When is 119 years of productive performance deemed insufficient to continue?

Well, in 2022, apparently!

Launched in 1903, the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau — called the Hawaii Tourist Bureau back then — has had an illustrious 119-year run marketing Hawaii to potential visitors. In its first year, Hawaii welcomed 2,000 visitors, all by ocean liner and likely all from California.

The bureau was established four years before the opening of the University of Hawaii and six years prior to the start of such renowned businesses as C.S. Wo and Maui Land & Pineapple, to name just two and provide some perspective.

In 2019 (pre-COVID), the visitors number was 10 million, and some say that’s too many to be supported by our existing infrastructure (key words: “existing infrastructure”).

This commentary isn’t about how many visitors is the right number. It’s about how many years must an organization do its assigned tasks successfully to earn the respect of those seemingly making arbitrary decisions to end that successful run, believing they know more about marketing to potential visitors than do the HVCB professionals and most, if not all, of the airline, hotel, attractions and tour companies.

I am confident that the fine people of the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement — recently chosen for the Hawaii tourism marketing contract — will do a professional and heartfelt job enhancing Native Hawaiian virtues and customs, and truly wish them well.

However, marketing this destination is and must always be multifaceted, utilizing proven expert marketing practices to break through the enormous communication clutter everyone experiences globally. To accomplish that, modern-day marketing skills are required and measured constantly for their effectiveness and adjusted to meet the target audience’s desires, needs and expectations.

The message MUST address the consumer’s interests, not solely or primarily our interests.

The Hawaii Visitors Bureau, which added “Convention” to its name when the Hawai‘i Convention Center was being developed, performed its functions for the state, our residents with jobs related to the visitors, and for our culture by exposing the visitors to our best asset, our indigenous people and the rest of us who honor and support our unique culture.

It doesn’t take very long for many people who move to the islands to become advocates of respecting and preserving the land, culture and the Native Hawaiian ways as well as all others who call Hawaii home. Many of us learned how important that is, via marketing messages from the HVB/HVCB and its island chapters.

I first learned of Hawaii’s virtues watching a Native Hawaiian, HVB’s Jimmy Kaina, as he represented the islands to New York travel agencies in the 1970s. Jimmy’s task was certainly daunting, in that the prevailing New York attitude was, “why fly 12 hours to go to the beach when all of the Caribbean is less than four hours from New York City?”

Jimmy, who often played piano and sang Hawaiian songs at travel agent functions, never gave up, and his hard work was rewarded. Over the years since then, the Tri-State area of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut grew to become one our largest source markets behind California. I guess the power of HVB’s Sales and Marketing won over those New York attitudes — and suddenly, 12 hours flying was no longer an obstacle.

It’s just one example of the type of marketing expertise, infused with cultural know-how, that HVB/HVCB has employed over 119 years, which has helped Hawaii grow as a destination to the world.

John Votsis is a retired hotel and airline marketing executive, who also served on the HVCB board of directors for more than a decade.