that important right now, but the way our global world is working – we will be overtaken by competitors if we don’t even identify the competition at this time.”

HiTA president Steinmetz continued: “HiTA is ready to share our global experience, and I feel strongly that with allocating current funding the right way, we can maintain not only our increasing arrival numbers from the domestic market, but re-establish our global brand.

"I share with the Governor his vision for the need to improve of our infrastructure and to give those visitors a reason to re-visit our state, instead of us investing our hard-to-come-by marketing dollars into a one shot deal. If Hawaii has to invest $40 to bring a visitor one time, the investment would be only 5 for a visitor coming to our State 8 times over time. HiTA is ready to set up a global ambassador program for Hawaii and undertake virtual or telephone workshops to educate the global travel industry on how to sell our destination. As the chair of the US Department of Commerce Export council here in Hawaii, I feel our industry should take better advantage of opportunities provided by the US Department of Commerce and our global network of offices in the US Consulates around the world.

"HiTA, as an organization of volunteers, is ready to assist, but so far it has been difficult to relate our side of the story to those in charge. The Governor asked to submit ideas. HiTA had submitted many ideas, but has yet see a two-way stream of communication with the Governor’s office or HTA. HiTA hopes with the help of our industry to be able to do its share of volunteer work and share its vision with the public.”

Recommendations of the President’s Innovation Council

A council of experts appointed by UH President M.R.C. Greenwood in April 2010 has made four recommendations to create the 21st-century capability for innovation and technology transfer necessary to achieve a high-value economy in Hawai‘i. President Greenwood presented the council’s draft report at the opening of the university’s E Kamakani No‘i Innovation for Hawai‘i’s Growth symposium in Honolulu Jan. 13, 2011.

Download the complete draft report 922KB PDF
Read the recommendations:
Meet the council members
Comment on the recommendations; email innovate@hawaii.edu until Feb. 1, 2011

The Four Recommendations

Recommendation 1: Identify Research as an Industry in Hawai‘i

The University of Hawai‘i is a Land, Sea and Space Grant Institution. During the last fiscal year, UH was awarded $414 million in research dollars. If UH continues to grow, as it has in past years, UH is projected to reach $500 million this fiscal year. In a recent article by The Chronicle of Higher Education, UH was one of five universities that received more federal research dollars than 19 Association of American University members. UH has clearly demonstrated the ability to attract competitive research dollars.

man on boat with two pink aumated divers

A UH-based center explores the abundant but little known ecosystem of marine microbes

The council recommends that UH put forth a strong recruiting effort to attract world class researchers in special opportunity areas in which Hawai‘i has a strategic advantage over anywhere else in the world. By attracting and recruiting the top research scientists and engineers in areas in which UH has a significant strategic advantage, such as astronomy, oceanography and volcanology, UH has the potential to grow its research capacity.

In addition, if UH expands its health sciences effort, the potential in research dollars could approach 50 percent growth in the next five years, resulting in 25,000 living wage jobs.

Research is an industry and may become an economic sector in Hawai‘i, with UH as the research and development engine.

To ensure that these researchers will have the ability to continue to be at the top of their fields, UH will collaborate extensively with the Legislature. The university will collaborate with the state Department of Agriculture to streamline processes and to develop solutions to address such challenges as permitting and importation of research related activities.

The council also recommends that UH formalize relationships to encourage collaborations similar to consortia. Hawai‘i has a significant research capacity outside of the university. Formalizing relationships with these entities will make it easier for scientists, graduate students, post-doctoral students and entrepreneurs to cross-pollinate ideas. Leveraging these relationships and collaborations will increase the research capacity and increase the probability of receiving competitive grants.

Recommendation 2: Establish HiTEx (Hawai‘i Innovation Technology Exchange)

The current innovation continuum model at the university may be improved by fostering a more productive innovation ecosystem. Potential investors and their companies become involved too late in the process, and there is little market input before deciding which basic research to translate into innovations.

UH’s Office of Technology Transfer and Economic Development is viewed as a vehicle to return funds quickly to the university. The relationship between OTTED and industry is not viewed as a long term endeavor. It is costly to file for patents. However, there are no clear feedback loops to bring that investment back to sustain OTTED operations.

