2016-10-26 BDHRA Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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I don’t advocate giving up the golf course either. This is a view that the tourists ought to have. The majestic banyan trees have been ignored over the years to proper care and beautification of the surrounding ground areas and the signage for each of the trees is not at the best taste as to its significance of the people that they represent. The banyan trees have an international interest, as depicted by your copy of international magazine, which I have distributed to each one of the board members, Planning Commission \[sic\] members. It’s very important. It’s a national situation. I hope you read that article. It depicts the banyan trees on Maui, over on the O‘ahu, and the Big Island. I have previously stated that the banyan trees come to being exemplary of being on the national register for buildings. They should not be ignored. They should be developed and they should become truly a tourist attraction. The first impression our tourists have to Banyan Drive area is the most important to all of us, and the aloha spirit that is exemplified by each hotel. My question is what concern has the Agency given to the subject addressed above? Thank you very much. DELIMA: Any questions? Thank you, Mr. Inouye. Ross Birch. Mr. Birch, you have three minutes as well. BIRCH: Aloha. I do apologize because I had the opportunity to provide information prior to this, but I do have statistics. The main thing that I, main reason why I’m testifying today is to provide statistics concerning the visitor plan inventory of the island, how it’s spread between east and west, what the arrivals are, comparing east and west, also the cruise ship industry and how it’s changed over the years. So I’ve actually got a document that I can provide you that has all this information including that. In a nutshell, the overall is if you take the entire visitor plant of 11,000 individual units on the island between Honoka‘a and South Point east, there’s only about 1,500. So about 15 percent of the entire inventory of rooms are on the full eastern side of the island. The good news is that the arrivals and the air lift is about 30 percent coming in to Hilo, or to the east side. So we still have arrivals, we have the lift provided for that for the amount of arrivals that we’re getting based off the inventory. What that also shows us is that the East Hawaii hotels are running at a much higher occupancy than those of West Hawaii based off of the inventory plan and the arrivals versus those percentages. So, mainly just providing information so you know where we’re at, at this state in time, to move forward and be able to provide the necessary visitor plant inventory that we may need for Hilo moving forward. The cruise ship industry has decreased 60 percent since 2007 to 2016. That’s going from about 250,000 visitor arrivals a year to about less than 100,000. So that’s a huge impact on it. Our total arrivals are almost matching that of 2007. So in 2007 we had 1.6 million visitors to the island, in 2016 we’re going to be at 1.55. So we’ve been able to replace that cruise ship and we’re replacing it but they’re actually flying into, and the lift is in the West Hawai‘i. So you’re getting a lot of the visitors coming through Hilo. Fortunately they are staying a night, one or two nights, because that’s coming through our records, but the majority of the visitor industries is happening on the west Page 2 of 25 Banyan Drive Hawai‘i Redevelopment Agency October 26, 2016, Minutes