Editor s Message. Market Conditions and Trends. November 10, Aloha!

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1 Editor s Message Aloha! VOL.45 November 10, 2015 Hawaii Tourism Japan (HTJ) supported Governor David Ige as well as Hawaii educators trip to Okinawa in order to commemorate 30 th anniversary Sister State anniversary, launched Instagram Campaign Instagenic Hawaii, and conducted multiple FAM and Press tours We humbly ask for all of your continuous support as we continue to expand Hawaii tourism opportunities in Japan. You are more than welcome to contact us regarding any questions, suggestions and/or updates. Market Conditions and Trends Mahalo nui loa! Economic Trends: o Japan continues to be on a road to economic recovery with exchange rates remaining stable at approximately $1 USD : 120 JPY while also maintaining a relatively low unemployment rate o Economic recovery continues to support more MCI business out of Japan including HTJ s target Vertical Market Segments (VMS) such as Automobile, Insurance, Multi-level marketing, and etc. October 2015 FX Rate (USD:JPY): $1 USD : September 2015 Unemployment: 3.4% Outbound Travel & Competitive Environment: Japan market continues to see relatively slower growth in Outbound Travel compared to Inbound Travel as preparations continue to be focused on growing Japan s infrastructure for upcoming 2020 Summer Olympics o Forecast by Japan Tourism Agency are anticipating 2015 to be a record year for inbound arrivals to reach approximately 19 million due to weaker yen supporting higher travel demand Honolulu remains a highly desired destination to travel to, but also one of the most expensive regarding accommodation according to Hotels.com survey on January to June 2015 travel o HTJ is unable to compete with other destinations with respect to pricing, but will be continuing to communicate with consumers other aspects of Hawaii s appeal and value Guam Tourism Bureau launched their new promotion for upcoming travel utilizing Japanese celebrity Mr. Toshihiko Tahara through television commercials and special website emphasizing the closeness of Guam to Japan relative to Hawaii o First time for Guam Tourism Bureau to poorly appeal another destination in order to promote their own Other tourism bureaus have also been actively targeting the Japan market for the upcoming 2016 year: o Canadian Tourism Bureau announced at Oct. 15 seminar to increase budget by 8% to target Japanese FIT travel Aiming for edu-tourism related, 55 and younger travelers 1

2 o o Also implementing electronic flight confirmation system beginning March 15, 2016 Australia Government targeting Japanese visitor utilizing their working holiday program that allows Japanese nationals to vacation and work in Australia at the same time This is part of their plan in order to obtain 500,000 visitors by 2016 with additional support from more air seats including Qantas Airline HND SYD & NRT BNE (Aug. 2015) as well as ANA HND SYD (Aug. 2015) Malaysia signed a second MOU with JATA in order to agree upon future two way tourism efforts and the goal of achieving 1 million passengers to Malaysia project Media & Consumer Trends: Japanese consumers continue to embrace changes in commerce due to recent shift to a sharing economy principle o Increased utilization of services such as Airbnb and Uber in order to facilitate daily life and travel o Conducted meeting with Airbnb Japan in order to understand this trend and what type of impact it may have on future travel between Japan and Hawaii Reports indicate that passport applications in Japan are down -2.6% in 2014 compared to 2013 o Despite this overall drop, there has been an increase in application from females in their 30s by +5.7% Continue to see many media branching out into additional services such as e-commerce in order to provide more value to consumers while also obtaining additional sources of income o Publishing Company Takarajima launched new website kurarine that provides consumers a platform to purchase over 300 different lifestyle products from more than 40 top brands Airlift Trends: Airline companies are shifting focus to target more affluent travelers with offers for luxurious travel due to increases in premium economy seats o Japanese Travel Agents focused on group sales are concerned due to drop in the total amount of economy seats per flight Variety of additional changes to aircrafts and flight frequencies by airline companies servicing the Hawaii flight Continue to see airline confidence in lower fuel costs to pass along these savings to their consumers with reduced fuel surcharge costs Fuel Surcharges (12/1~1/31/2016) Airline Cost JAL 8,000 ANA 8,000 HA 8,000 DL TBA CI 3,000 UA 8,000 KE TBA 2

