When Hurricane Iniki swept through the popular resort island of Kauai on Friday night, it leveled buildings, severed communications and may have blown away travel promoters' chances of boosting Hawaii's already sagging tourism industry.
Hawaii could lose $250 million of tourism revenue projected for the remainder of the year, Paul Lawler, spokesman for the Honolulu-based Hawaii Visitors Bureau, said Saturday. That would be a major blow to the state's leading industry, which has already been hurt by the sluggish national economy. Nearly half of all jobs in the state are tourism related.
Known as Hawaii's "Garden Island" because of its lush terrain and exotic scenery, Kauai generates about one-tenth of Hawaii's $10 billion in annual tourism revenue. The storm has prompted many travel agencies to suspend bookings to Kauai.
The state's ability to make up for losses caused by Iniki on Kauai depends on how successful travel promoters are in luring more visitors to the Hawaiian islands less affected by the storm, Lawler said.
"Obviously, we're concerned about impact on tourism," he said, noting that Kauai has one-tenth of the 74,000 hotel rooms in the state. "About 90% of the tourist facilities will continue to operate but we're worried because Kauai has been our third-most popular tourist draw."
Although tourism has remained stable this year on the island of Oahu--the leading Hawaiian tourist destination--it had dropped dramatically on Kauai, Maui and the other less-populated Hawaiian islands even before Iniki struck. Overall, tourism in the Hawaiian islands dropped 5% during the first eight months of 1992, compared to the same period a year ago.
Ironically, the hurricane hit about one month after the Hawaii Visitors Bureau, a nonprofit group financed by that state and some tourism businesses, launched a $3-million promotional campaign primarily designed to encourage travelers to consider Kauai and the other lesser known islands--not just the popular Oahu, where Honolulu is located. The trade group bought print and television advertising in 18 U.S. cities, Lawler said.
Kauai was a linchpin of the campaign. The island has traditionally drawn thousands of tourists in the fall from the U.S. mainland, Australia and Japan. Typically, the peak travel periods for tourism for most of the islands are the summer months of July and August and the winter months of December and January.
