BRANDING STANDING COMMITTEE MEETING HAWAI'I TOURISM

Ke’ena Kuleana Ho’opipa O Hawai’i

1801 Kalākaua Avenue

Honolulu, Hawai‘i 96815

kelepona tel 808 973 2255

kelepa‘i fax 808 973 2253

hawaiitourismauthority.org

BRANDING STANDING COMMITTEE MEETING

HAWAI‘I TOURISM AUTHORITY

Wednesday, March 27, 2024, at 10 a.m.

Virtual Meeting

MINUTES OF THE BRANDING STANDING COMMITTEE MEETING

MEMBERS PRESENT: Blaine Miyasato (Chair), David Arakawa,

Dylan Ching, Mufi Hannemann, Mahina

Paishon-Duarte

MEMBERS NOT PRESENT: Menor-McNamara, Sig Zane (Vice-Chair)

HTA STAFF PRESENT: Daniel Nāho‘opi‘i, Kalani Ka'anā'anā, Jadie

Goo, Caroline Anderson, Maka Casson-

Fisher, Iwalani Kūaliʻi Kahoʻohanohano

GUESTS: Dennis Suo, Alex Wong, Jay Talwar

LEGAL COUNSEL: John Cole

1. Call to Order and Opening Protocol

Chair

Miyasato called the meeting to order at 10:17 a.m. Mr. Casson-Fisher did the opening

cultural protocol by the Nā ʻAumākua pule.

2. Roll Call to Announce Name of Participating Board Members and to Identify Who Else

is Present with Board Member if Location is Nonpublic

Ms. Kahoʻohanohano did the roll call, and members were confirmed in attendance by

themselves.

3. Approval of Minutes of the November 20, 2023 Branding Standing Committee Meeting

Mr. Hannemann made a motion to approve the minutes, and Mr. Ching seconded. Ms.

Kahoʻohanohano did the roll call, and the motion passed unanimously.

Presentation and/or Discussion on HTC’s China Market Updates

Mr. Suo and Mr. Wong led the presentation. Mr. Suo highlighted what happened in the

China market. China opened in January 2023. In terms of total China outbound travel in

2023, there was a recovery of 87 million trips. Pre-pandemic, there were 160 million trips.

So, it is about a 50% recovery. The recovery is to the short-haul destinations, like Southeast

Asia, Japan, and Korea. Long-haul travel includes Europe, the U.S., Australia, and New

Zealand, which is lagging behind short-haul travel.

There is a strong recovery in the Europe market. The U.S. market had 850,000 Chinese

visitors in 2023, compared to the pre-pandemic, which was 2.9 million. In terms of flight

development between China and the U.S., before November 2023, there were only about 48

direct flights between the U.S. and China. The latest development is that by March 31, it will

have 100 flights between the U.S. and China. The recovery pace is strong. This is double in

terms of flights. There were 350 flights during the pre-pandemic time.

The total number of Chinese visitors to the U.S. is recovering well. Going forward, there has

been significant progress between the two countries. The China-U.S. tourism leadership

summit will be held in China from May 21 to May 23. Both sides will have tourism board

leaders, and they will meet to discuss how to improve development between the two

countries. The HTC will conduct the first China travel mission in China, partnered with ITB

Shanghai, one of the most influential and well-known travel trade shows. The industry

stakeholders will be invited. So far, they have received a great turnout, and about eleven

companies and entities signed up for the China travel mission, including hotels, attractions,

tour operators, and island chapters. It will take place in Shanghai from May 27 to May 29,

and in Beijing, it will be on May 31. The Beijing event will have a panel with the U.S. embassy

Beijing, commercial service department. They will arrange the industry networking event

with the U.S. embassy in Beijing. They have been working closely with the embassy, the U.S.

consulate in China, and Education USA over the past few years.

The main objective of the ongoing partnership is to get a U.S. visa for all Chinese travelers.

Because one of their target markets is the family and student market, the other objective is

to get Chinese students their visas. About 300,000 Chinese students are starting their studies

in the U.S. The third objective is to leverage all the resources from the embassy, consulate,

Brand USA, and other state tourism leaders. The market is recovering well, and they are

thinking about moving the initiative further and getting more support for the coming

projects. Mr. Suo shared some of the updates.

Mr. Wong asked if there were any questions. Chair Miyasato said that when he and the Chair

had a conversation, they spoke about sister states and their relationships. He said it worked

well in Japan, and Korea is also starting to be effective. He asked for any thoughts on that.