3 October Major Activities Edu-tourism Development Efforts October Update: Supported Governor David Ige as well as Hawaii educators trip to Okinawa in order to commemorate 30 th anniversary Sister State anniversary o Establish more relationship in seeking collaboration for educational tourism while also supporting new MOU efforts between Okinawa and Hawaii regarding Natural Energy o Conducted school visits to Naha Kokusai High School, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology and Meio University while also conducting an Educational seminar that attracted 150 students that desired to travel abroad Okinawa Trip Conducted Edu-Tourism focused sales blitz in Tokyo (Oct ) to exchange information on how to attract more edu-tourism related business to Hawaii (please refer to MCI: Educational Events section of the report for more information) Strong demand to conduct edu-tourism related initiatives abroad, however knowledge and image of Hawaii is not well known in the Japan market and is considered more of a leisure destination In addition to describing what type of potential Hawaii has for edu-tourism, informed Japanese travel agencies what type of entities are involved in order to facilitate this cause in Hawaii o Entities include: State of Hawaii Government, DBEDT, Hawaii Travel Agencies, NPO, and etc. HTJ has begun to understand more clearly the needs and desire in both Hawaii and Japan and will continue to communicate to create edu-tourism opportunities Edu-tourism Sales Blitz 3

4 Instagenic Hawaii Campaign (link: Implementation of Hawaii Tourism Japan s first Instagram Campaign Instagenic Hawaii launched October 2015 Campaign intended to appeal Hawaii to the growing number of Japanese Instagram users by: o Collecting user submitted attractive and photogenic photos that use hashtag #instagenichawaii and displaying these images on our campaign website in order to draw interest and appeal Hawaii as a desirable destination to travel o Campaign is intended to focus on attracting more romance travelers to Hawaii and have collaborated with local Hawaii business to offer small gifts to select people who submit photos throughout the campaign o Able to receiving approximately 600 photos posted during the first month of the campaign Additional updates regarding this campaign will be provided as the campaign progresses Yo-kai Watch Promotion October Updates: Bookings for Yo-kai watch related packages reached 29,356 from the most recent update from all of the participating travel agencies o Booking pace will begin picking up for January 2016 onwards with the release of travel Integration with partners to implement variety of Yo-Kai watch related experiences for Japanese tourists to enjoy while in Hawaii o Travel agent package greetings (JTB, KNT, HIS) reached 12,321 consumers from July to October 2015 o Collaboration with Royal Hawaiian Center to conduct special greeting and picture taking with our Kids Spokesperson Jibanyan conducted on Oct. 9 with 30 participants and plans to conduct once a month until the end of 2015 Yo-kai Watch official website obtain 11,208 page views and 2,153 unique users during the month of October Most recent numbers indicate an additional 915 stamp rallies collected during the month of September Consumer Events During the month of October, HTJ has engages to following events: Aloha Stage 2015 in Sagamihara (10/3) Event that brings together hula enthusiasts and performers to experience and learn more about the craft Educated 38 hula enthusiasts that took our Aloha Program Beginner Specialist test; all passed and have strong desire to continue educating themselves via Aloha Program JTB Gakutabi Expo (10/8) Event hosted by JTB with approximately 900 students participation to learn about the travel potential for school/graduation trips Conducted small seminars with around 15 students per session to appeal Hawaii as ideal travel destination through latest information of Hawaii s activities and explanation of current campaigns conducted by HTJ Out of all participants, Hawaii was chosen as most desired destination to travel to for graduation trip Sapporo Kaigai Ryoko Fair (10/9 11) Event drawing around 13,000 people to learn about potential to travel abroad HTJ utilized this as an opportunity to promote the changes in direct service between Sapporo and Honolulu that began from Oct. 1, while collecting 147 consumer data to be integrated into our Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system 4