A new innovation model, providing public and private collaboration around translational research and offering assistance to start-ups from proof of concept centers and innovation centers, is being implemented around the nation. Universities are being viewed as partners by industry, leading to the advancement of more university innovations from basic research to commercialization. In turn, these partnerships improve the ability of industry to succeed and return funds to the universities, continuing the cycle.

The university needs to build business partnerships earlier in the development process, which will increase entrepreneurial activity. This will require a fundamental realignment toward entrepreneurship, commercialization and collaboration on the part of university. There needs to be a cultural shift at the university to establish a more entrepreneurial environment. This process will be generational; it will not occur overnight. The university must become a place that fosters entrepreneurial activity that can catalyze the effort.

The council recommends that Hawai‘i Innovation Technology Exchange Institute (HiTEx) be established immediately. HiTEx will accelerate commercialization of university innovations through earlier collaborations and partnerships with other entities. HiTEx will stimulate, facilitate and foster the exchange of ideas between industry and university innovators and provide the much needed seed funding, which novel to early stage development, that is difficult to obtain through conventional mechanisms.

The structure of HiTEx will be the node in the innovation ecosystem connecting ideas, workforce, infrastructure and capital. It will be an opportunity for the community to come together and collaborate and be a part of the innovation ecosystem. The advisory board will include representation from the advisory council, governor’s office and industry.

Establish Leadership

After establishing the HiTEx Institute, UH will need to commence an extensive search for an executive director. Qualifications should include, but not be limited to the following: extensive experience in technology transfer office, commercialization, higher education, venture capital or business law; a background in education, science, engineering, business or law; a risk taker but analytical; and a personal leader with extensive people skills.

Reallocate Resources

The executive director will need to staff HiTEx with people who have experience in technology transfer. This will require a reallocation and/or repurposing of existing OTTED resources. For example, a key position in any technology transfer office is a commercialization officer. The commercialization officer will be responsible for commercializing the portfolio of university innovations. The commercialization officer will assess the technology and or product market through research, build financial models, identify partnerships and structure deals. This person should have a technical background in science or engineering with an advanced degree (MBA, PhD or JD) and experience in technology commercialization and product development.

It is also recommended that a dedicated contracting and fiscal officer be assigned to HiTEx so that revenue and expenses can be tracked with absolute transparency without having to migrate between different departments at the university. This will allow HiTEx to establish fiscal metrics.

Develop Programs

Diagenetix won the PACE 2010 Business Plan Competition for genomic DNA technology

Various programs will need to be established around HiTEx that foster entrepreneurship. Some programs already exist within UH (Pacific Asian Center for Entrepreneurship and E-Business and OTTED’s Technology Showcase) and should be integrated with any new programs at HiTEx.

Also, there are several not-for-profit groups in the community centered on assisting companies in entrepreneurial activities. An inventory of such programs should be taken and a coordinated effort made to not duplicate efforts. University of California, San Diego’s Connect has an incredible model for outreach programs; these should be looked at as best practices.

Determine where the institute will reside, within UH or separate from UH

HiTEx could be part of UH or part of a not-for-profit entity separated from the university. WARF (Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation) is the oldest university technology transfer office in the country, and their leadership in expanding technology transfer to industry is known as an example of a not-for-profit entity that has proven successful. Most recently the University of Arizona has formed a 501(c)(3) organization under the umbrella of the University of Arizona Foundation. The entity was formed to separate its technology transfer efforts into a separate not-for-profit corporation, in hopes to bring in more research dollars, create more local jobs and create a better working relationship with the business community.

A decision will need to be made based on the advantages and disadvantages associated with respect to the organizational relationship between the university and HiTEx with the foremost consideration being achieving maximum potential to succeed without being hampered by the logistics of certain operating rules.

Establish Metrics for HITEx

Metrics to measure the effectiveness of HiTEx will need to be established. It is recommended that HiTEx evaluate other technology offices’ best practices to determine the proper metrics. There could be several categories that could be monitored, including number of partnerships, number of licenses (executed and started), number of spin-off completed, amount of sponsored research, return on investment, expenses and revenue.

Recommendation 3: Identify Key Areas for Commercialization Opportunities

The council has identified three key areas that have the potential to capitalize on commercialization opportunities for UH—security and sustainability: energy and agriculture, data analytics and Asian Pacific health.