Mr. Suo said they have a seven-sister-city relationship between China and Hawai‘i. There are

two state-level sister relationships. One is the Hainan province, which had a successful event

in August of the previous year. The lieutenant governor from Hainan province came to visit

Hawai‘i in 2023. They have been leveraging the Hainan provincial government. They had a

great discussion with Hainan Airlines, the number four airline in China. They discussed how

Hainan Airlines could initiate a non-stop direct flight from Beijing to Honolulu. There will be

about 100 flights weekly between the U.S. and China, with 15 new flights weekly. Hainan

Airlines is also trying to get new flight rights between the U.S. and China. They will then start

to apply for non-stop direct flights. Fuzhou, the capital city of the Fujian province, and

Honolulu have sister city relation for two years. The lieutenant governor of the Fujian

province visited Hawai‘i and met Lt. Governor Luke, Rep. Quinlan, and City Councilman

Calvin Say the previous week. They expressed great interest in viewing the sister-state

relationship between Fujian province and the state of Hawai‘i. The Fujian community is

growing strong. Based on the sister-state relationships, they can leverage many business

opportunities in the future.

Mr. Arakawa asked if there are any direct flights between China and Hawai‘i, the status, and

the number of people. Mr. Suo mentioned they are in the recovery phase, as mentioned

earlier. There are 100 flights. From the airline perspective, they always look at the top cities

to recover first, e.g. Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, and Chicago, to connect to the

first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou. The first-tier cities are defined as cities

with a population of 20 million. As a first stage, they want to connect the hub cities. Hawai‘i

is considered a leisure destination as there is not much business, and it is a student market.

Mr. Suo reiterated that the Hainan to Hawai‘i non-stop flights mentioned earlier are still

being negotiated.

Mr. Arakawa said there has never been a direct flight from China to Hawai‘i. Mr. Wong said

that currently there are no direct flights from China to Hawai‘i. Prior to the pandemic, China

Eastern flew from Shanghai to Honolulu, but that ended in February 2020. There are

currently hundreds of connecting flights between China, going through Seoul, Korea, and

Japan to Hawai‘i. Mr. Arakawa asked if they could calculate how many Chinese visitors are

coming so they could measure their marketing efforts to see if they must put more money

into the Chinese market. He asked if the future reports could detail this information. Mr. Suo

said that, at the pre-pandemic time, they had three direct flights, namely Air China, from

Beijing to Honolulu, and Hawaiian Airlines from Beijing to Honolulu. Currently the most

convenient or economical way for Chinese visitors going to Hawai‘i is to transit from Tokyo

or Seoul. All other flights have over 300 flights combined, flying to China (over 20 cities). For

Chinese people, one transit is very convenient. The previous year, there were 13,000 Chinese

visitors. He said there is complexity in the Asia market, namely Japan and Korea. The Chinese

visitors are coming from multiple places, and those passengers are difficult to track as

Chinese visitors. A lot of Chinese visitors are coming from L.A. and San Francisco. The weekly

social media campaign updates through WeChat, Little Red Book, and Weibo reach out to

Chinese not only in China because they are in various countries. Chinese social media

presence is critical for the Chinese-speaking population worldwide.

Mr. Arakawa asked if Chair Miyasato could elaborate on some of that information, including

the questions about sister-city or state relationships. Chair Miyasato agreed with Mr.

Arakawa. He said that when the time is right, they need the details he requests to help them

make good, educated decisions about where they spend their dollars.

Mr. Hannemann asked about the sister states and cities. He asked where the other existing

state relationships are. Mr. Suo said it is Guangdong province. Mr. Hannemann said the two

sister-state relationships existed when he was the director of DBEDT in the 90's, which

means they have not grown the sister-state relationships, so they have been stagnant. They

need to identify where they can develop the sister state relationships. There is a growing

Chinese presence in Hawai‘i from Fujian province. He said they must start a new sister-state

relationship in China. Mr. Suo said that besides the Fujian province, there are also other big

provinces that they can hopefully develop.

5. Presentation and/or Discussion on HTUSA’S New Campaign

Mr. Talwar did the presentation. He spoke about who they target. All the messaging is

focused on the mindful Hawai‘i target traveler, who is the right audience for them. They

spend the appropriate level; they travel frequently, and travel mindfully. The messaging

update they want to share is to evolve the invitation to visit statewide and then to continue

creating demands for Maui with the Maui plan. As a reminder, all they do is consistent with

paid media, earned media, travel trade education, and marketing programs. As they pick a

strategy, all the funds are behind it in full force. The new message is that they have been a

creative production factory for the last month and a half and will continue this through the

rest of the year. Coming out of COVID, they already had good fortune with great

ambassadors across the state, helping them with the Mālama Hawai‘i messaging. After

COVID, travel was seen differently. The destinations that people felt safe in were limited and

mostly domestic. Hawai‘i did well, and the essence of the Mālama Hawai‘i message

resonated well and increased the desire to visit the destination by over 15 points. This is the

most they had seen. Times are different now, and people are eager to travel out of the U.S.

market and are doing so to the point where some of the planes are moving now from the

continent of Hawai‘i to the European continent. They feel the competition and are revolving

their messaging around the changing times.

