13 July 2010

CMI business returning to Hawaii

Hotel and meeting planners say they’re seeing renewed interest in business-related travel to Hawaii, particularly in CMI business -- conventions, corporate meeting and incentive business.

The Hawaii Tourist Authority (HTA) says after a downturn, business meetings are making a comeback in that state.

"For meetings, conventions and incentives business, the booking pace is picking up momentum," David Uchiyama, HTA’s vice president of brand management, told HTA board members at their most recent monthly meeting.

"Global meetings provide the [tourism] industry with a foundation for revenue management going forward."

"It is a slow but significant recovery for a crucial piece of the state’s $12 billion visitor industry, which has long depended on business travelers to supplement the peaks and valleys associated with leisure travelers," said the AP.

The stigma of the AIG effect, which involved a failing business taking lavish trips with taxpayer funds had some impact on upscale Hawaii properties.

Even with budding consumer confidence, most companies and hotels are shying away from disclosing which groups are booking CMI business in Hawaii or how much they’re spending for fear of a public backlash, said the AP.

For the first five months of the year, the number of visitors to Hawaii for conventions, corporate meetings and incentives was down 12 percent year-over-year, according to the most recent statistics from the Hawaii Tourism Authority.

So far this year, the state’s tourism marketers have booked 27,928 room nights specifically for CMI business and generated leads that could represent 160,659 room nights, according to the HTA’s latest marketing status report.

"Momentum is going up; we have some good numbers [with corporate meetings,so that’s very encouraging when we’re seeing a lot of business driven in 2011 and 2012 as well," said Mike Murray, vice president of sales and marketing for the Hawaii Visitors & Convention Bureau’s corporate meetings and incentives division.

He added that incentive travel seems to be very strong, and there’s definitely a pent-up demand for Hawaii.

By David Wilkening