Security and Sustainability: Energy and Agriculture

Hawai‘i Natural Energy Institute’s biodegradable plastic made from agriculture byproducts

Hawai‘i is the most oil dependent state in the nation. Over 95 percent of Hawai‘i’s energy is provided by imported fossil fuels. This dependency exposes Hawai‘i’s economy by the fluctuation of the world energy market. The state has established an aggressive goal to increase Hawai‘i’s energy security within a generation. The potential to develop innovative initiatives that will assist the state in meeting its goals is overwhelming.

Hawai‘i also imports 85 percent of its food, making Hawa‘i vulnerable to supply disruptions and pathogens. Food security and sufficiency is a priority for the state. UH is the state’s Land Grant university and it has a long history in agricultural innovation.

The area of security and sustainability: energy and agriculture crosses many disciplines, including but not limited to engineering, science, medicine, business and architecture.

Data analytics

Regulatory compliance (e.g., health and financial reform initiatives), increased competition (global markets) and other pressures (consumer need to access data immediately) have created an insatiable need for companies to accumulate and analyze large, exponentially growing quantities of data. Data analytics presents opportunities in data storage, management and analysis that cross many academic disciplines, such as computer science, material science and informatics.

Asian-Pacific health

Last spring, the University of Hawai‘i Cancer Center announced formation of a statewide alliance with the largest healthcare partners in Hawai‘i—The Queen’s Medical Center, Hawai‘i Pacific Health and Kuakini Medical Center. These strategic partnerships will support the drug development cycle by providing a clear path here in Hawai‘i from discovery to clinical trials that will benefit the patient, in particular Native Hawaiians and other Asian Pacific populations because of the focus of the research.

Hawai‘i also has a very diverse population, making it an ideal location for clinical trials. According to Clinicaltrials.gov, a service provided by the National Institutes of Health, Hawai‘i has 268 trials in the recruiting phase, 244 in the active, but not currently recruiting phase and 598 trials listed as completed.

Medical tourism is a growing market. According to two independent studies completed in 2008 by McKinsey & Company and Deloitte Center for Health Solutions, 60,000 to 85,000 inpatients per year come to the United States seeking medical care. Hawai‘i could capture some of that market by partnering with our very strong tourism industry. Inbound patients are seeking high quality, faster service and not necessarily lower cost.

Another growing area that complements the data analytics area in Asian Pacific health is personalized medicine. The U.S. personalized medicine market is estimated at about $232 billion and is projected to grow 11 percent annually. Personalized medicine is “products and services that leverage the science of genomics and proteomics (directly or indirectly) and capitalize on the trends toward wellness and consumerism to enable tailored approaches to prevention and care.” The science of personalized medicine has the potential to eliminate unnecessary treatments, reduce the incidence of adverse reactions to drugs, increase the efficacy of treatments and, ultimately, improve health outcomes.

Due to its disruptive characteristic, the success of personalized medicine will need to include collaboration with pharmaceutical companies, providers and provider systems, payers and government and engage with academic medical centers and other research organizations with access to patient populations, to accelerate recruitment for clinical trials. Hawai‘i is poised to take advantage of this market.

Recommendation 4: Integrate Entrepreneurship into the Curriculum

The council recommends that entrepreneurship be integrated into the curriculum.

Creation of a Fundamental Entrepreneurial Curriculum

The first step in creating a cross-disciplinary entrepreneurial courses is to assess current programs to create a core that would be easily integrated across the UH System. A discussion between department chairs, faculty and staff would need to take place in order for this to be successful.

Current course work specific to product and business development within the participating departments will be looked at in depth for consistent themes of study that can be easily aligned to the base entrepreneurial courses.

Execution of New Curriculum

Once the proper assessments and teams have converged, the program needs to be executed. The HiTEx executive director along with staff will research current methods within other institutions and present their findings to all key stakeholders.

There are many examples of how entrepreneurship is being integrated into the core curriculum, including cross-disciplinary classes and teams. Some universities utilize students to do market research on various disclosures or patent searches, therefore alleviating the burden on the office and integrating students into real life training.

Entrepreneurship Certification

An entrepreneurship certificate could be offered in conjunction with engineering, science and other interested departments that demonstrates completion of a cross-discipline curriculum, which would include courses in business and law.

