Hawaii’s Siren Song Is Louder This Summer

When West Hollywood resident Peter Hoffman and his friend Orlando first visited Hawaii two years ago, they stayed in a “too impersonal, too big” chain hotel in what Hoffman calls the “madness” of Waikiki. The two will return this month and will stay at the quieter, smaller 124-room New Otani Kaimana Beach Hotel at the foot of Diamond Head.

Why Hawaii again? “I was going to New York, but Hawaii sounded a lot more relaxing,” Hoffman says. “We’re both under a lot of stress, and we just had to get away.” Oahu was appealing “because it was familiar--I had scoped it out,” Hoffman says. They booked the weeklong trip in early April through a travel agent, paying $356 per person round trip from LAX to Honolulu and $248 a night for their one-bedroom suite with balcony.

The pair should have plenty of company. Carlson Wagonlit Travel, a network of more than 1,000 travel agency offices, reports a “real uptick” in interest in Hawaii, and “all indications are we are ahead of last year” in bookings for the peak summer season, says spokesman Steve Loucks.

Airlines, betting heavily on more visitors, are adding 490,000 seats to the islands from the mainland this summer, about 10% more than last year and 3% more than 2000, a record year for Hawaii visitors, says Chris Kam, director of market trends for the Hawaii Visitors & Convention Bureau. Passenger arrivals from the mainland in April were nearly back to normal (93.9% of April 2001 levels), despite a precipitous drop-off after the Sept. 11 attacks, he adds.

Hoffman and his friend personify some of the reasons for Hawaii’s popularity this year: It’s an exotic yet familiar domestic destination that offers stressed-out workers and families a chance to lounge on the beach. With post-Sept. 11 jitters about world travel and the economic dislocations of the last couple of years, those are powerful appeals. The fear of flying, which devastated island tourism for weeks after Sept. 11, “for the most part ... seems to have gone away” in the last three or four months, says Michael Hannan, owner of San Marin Travel in Novato, Calif.

The prospective visitor upsurge from the mainland, while injecting hope into the islands’ tourist-dependent economy, has downsides and upsides for consumers.

As Hoffman discovered, there are some inexpensive air fares, especially before the peak July-August months. Starting in June, airlines will add more flights, including nonstops to neighbor islands from the western U.S., giving travelers more options and so far, in some but not all cases, lower fares than last summer.

As for lodging and packages, the picture is mixed; it depends on where you’re going and how highbrow you want to go. Your best chance of finding deals, as always, is with packages, even though some of those are pricier this year than last. For independent travelers, Oahu offers more bargains than Kauai, the Big Island and, to some extent, Maui. On any island, and especially in Waikiki, you may find discounts at upper-end lodgings, says Joseph Toy, president of Hospitality Advisors Inc. and a longtime expert on the Hawaiian market.

Here are some specifics:

* Getting there by air: The big news here is the collapse this spring of the proposed merger of Hawaiian and Aloha airlines. Now “they’re trying to open routes to compete with each other,” Toy says. Travelers have more choices.

On June 1 Aloha will begin new daily nonstops to Honolulu from Burbank and Vancouver, Canada. On June 7 Hawaiian starts flying daily nonstops to Honolulu from Ontario, Calif., and Sacramento. New nonstops by the major airlines include United’s between Kona on the Big Island and San Francisco (June 7) and American’s between Kauai and LAX (June 15).

The new flights reflect an increase in Hawaii travel from the western U.S., which sent 3.2% more visitors there in March (the latest figures) than in March 2001, Kam says. By contrast, there were 8.5% fewer visitors from the eastern U.S. and 17.2% fewer from Japan. Competition usually drives fares down, and that seems to be working in some cases.

Fares available in early May for July travel between Burbank and Honolulu, Maui and Kauai have dropped more than 40% compared with last summer, according to a spot check of the lowest advance, restricted round-trip air fares by Bob Harrell of Harrell Associates, which tracks fares through the database used to supply travel agents. (Note that such air fares change many times daily and may no longer be available.)

Tom Parsons, editor of www.bestfares.com, and Randy Petersen, editor and publisher of Inside Flyer magazine, say it may be somewhat easier this year to redeem frequent-flier miles to Hawaii--especially, Parsons says, if you avoid Saturday departures and are flexible on dates and times. (Afternoons are better than mornings.)

* Lodging and packages: Hawaiian hotel rates are amazingly durable. Despite the post-9/11 trauma that drove down occupancies by nearly 10%, rooms on average cost only 3% less in the first quarter of 2002 than last year, according to Toy’s company (using statistics from Smith Travel Research). Oahu took most of the hit; it was down 8.2%. Maui rates were about the same, and Big Island and Kauai rates actually rose a little.

“Thus far we’ve been able to avoid deep discounting,” Kam says. He attributes that to demand (despite lower occupancies). Other factors, experts say: Few hotels have been built in the last decade, and hoteliers, hoping demand will increase, don’t want guests to get used to lower rates.

Instead of rates, deals may appear in extras such as room upgrades, a free night or meal credits, travel agent Hannan says. Aston Hotels & Resorts, which runs more than 30 island lodgings, is offering a fourth-night-free deal through Dec. 22, subject to availability. Carlson Wagonlit is offering eight-day land-only packages through Pleasant Holidays that start at $420 per person, double occupancy, on Oahu (for the two-diamond AAA-rated Ohana Waikiki Village, a block from the beach) and $664 on Maui (for the Maui Eldorado Resort condominiums in Lahaina, also off-beach). They include a room upgrade, one $50 traveler’s check per booking and hotel transfers (Oahu) or car rental (Maui). Bookings must be made by June 30 for travel through Dec. 15.

To keep things in proportion, consider these figures from 2001: You would generally have paid less to say “aloha” to Honolulu ($223 per person per day) than to San Francisco ($342) or New York ($457), and you’d pay only a bit less in Orlando, Fla. ($196), according to Runzheimer International.

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Jane Engle welcomes comments and suggestions but cannot respond individually to letters and calls. Write Travel Insider, Los Angeles Times, 202 W. 1st St., Los Angeles, CA 90012, or e-mail [email protected].