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Now, the - - - hotel has been something that has been in our development plans for some time now.
<br />First, I think Janice alluded to some of the concerns about it, and I certainly understand that. First
<br />off, the hotel will serve business travelers and transit passengers that we're starting to really see an
<br />increase in it, as the schedules peaked before the pandemic. We certainly have overnight flight
<br />crews. We do, almost all the carriers, all six of them that are at the airport, overnight flight crews.
<br />And those crews are traveling right now the distance between eight miles to Kailua town and up to
<br />20 miles to Waikoloa to be housed and then get back to the airport.
<br />You know, Director Yee used in his presentation the word, "stranded." That, that I - - - because
<br />when people are stranded in Kona Airport, I mean I have a vision _of people being left over when we
<br />had - - - in March of 2018, we had a lightning -strike storm here in "Kona, and being in open-air
<br />environment, it's, we have no protection. Yet, there were- no hotel rooms available for—and we've
<br />met numerous times with hotel association and others ,to establish, you know, accommodations
<br />during that kind of period, and it's almost as if nothing °short of an_ ' emergency declared by our mayor
<br />would get them to offer, you know, ball rooms and the' like in the absence of hotel rooms. A lot of
<br />times that we call, or the airlines have made arrangements to try and get hotel rooms, there were
<br />none. And so I - - - to the people—in fact, one,night, I remember we had 464 people hold up in our
<br />airport in rain, in lightning, because there were no'hotel rooms to get them to-. Now, you might say
<br />that, you know, hey, you know, what -about your airport? .And,it's true, you know i we really do need
<br />to get to the next development of, terminal development, which could allow us more enclosed
<br />facilities, but until that happens, hotels become -imperative in a. stranded situation. You know, hotel
<br />is nearly universal in almost all airports iii= the V ited States of our size, and even, even some
<br />smaller, universal around the world. I, I; one of my;favorite airport -hotels is one in New Zealand up,
<br />when I get off the airplane and go to the baggage claim, I just continue to walk off to the - - - hotel,
<br />and stay overnight until .I get my: ride down to Tauranga or the south areas in .the next morning. So
<br />it's a convenience, and it's something that our travelers and others look forward to.
<br />The other thing -is businesses -that come. -you know, there is a concern over our strong reliance on
<br />tourism, ,but .when -businesses 'start;,to grow -again, I mean, the airport is essential to accommodate
<br />those business travelers -that need-to•get and establish new business, whether it's a return to
<br />agriculture", or other business practices; you know, the hotel is going to factor in.
<br />And we are not indirect competition with the resort; it's not our intention to build a resort -type hotel
<br />here. We are talkirig;about overnight accommodations of the kind that you would normally see at
<br />any, any airport in the -United States.
<br />So, you know, a few weeks ago we met with the DLNR, you know; we were concerned about
<br />coastal accidents that had been happening, you know, and trying to see if we can limit that even
<br />further without, without, you know, encroaching on an existing shoreline access road. And so we
<br />are partnering with the DLNR to look at that. We were concerned that our coastline is home to
<br />what's been, you know, we work closely with the Marine Mammal Center, we just had a shipment,
<br />in fact, a few weeks ago of monk seals, you know. Nothing pleases me more as a native Hawaiian to
<br />see the return of the monk seal to what would be like ancestral home waters here. So, of course, and
<br />having spent night along the fishtrap at `Ai`opio and hiking from what was then Honokohau to the
<br />airport at Kaloko and `O`oma and beyond, I mean, I'm quite familiar with the coastline, and we had
<br />scouted a lot of that before there was even transportation and roadways into this area. So we're quite
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