Innovation Council Members

President Greenwood appointed eight individuals experienced and accomplished in conceptualizing, designing and implementing reseach systems and enterprises. Council members are—

Carl Bonham, executive director, University of Hawai‘i Economic Research Organization, and associate professor of economics, UH Manoa
Daniel Goldin, chairman, president and CEO, The Intellisis Corporation
Katharine Ku, director, Office of Technology Licensing, Stanford University
Jim Lally, engineer and former general manager of Intel; member, UH Foundation Board of Trustees
Brian Taylor, dean, School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, UH Manoa
Barry Weinman, venture capitalist and philanthropist, Barry and Virginia Weinman Foundation; co-founder, Allegis Capital; chair, UH Foundation Board of Trustees
Mary Walshok, associate vice chancellor of public programs and dean of extended studies, University of California, San Diego
Hank C.K. Wuh, founder and CEO, Cellular Bioengineering Inc.

UH Manoa Chancellor Virginia Hinshaw and UH System Vice President for Research James Gaines served in an advisory capacity

Nominee sees big challenges

But after more than 30 years of experience in banking and financial services, Lim was ready for a new challenge and the opportunity to make a difference in the state's future.

"I got excited and asked how I could help make it a reality," Lim said. "And somehow I ended up at DBEDT, right in the middle of it."

Abercrombie's appointment of Lim, who resigned as managing director of merchant banker Sennet Capital LLC, must be confirmed by the state Senate. But Lim is already immersed in his job, attending daylong meetings.

While Lim acknowledges that his financial background is important in helping him assess the feasibility of various programs and initiatives, he said he has quickly learned that the director's position requires a lot more than business acumen.

"The ability to work collaboratively with a wide variety of people with disparate views is critical to building the consensus required to make meaningful progress on economic initiatives," Lim said.

Four years ago, Lim and Kenton Eldridge co-founded Sennet Capital to help Hawaii companies with mergers and acquisitions, raising capital and planning.

Eldridge describes Lim as "an excellent taskmaster" with the ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously, as well as a team builder and a good teacher.

Lim was the president and chief operating officer of City Bank before it was taken over by rival Central Pacific Bank in September 2004. Lim worked for less than a year at Central Pacific as senior vice president of mortgage banking before leaving to start Sennet Capital.

Ron Migita, former chief executive officer of City Bank and the now-retired chairman of Central Pacific, said Lim will be "an excellent fit."

"Richard is a smart guy, very strategic in his thinking," Migita said. "He's focused and has a lot of energy. Richard is very good at evaluating talent ... and knows the local business community."

One of Lim's priorities will be to move Hawaii forward in reducing its dependence on imported food and oil.

"We have an opportunity to help craft a new economy with energy independence as one of our core missions, but, of course, we first have to deal with the budget shortfall," Lim said. "Our core staffing is down by roughly 45 percent, so just fulfilling our basic responsibilities is challenging. I give the staff a lot of credit for stepping up to the plate because we are asking them to take on new initiatives with substantially reduced resources."

Lim succeeds former DBEDT Director Ted Liu, who was audited by the state and came under fire for the department's financial practices, including how much state money was used for overseas trips and his decision to award a hydrogen investment fund contract to the lowest-rated bidder.

"I'll trust that the past is behind us," Lim said. "After all, this is a new administration and a new day in Hawaii."

Paul Casey, former president and CEO of Hawaiian Airlines and the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau, and a current partner at Sennet Capital, said Lim is financially savvy and is good at putting people and deals together.

"He will advance the cause of alternative energy even though he's had no previous government experience," Casey said. "I think he's a great fit for DBEDT, and having the support of a Democratic governor and Legislature means he can get some things done as well."

"He's fun to work for because he has a vision, he's dynamic and he can get right to the heart of an issue in a heartbeat," Lim said.

How the Hawaii Tourism Authority Markets Paradise to the World

Promoting Hawaii in a changing world

High on the stage of the Hawaii booth, overlooking the hubbub of Japan’s biggest travel fair, the musical group Manoa DNA launches into “Aloha You, Aloha Me.” It’s a catchy tune, sung mostly in Japanese, that has become the band’s signature song here in Japan, and the smiling, enthusiastic crowd gathered at the foot of the stage seems to know all the words.

