At the 2024 Hawaii Tourism Conference, held Sep. 30 to Oct. 2, the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau’s (HVCB) Hawaii Tourism USA team shared how it’s hoping to stimulate travel demand to the Islands through events, partnerships, social media and engagement with advisors.
Jeffrey Eslinger, senior director of market insights and CRM for the HVCB, started off with some stats. Eslinger said the U.S. market will continue to be the largest source market for Hawaii tourism. Maui continues to see softness for visitation, and this fall, the state is seeing it as well.
“The U.S. West is expected to show resilience in both visitation and expenditures, but the U.S. East will continue to face some challenges in attracting both visitors and maintaining the spending levels that we currently have been seeing,” Eslinger said.
Jay Talwar, senior vice president and chief marketing officer for Hawaii Tourism USA talked about its efforts to saturate the Los Angeles market. One example is the completion of an Aloha Market pop-up retail experience in Venice Beach, which saw more than 7,000 visitors.
Who does Hawaii want to visit?
Talwar also defined Hawaii’s target traveler as a respectful explorer, who is conscious of their impact. The targeted traveler is also a culinary enthusiast, culturally curious and appreciates learning about Hawaiian culture.
On the travel trade side, Robyn Basso, senior director of Travel Industry Partnerships at the HVCB, said Hawaii Tourism USA has brought educational blitz events to U.S. markets and has held fam tours.
Basso said she’s receiving great feedback from advisors who have attended fams and have regained their confidence in selling Maui. “We’ll continue with our [Hawaii Tourism] USA multi-island led fams,” Basso said. “We want to continue to support Maui, but we also want to support the strategy of multi-island visitation.”
Basso also said Hawaii Tourism USA is investing in marketing to travel sellers so that they keep Hawaii top of mind. “Most importantly, driving them to our website to register, to engage with our resources and opt in for our communications. We want them to become a Hawaii destination specialist, so that’s the ultimate goal.”