In terms of the message evolution, it shows where they have been with Mālama Hawai‘i and

all of Maui. The Mālama Maui component worked closely with the HTA staff and the

committee and Board to allow the people of Maui to speak. They created a platform to share

how they managed life, post wildfires and how visitation would help them. At the same time,

they had more visitor-orientated messaging to show more dimension to the brand, which

was state-wide. Those were the digital and social guidebooks. At the beginning of the

following week, they will have new messaging rolling out, continuing through summer.

Mr. Talwar showed some of the social media creatives and the filming they did. They are also

looking a bit closer at traveler behavior. Just about everyone has a smartphone with a

camera, and they are looking to get more traction on their messaging and get it out to their

audiences. Another thing they have seen is the point of view method. On social media,

people are using the angle to share more immersive stories. It is more noticeable and gains

more traction. Getting a fresh perspective is also a good way to bring traction. Hawai‘i

cuisine is another attraction, and they have a good story to tell.

Mr. Talwar shared the focus they have on the budget for Maui recovery. On Google, there is

still a lot of talk about wildfires, so they need to let everyone know that Maui is open to

mindful travel. The messaging timeline for Maui started with the Ola Maui group of

ambassadors who already shared the richness of Maui across the island. They supplemented

that with a travel guide that showed all the amazing activities and unique experiences. They

had a crew working with the people of Maui, producing the messages. Those are running

through the end of the month, when they will transition to the new one. One of them is the

status update. When they started messaging, they ran into competition where other people

said they must not visit Maui. Those people are still out there with that messaging. He said

they must also share their experiences across the island to gain traction.

They are also developing a short film, 15 things to do on Maui in 15 seconds, on social media.

There will also be several creative versions of this. He spoke about sharing the adventure of

traveling to Hawai‘i. He said they also pay close attention to the U.S. mindful traveler and

what motivates them.

The biggest travel trends to expect in 2024 includes sky and sea travel. This gives them the

chance to talk about astro tourism. The PR team will use the same messaging for their virtual

media blitz. They are partnering with Mana Up and Shopify to create a pop-up in New York.

In May, they will be in Northern California for a media blitz. The media will also be there.

Right after that they go to Healdsburg for the food and wine experience. They will do a

fundraising for the Maui recovery, so they are connecting with partners across Maui, and

they have stepped up. There will be a full event focused primarily on Maui, Maui products,

and producers. A few hotel partners and retail outlets work with makers on Maui, so their

products will be there. The audience is high net worth - multiple international travel trips per

year, so influential with other travelers, and they attract top-tier media.

Chair Miyasato said he liked the tonal change in the presentation and thanked Mr. Talwar for

the presentation. He said they must get the mindful traveler to come back and recognize

other opportunities they have. Mr. Hannemann said the Mālama campaign has worked very

well and is embedded in everything else they have been pivoting towards. He said he looks

forward to what the Brand Marketing Campaign can do for them. Mr. Arakawa asked if they

could present this at the Board meeting. Mr. Talwar said he could try to fit it under the

Chairman's comments. Chair Miyasato said he is hesitant to go out to the full Board without

having more conversations about their pivot. He said the conversation should be robust, and

once they have full input about the plan and the pivot, they can move from there. Mr.

Hannemann said he could mention it at the Board meeting but not discuss it in full, as it

would be good for the Board members to know.

Chair Miyasato said it is about balance and ensuring they are not tone-deaf to the

community. Mr. Ching said the times and dates when the pivot happens are important.

There need to be markers when this happens so that they all speak the same language when

talking to different people and the media. Chair Miyasato said those were meaningful

observations. He said they will know when the pivot will occur at the next Branding Standing

committee. He said he was happy for Mr. Hannemann to reference it at the Board meeting

and then have a more robust conversation at the next Branding Standing Committee

meeting. Mr. Ching said the process had been long, and it would be good for them to know

how long a campaign takes to follow through. Mr. Hannemann asked that they schedule this

at the next Branding Standing Committee meeting to make it in time for the April Board

meeting. He reminded this committee that the other deadline is the legislature session at the

end of April. It will be good for the legislature to know how wise they have been in listening

to the community, working with the contractors, etc. to have an effective message as it

builds on the successes of their campaigns. He said they are making strides in what they are

expected to do. There were no further questions.

6. Discussion and/or Discussion on Planning for Long-Term Tourism Marketing Strategy

7. Adjournment

The adjournment was moved by Chair Miyasato, seconded by Mr. Ching, and carried

unanimously. The meeting was adjourned at 11:17 a.m.

Respectfully submitted,

______________________________

Sheillane Reyes

Recorder