Now & Again

With 50 years behind it, Hawaii Business looks back and looks ahead

The Numbers Game

1986

Tourism leaders were beside themselves. In 1984, Hawaii welcomed 4.8 million tourists, an 11 percent increase over the number for 1983 and the most on record for a year. As 1985 began, the picture was just as rosy. In January, a month-to-month comparison with 1984 showed an 11.3 percent increase. February through April posted 4 percent to 6 percent increases.

The Islands were flush and industry leaders giddy as First Hawaiian Bank economist Gregory G.Y. Pai forecasted a 7 percent increase for the year. "Then like a porcelain vase too precariously perched, the visitor industry expectations came crashing down," reported the Hawaii Business, March, 1986, issue, in an story titled, "Shattered Dreams: Tourism sweeps up the fragments of a disappointed year."

A 29-day United Airlines pilot strike in May and June wiped out half of the available airline seats. The strike caused a 24 percent drop in Hawaii visitors, a loss of $76 million in tourist expenditures and 350 layoffs, according to the March issue. Tour wholesalers were even harder hit, and tourism leaders scrambled the remainder of the year to get back to 1984's numbers.

"Sometimes we get caught up in the numbers game and each year, people expect us to have an increase of 5 to 10 percent," a humbled Hawaii Visitors Bureau president Stanley Hong told Hawaii Business.

Sometimes.

"At the moment, the two strongest currents of change within the central city [Downtown Honolulu] are the movement to reestablish a resident population there and to revitalize the decaying 34-acre area known generally as Chinatown." – Excerpt from a Hawaii Business, March 1971, article titled, "New Directions for the Central City"

Some Things Do Get Better

A Long Distance/USA ad in the Hawaii Business March, 1986, issue offered the lowest phone rates to the Mainland – ever, well, for 1986 anyway. The full-page ad offered rates that made a daytime, 10-minute call cost $3.80. That's 38 cents per minute. AT&T, the ad stated, would charge as much as $4.93 for 10 minutes if you called the East Coast. Hawaii Business is happy to report that 2006 rates are markedly lower. The state's largest telecommunications company, Hawaiian Telcom, now offers deals with 5 cents per minute anywhere in the US or unlimited calls for a flat fee. Those low long distance rates come in handy, of course, considering many of our friends and family are being forced to move to the Mainland because of the high cost of land.

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