The group’s performance brings business at the neighboring booths to a standstill. At the Canada booth, instead of watching videos of Nova Scotia on giant plasma screens, visitors swivel 180 degrees to watch the band and clap to the music. The Japanese women hosting the Las Vegas booth set down their brochures to dance and sing along. They cheer and flash shaka signs when the song ends. This might be Japan, but there’s a great deal of Hawaii at the Japan Association of Travel Agents Congress and World Travel Fair.

That makes Japan an excellent place to start talking about how Hawaii sells itself to the world. Japan, after all, is our most lucrative foreign market, and three of the most important players in that marketing effort are at the event. On the edge of the crowd is Takashi Ichikura, dapper in an aloha shirt and blazer. Ichikura-san, as he’s known to almost everyone here, is the director and principal owner of Hawaii Tourism Japan, HTJ, the state’s marketing partner in Japan, and the person most responsible for organizing Hawaii’s presence at the JATA fair. At the back of the crowd are the two key players from Hawaii: Hawaii Tourism Authority president and CEO Mike McCartney and his right-hand man, VP for brand management David Uchiyama.

They’re an odd couple: McCartney, the sensitive, soft-talking former politician; and Uchiyama, the taciturn numbers man and marketing guru. The industry consensus is that their good cop/bad cop routine, the mix of political sensitivity and strategic planning, has been one of the keys to reviving Hawaii’s battered tourism economy. Here’s how they’re doing it.

Even in the digital era, marketing is sometimes just about getting in front of as many people as possible, and the JATA World Travel Fair is one of the largest tourism expositions in the world. This year, 71,740 consumers attended and, more important, so did 39,492 travel agents, tour operators, media and others in the travel industry. That makes the fair an extraordinary marketing opportunity, which is why HTJ invests so much time and money on its booth every year. It still works.

For example, HTJ used a contest at the fair to persuade nearly 5,000 consumers to complete surveys about how they choose a destination. Employing QR codes, the survey provided consumers with a link to HTJ’s new mobile website, resulting in 74,199 hits and 23,712 unique visitors, a 33 percent increase over the previous month. Exposure at the fair also boosted hits to HTJ’s regular website by 69 percent to 1,387,079 during the month. And, of course, tens of thousands of brochures were handed out at the booth, each offering a specific call to action.

Beyond the raw numbers, the fair also generated the kind of good will that marketers love, even if they can’t measure it. All those people singing along to Raiatea Helm and Manoa DNA are priceless.

Like almost all HTJ programs, the fair also offered marketing opportunities for the state’s travel partners – hotels, wholesalers and attractions that depend on tourism. In fact, six Hawaii-based travel partners paid a nominal fee – helping offset the cost of the event – to have a table at the Hawaii booth. These included the Kaanapali Beach Hotel, Hilton Hawaiian Village and Kualoa Ranch. Travel professionals and consumers file past their tables collecting brochures and listening to the company pitch. HTJ also provides free brochure hosting for companies that can’t come to the fair.

Marketing partners like HTJ provide other essential services, like training and educating travel agents and wholesalers. HTJ, for instance, offers extensive destination training, both online and through seminars it conducts around Japan. Last October, HTJ collaborated with numerous Hawaii hotels and attractions to bring more than 200 Japanese travel agents to the Islands on a familiarization trip – or megafam. It’s much easier to sell a place when you’ve been there yourself. Similarly, in November, the Hawaii Visitor and Convention Bureau, HTJ’s North American equivalent, hosted a small group of travel writers on a trip to Oahu.

The JATA travel fair in Japan is also a good opportunity to see the competition. This year, more than 1,000 delegates from 90 countries gathered at nearly 900 exhibition booths. A stroll through the exhibition hall reveals that Hawaii doesn’t have a monopoly on good marketing ideas. The Croatian booth, for example, is a collaborative affair, with Croatia’s equivalent to HTA lauding the country as a tourism destination, and its version of DBEDT wooing Japanese investors. (The fair’s organizers awarded the Croatian representatives “best destination marketer” for 2010.) In the Yemen booth, visitors can change into Bedouin garb and pose for photos in an ersatz harem. Mexico, one of Hawaii’s most important tourism competitors, has a spectacular booth with multiple flat-screen displays showing videos of Chiapas, Oaxaca and the Yucatan. Not to be outdone by Hawaii’s performers, Mexico employed a full mariachi band, replete with balladeers and brass.

