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About 4,500 attendees turned out for the sold-out Hawai’i Hotel & Restaurant Show on Wednesday and Thursday — a positive sign that large gatherings, an important part of the state’s tourism recovery, are returning.
Exhibitors from Hawaii, the mainland and Japan filled about 200 booths for the show, which was so successful that Maui is now considering hosting a similar event, said Mufi Hannemann, president and CEO of the Hawaii Lodging & Tourism Association.
The show, which was one of Honolulu’s first major public events since lifting mask requirements and other COVID-19 mandates, was made possible through partnerships between HLTA, the Hawaii Restaurant Association and Star Events, a division of Oahu Publications Inc., which publishes the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.
Hannemann said the show demonstrated that large gatherings can return, bolstered Hawaii’s reputation as a hospitality mecca and signaled the visitor industry was coming back.
“I’ve always said that two things need to happen on the road to full recovery, which are international travel and having large, structured gatherings again,” Hannemann said.
Both of these groups are important to Hawaii’s overall tourism performance because they generally generate higher visitor spending than leisure travel. Business travelers are also strengthening the industry by creating a foundation for future business that helps extend the recovery and build demand for higher prices. Their absence was felt.
Overall, visitor arrivals to Hawaii in February were still about 24% lower than the same month in the pre-pandemic period, according to preliminary statistics released Thursday by the State Department of Business, Economic Development. and tourism.
Domestic visitor arrivals continued to top February 2020, days before Hawaii detected its first case of COVID-19 in early March of that year. However, the lack of international visitor arrivals and group activities continued to prevent the market from reaching pre-pandemic levels.
Some 23,033 visitors in February came for meetings, incentives and conventions, an 824% increase from 2021. But that was still less than half of the 57,227 visitors in this category who came to Hawaii. in February 2020.
Visitor spending in February, which reached $1.31 billion, was nearly 230% higher than the $397.1 million reached in February 2021, but was still 10.4% lower than the $1.46 billion dollars generated in February 2020.
In February, 630,647 visitors arrived by plane to the islands. Arrivals in February were up significantly from the 235,283 visitors who came to Hawaii in February 2021. However, the results were down from the 823,910 who visited Hawaii in February 2020.
“We expect Hawaii to continue this momentum, particularly in the spring and then summer, due to the influx of visitors from Japan and other international markets,” DBEDT director Mike McCartney said in a statement. a statement.
With the state’s Safe Travels program ending on March 25, McCartney said Hawaii must now prepare to welcome a different mix of visitors.
“There will be demand from local businesses, restaurants, transportation, retail, activities and lodging, to attract and retain a quality workforce for Hawaii, which will bring more certainty to the economy,” he said. “Hawaii’s small businesses now have the opportunity to attract and retain quality workers and employees.”
There was a sense of excitement among attendees and exhibitors on the closing day of the Hawai’i Hotel & Restaurant show. Most had high hopes for the future of Hawaii tourism and their businesses, which have more opportunities to grow as COVID-19 restrictions ease across the state.
Robert Brantley, director of sales for Hawaii Robotics, said the trade show offered the company its first opportunity to highlight its robotic solutions in Hawaii, a market it has been keen to enter for about a year.
“We’re rolling out this week to Hawaii,” Brantley said Thursday. “We pilot some of our robots like the ACE, which stands for automatic cooking equipment, and ADAM, a two-armed robotic system that often serves as a bartender.”
Brantley said service and restaurant robots are custom-designed for customer needs and space and are intended to improve employee performance and satisfaction rather than replace workers.
“If your worker was doing eight tables before, he might be able to serve 15 now. It’s more efficient and the worker is happier because his salary increases,” he said.
Richard Xie, CEO of Hawaii Robotics, said tech activity has soared as the pandemic and the “big quit” of employees leaving jobs have altered the job market.
“The pandemic created the entire US robotics market,” Xie said. “Before April 2020, there were no restaurant robots sold in the United States. But between April 2020 and December 2021, 8,000 restaurant robots were sold. In 2021, 39,091 service robots were sold in the United States”
Xie said he got into robotics as an extension of his beef export business, which suffered after 2018 when the government started restricting visas for foreign workers.
“The new generation, nobody wants to be a cowboy,” Xie said. “My breeding partners told me to find an ‘iron cowboy’ from the Far East – that was the whole idea. Now I want to bring this technology to Hawaii.
Trevor Hitch, founder and CEO of VEDGEco, also hoped to grow his business by taking advantage of the show and improving Hawaii’s tourism image.
“The last 24 months have been really tough for everyone,” Hitch said. “We are thrilled that the Hawai’i Hotel & Restaurant Show gives us the opportunity to reconnect.”
Hitch, whose company aims to help restaurants go vegan, said there was a strong crowd reaction at the show to plant-based food samples from Omni, Alpha Food, Good Catch and VFC.
People lined up to try items like plant-based ‘Spam’ musubi, ‘crab’ cakes and spicy ‘chicken’ fingers.
“The show changes hearts and minds,” Hitch said. “Plant-based innovation is constantly improving. I’ve been vegan for 20 years and the food has never tasted better than this. As tourism demand grows, so will the demand for more vegan options. It is a growing market.