5 Additionally conducted Brand USA Seminar with 24 travel agents highlighting the most recent information about Hawaii as well as other resources to be used to learn further about Hawaii Tobidase Kaigai Fukuoka Airport (10/10) Event hosted at Fukuoka Airport attracting nearly 10,000 people to learn about the potential of traveling abroad Conducted Hawaii seminar in collaboration with Delta Airlines to promote Hawaii with attendance of 80 people (max seating was 60 people) Able to obtain nearly 300 consumer data from surveys and participation at event such as these continue to prove effective to raise awareness of Hawaii travel in the Fukuoka region Aloha Stage 2015 in Sagamihara JTB Gakutabi Expo Sapporo Kaigai Ryoko Fair Tobidase Kaigai Fukuoka Airport Event Trade Events Ko Olina Resort & HTJ Trade Seminar & Reception (10/26) Event held at Tokyo American Club in order to highlight the current changes and developments happening in the Ko Olina area of Oahu Hawaii Tourism Japan was requested to support Ko Olina s initiative in order to build attendance and help Ko Olina Resort reach their target audience Brought together 70 travel agents for Trade Seminar and 78 travel agent VIP for the reception Response from attendees are highly positive and show strong interest to further promote travel to Western Oahu FAM Tours: Executed three FAM tours during the month of October intended to stimulate travel agents understanding of Hawaii and stimulate new ideas for future products offered in the Japan market FAM Tour Name JAL x HTJ FAM Tour (Oahu: 9/30 10/4) Fam Tour Details 13 participants, mainly counter sales and planning staff, participated in this FAM tour focused on new discoveries in Hawaii Features of this FAM included, utilization of JAL s new charter flight, participation in JAL s free experience program, and visiting new locations such as the Coffee Experience Center 5

6 Honolulu Agent FAM (Hawaii Island: 10/7 8) China Airlines x HTJ FAM (Kauai and Oahu: 10/21 26) Agents participated in this event have strong desire to further push these types of experiences and see high potential for them to become popular for Japanese tourist 14 Honolulu based agents attended this FAM tour in order to re-educate Hawaii Island s appeal for group and MCI business Activities and venues highlighted during this tour focused on group program experiences, farm tour sites, and event venues 10 participants attended this FAM tour in order to appeal the aspect of Hawaii s nature and adventure Planned activities for FAM trip included, visitation of locations used in Jurassic World movie, helicopter tours, as well as new tour services using trikkes (three wheeled scooters) Participants have strong desire to incorporate and continue to utilize these activities as part of their future packages JAL x HTJ FAM Tour Honolulu Agent FAM China Airlines x HTJ FAM In addition to HTJ s efforts in educating our partners through FAM and webinar opportunities, HTJ also initiated travel agent direct training which is detailed below: Webinar Conducted a total of three seminars during the month of October focusing on: 1. History of Downtown for Aloha Program, 2. Reason for choosing Hawaii for MCI business, 3. Recap of latest information about Kauai from the China Airlines x HTJ FAM tour Approximately 70 participants for these webinars and receive favorable comments from the participants that this information is beneficial for them to understand and promote Hawaii 6

7 Public Relations Oahu Visitor Bureau Press Trip (10/1 6) HTJ arranged for a staff member from Travel curation website Retrip to participate in Oahu Visitor Bureau s 2015 outdoor themed press tour Highlights features of this press tour focused on regions with development, Kakaako, and deep meaning to Oahu, Downtown and North Shore as well as variety of activities and attractions such as helicopter tours, zip lining, and Polynesian Cultural Center Will follow-up with media to ensure coverage is posted in timely manner HTJ Media Event (10/6) Annual Media Event hosted by HTJ that brought together, 16 Industry Partners (Hotels, Attractions, Rent-a- Car, Retail, and etc.)to meet with 77 media in Seminar & Workshop and 58 media in Reception capacity Objectives of this event included: o Delivering HTJ s direction for 2016 and other updates and trending information to stimulate more media features of Hawaii o Create opportunities for media to communicate directly with Hawaii partners to generate more stories of Hawaii Very favorable feedback from attendees as shared information helped develop new story angles and negotiations have begun directly with partners to start future Hawaii content Aloha Program: October Updates Renewal of Aloha Program Website on October 28 with the intention of: o Increased support to smartphone and table device users o Improved user interface (UI) to increase access numbers Conducted Aloha Program Seminar and beginner Aloha Stage 2015 in Sagamihara (more details found in Consumer Events section) Additional 85 travel agents joined our Aloha Program Website with 103 new travel agents beginner specialists and 57 travel agents new intermediate specialist in the month of October 7