Big exhibitions like JATA highlight one of the great challenges facing Hawaii: As a small, island state, we don’t have the financial resources to compete with entire countries such as Mexico or Australia, or large states like Florida or California. Even some cities, such as Las Vegas or Macau, have larger marketing budgets than Hawaii. Industry observers estimate Mexico’s tourism marketing budget at $200 million to $250 million a year. Florida’s destination marketing – split among many agencies – probably totals more than $150 million.

In contrast, the total marketing budget for the state of Hawaii in 2010 was $65 million, which had to filter through HTA, to the marketing partners such as HTJ and the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau, down to the individual island chapters. Most insiders say this simply isn’t enough money. “We ought to be spending about $150 million a year instead of $60 million,” says Outrigger president and CEO David Carey.

Big events like the JATA fair aren’t cheap. It cost HTJ $48,326 just to rent the floor space in the exhibition hall for three days. Building and manning the booth, including the stage and the sound system, cost $111,657. Transportation, accommodations and nominal per diem for the performers ran another $41,350, even though HTJ was fortunate that much of the talent was already in Japan. Roll in HTJ’s staff time to plan for the event and to support the HTA visit, and the tab for JATA approaches a quarter of a million dollars. That doesn’t include the money spent by the travel industry partners or the cost of flying in the HTA board members and staff. There’s no way around it: Big-time marketing is expensive.

Although Japan is an important market for Hawaii tourism, it’s dwarfed by North America, particularly the U.S. West, which contributed about 2.8 million arrivals to Hawaii last year, more than twice as many as Japan. So, in 2009, when plummeting visitor counts threatened a crisis in Hawaii’s largest industry, it’s not surprising that the marketers looked to the West Coast. In the wake of the loss of Aloha Airlines and ATA, the question for the Hawaii Visitor and Convention Bureau seemed to be: How do we preserve and grow airlift? And from the marketer’s perspective, how do we do that and still maintain the integrity of the Hawaii brand? As HVCB president and CEO John Monahan points out, “We didn’t want to dilute its value, built over decades, by putting ‘Hawaii on Sale.’ ”

The answer was “The Blitz.” Jay Talwar, senior vice president for marketing at HVCB, ascribes its origins to a conversation HVCB had with Hawaiian Airlines and its ad agency. “They said to us, ‘What if we focus on one market and just saturate it with a cooperative marketing program?’ And we said, ‘That’s great, but what if we invited everyone – all the hoteliers, the attractions, the travel sellers, all of them – to come and really try to get the tide to rise?’ And Hawaiian was good enough to say, ‘That’s fine. We know we’ll get our share. If the pie grows, our slice grows with it.’ That’s the birth of The Blitz.”

Talwar sketches out the thinking that went into the first trial run: “Let’s say we go to San Francisco for a whole month, and each week, we focus on a separate island.” The key, he says, was, for a month, to make Hawaii “unavoidable in that marketplace.” Doing that meant using every marketing tool available. It meant editorial visits to get the Hawaii story in local media – newspapers, magazines, radio and TV. It meant advertising: They cover-wrapped the San Francisco Chronicle and ran banner pages on its online version, SFGate. They put up billboards along the commuter routes of a demographic their analysis described as the habitual traveler. At night, they had “billboards” projected onto the sides of prominent buildings. They used social media and online contests to publicize special events. All of that drove traffic to the website of HVCB or an island chapter or a travel partner. “Basically, we did everything that you would do in Marketing 101,” Talwar says. “We just did it all at once.”

For later blitzes in Seattle, Los Angeles and again in San Francisco, HVCB fine-tuned its approach. In coffee-mad Seattle, marketers handed out free coffee to early morning commuters on the ferries, each week featuring coffee from a different Hawaiian island. The pitch: “You can actually go visit the farm where this coffee was raised. You can’t do that anywhere else in the United States.” Similarly, the second blitz in San Francisco took advantage of the city’s reputation as a culinary capital. “This time, we had a few guys with us named Roy and Alan and DK,” Talwar says. “It’s now connected with chefs and the farm-to-table movement. Now, we’re talking to San Franciscans in a language they understand. That got us a lot of great coverage in the local media.”

It worked. “We began measuring results 30 days out,” says Monahan. The steep spikes in visits to the HVCB website after the blitzes are unmistakable signs of marketing success. Perhaps a more meaningful measure is the level of participation among the travel industry partners. Monahan points out, “At one point, we had brand X; then X and Y; then X, Y and Z. Now, they all want to know as far in advance as possible what our blitz schedule is going to be so they can work that into their plans.”

The travel partners are more direct. “We use two metrics to measure marketing success,” says Jack Richards, CEO of Pleasant Holidays, the largest travel wholesaler to Hawaii. “One is brand awareness; the other is sales or passenger volume. And from our perspective, the blitzes have been tremendously effective on both fronts.” He also remarks on one of the keys to that success: Much of the money to pay for the blitzes comes from private industry. “You’ve got to understand that suppliers like me, we spent millions of dollars in matching funds to help drive visitors to the Islands,” Richards says. Exactly how much is difficult to ascertain, but, HVCB’s Monahan says, “We know the funding spent by these partners is a multiple of what we spent.” And HVCB has been spending between $1 million and $2 million per blitz.

Much of what makes marketing work isn’t the flashy media campaigns or public relations bonanzas; it’s what happens quietly in the background, and one of the keys to the recent successes of HTA and HVCB is their growing use of data. While the whirlwind nature of the blitzes makes it seem like those decisions were made by the seat of the pants, in reality they were grounded on hard numbers. The target cities were chosen because the data showed they accounted for more than half of Hawaii arrivals. Just as important, as HVCB’s Talwar points out, most U.S. East Coast visitors also pass through these cities, so it’s critical that marketers preserve as much airlift from them as possible. “Protecting the West Coast hubs allows us to protect our East Coast markets as well,” Talwar says.

Similarly, good strategic data was behind almost all the tactics used in the blitzes. Extensive consumer surveys allowed HVCB and its ad agency to craft advertising and public relations material based on the lifestyles and interests of the target audience. Demographic data and customer profiling helped identify appropriate media outlets and event locations. Social media allowed the marketing professionals to track the effectiveness of blitz activities in near real time. New-age marketing is all about data.

Hawaii’s marketers increasingly rely on sophisticated private-sector specialists to develop and make sense of all these numbers. In addition to DBEDT analysts (who recently moved under the HTA roof), these include companies like Hospitality Advisors, a Hawaii-based company with a global reputation as a strategic tourism consultant; Smith Travel Research, a respected industry consultant providing competitive set surveys that allow HTA and its marketing partners to see how Hawaii tourism is doing compared to its major competitors; and Sabre Airline Solutions, the giant travel conglomerate, which provides critical airlift analysis.

Airlift data is particularly critical for an island destination like Hawaii. Our economy depends on having enough air seats and, as the loss of Aloha Airlines and ATA demonstrated, maintaining that airlift is complicated. As David Uchiyama, HTA’s No. 2 man, points out, prior to contracting with Sabre, the state’s marketers had no idea if an airline’s route was having problems. As a consequence, it had no way of knowing if the airline needed help. “With the use of Sabre Aviation,” Uchiyama says, “we can now look months in advance to see booking pace, what the load factors are, and what’s the average fare they’re charging. Now, we can go to them and say, ‘We see that the route’s not doing so well. How can we support it with some kind of marketing boost?’ ” Those sorts of conversations are now commonplace.

Another quiet factor in the recent success of HTA has been the teamwork of Uchiyama and McCartney. HTA is not without critics, and one of the main complaints has always been that the organization’s structure makes it easy prey to politics. Most industry partners say they would prefer a much tighter focus on marketing, and less emphasis on cultural and environmental programs, and other priorities. (The money to fund HTA, after all, doesn’t come from the general fund; it’s paid by hotel guests through the transient accommodations tax.) So, when McCartney was selected to run HTA, many worried about his lack of a marketing background. Starwood Resorts senior vice president for operations Keith Vieira readily admits he preferred Paul Casey, the other major candidate for the job. “Mike had legislative experience and community experience,” Vieira says. “Paul had industry experience.”

Yet Vieira, like other industry critics, have been pleasantly surprised by HTA’s performance under McCartney. “Looking back,” he says, “I would say Mike McCartney was a very good choice.” Partly, that’s because McCartney has been careful to delegate most of the marketing decisions to Uchiyama, whose marketing background at Starwood puts him in good stead with the industry. David Carey, the CEO of Outrigger and another long-time critic of the politics and organization of HTA, points out, “Under Mike, they have a pretty good team in place. And now David’s so much more involved on a higher level.” Both Vieira and Carey acknowledge that McCartney’s political gifts have been useful, too, and not simply in dealing with the Legislature. In fact, his sensitivity and political skills have probably been most on display internationally, where he’s helped transform HTA’s relationship with key travel partners. The best example may be how the McCartney/Uchiyama team dealt with the loss of Japan Airlines’ Narita-Kona flight.

McCartney tells the story this way: Last spring, after losing money on its Narita-Kona route for years, JAL announced it was shutting the route down. For Kona, the result would be devastating, not only because Kona would lose a steady stream of lucrative Japanese visitors, but because, besides Honolulu, Kona is the only international point of entry for the state. Without JAL’s international arrivals, TSA would likely close its temporary facilities there, probably for good. With that in mind, the next time he was in Tokyo, Uchiyama paid a visit to Sunichi Saito, then JAL’s executive officer for passenger sales and marketing. He asked Saito a simple question: “How can we help?”

Those four words changed everything. The next day, Uchiyama was summoned to JAL headquarters to meet with Kiyoto Morioka, JAL’s VP for international passenger sales. “We’ve been flying to Hawaii for 55 years,” Morioka said in astonishment. “This is the first time anyone’s asked us that.” What ensued was a frenzied effort by JAL and tour operators in Japan, and HTA, the Big Island Visitor Bureau, and travel industry partners here to work together to develop marketing and promotional campaigns to create enough demand to sustain the route. This unprecedented cooperation succeeded in raising JAL’s load factor by more than 20 percent – not enough, ultimately, to preserve the route (as part of its bankruptcy restructuring, JAL shuttered 40 percent of its international routes) – but enough to set a new tone in the relationship and create a model for how to market in the future.

That same sensitivity to the needs of travel partners was on display during a string of courtesy calls made by the HTA entourage after the JATA travel fair. Over the course of a day, Ichikura-san chaperoned McCartney, Uchiyama and the HTA board members through a string of corporate offices around Tokyo. Along the way, they visited with executives at airline partners, such as JAL and Delta; at major travel wholesalers, such as JTB and JALPAK; and with trade organizations like JATA and the Japan-Hawaii Tourism Council. These meetings, as you would expect in Japan, were frequently formal and stylized. They were also surprisingly candid, with each side volunteering inside information about corporate strategy or political challenges, swapping industry rumors, and asking for opinions and advice.

During one of the symposia at the JATA conference this September, McCartney sat on a panel that discussed how to get more Japanese from beyond Tokyo to travel abroad. But, seeing JAL VP Kiyoto Morioka in the audience (a courtesy in itself, since the audience was mostly midlevel managers), McCartney took a question about how low-cost carriers were going to affect the market, and he turned it inside out.

“We appreciate all airlines,” McCartney said, nodding to Morioka, “but we want to say a special aloha to Japan Airlines. Your Kona flight did very well for many years. But, because of the downturn in the world economy, you came to us to apologize that you could no longer fly to Kona. You showed us pictures of your trips to Hawaii when you were a child and told us how important Hawaii was for you. We will never forget that. We’ll never forget the commitment that JAL has for Hawaii. And I wanted to say, ‘We’re the ones who should be apologizing for not coming to you sooner to help.’ Thank you so much for all you’ve done for Hawaii.”

When McCartney finished, Morioka and his small entourage of JAL executives stood and bowed deeply.

Which media produce results in Japan

Effect of mainland “blitzes”

Marketing “blitzes” in key Mainland cities generated lots of traffic to the GoHawaii website. For example, the June blitz in Los Angeles drove that city’s share of all traffic to the website from about 6 percent to 20 percent. Perhaps more important, Los Angeles’ interest in Hawaii after the blitz seems to have what marketers call a “long tail.”