8 o Wedding Planning Company Watabe Wedding and Travel Agent HIS have been striving hard to integrate with HTJ s Aloha Program and recently have seen a spike in JTB numbers through our past efforts in recent sales blitz and seminars Total numbers our Aloha Program initiative is as follows: Category Type: Total (Growth) Members: 8,307 (+218) Beginner Specialist: 6,146 (+186) Intermediate Specialist: 3,875 (+85) Advanced Specialist: 1,750 HTJ Facebook Gained an additional 1,678 fans in the month of October to obtain nearly 108,000 fans total on our official Facebook page Continue to effectively utilize Facebook Ads to target specific interest groups to further grow our audience (Hula Interest: +352 fan & Hawaiian Language Interest: +439 fans) Will further integrate Facebook Ads as well as Instagram Ads to reach out and obtain more followers Media Exposure Major highlights from this month included promotion of new and current campaigns such as Instagenic Hawaii and Yo-Kai Watch as well as raising awareness of US Women Soccer event in Hawaii this upcoming December in the Japan market Print Oct-15 TV Radio Print Online Newspaper Total Exposure Circulation N/A N/A 543,900 N/A 0 543,900 *Total circulation applies to print & newspaper Media Hula Lea Brutus Avanti Date Oct. 10 Oct. 13 Oct. 20 Circulation 100, , ,000 Demographic Hula & Hawaii Culture Men in 30s to 40s Fukuoka Women 20s to Feature Enthusiasts Quarterly magazine featuring Aloha Program Site Renewal Introducing various updates and opinions about why people love Hawaii 40s Introducing Hawaiian Night Event (11/17) Feature Island Hawaiian Islands Oahu Hawaiian Islands Total Page of Exposure 1/9 page 93 pages 1 page 8

9 Print Media Wing Travel Weekly Sankei Express Newspaper Omosan Street Date Oct. 19 Oct. 8 & 9 Oct. 31 Circulation 8,900 80,000 30,000 Demographic Travel Trade General Public in 20s & 30s General Public Feature HTJ s 2015 October Media Event Introduction of HTJ s Instagram Campaign Instagenic Hawaii Feature Island Hawaiian Islands Hawaii Island Hawaiian Islands Total Page of Exposure 1/4 page 6 page 1 page Online Media Sankei Shimbun Online Travel Vision Wing Travel Daily Date Oct Oct. 7 Oct. 7 Page View 120,420,000 1,200,000 1,000 Demographic General Travel Trade Media Travel Trade Online Magazine Feature Introducing Mauna Kea Star Gazing, Manta Night tour, & Introducing HTJ s October Media Event Introducing HTJ s October Media Event etc. Feature Island Hawaii Island Hawaiian Island Hawaiian Islands TV Media Hawaii New Discovery Zip! TV BS11 Nihon TV Station Date/Time Oct. 6 & 27 Oct. 8 Feature Introducing Puu Pehe, Lanai City, Four Season Resort Lanai Introducing whale watching, mele mei, and diamond head Featured Lanai Oahu Island Length of Exposure 120 min 2.5 min 9

10 Upcoming projects November & December /17 Delta Air Lines & Nishitetsu Travel Hawaiian Night Hotel Okura 11/29 Woman Expo Kobe Hotel Okura Kobe 12/4 9 Aloha Program Advanced Specialist FAM Tour 12/6 11 Hawaiian Airlines FAM Tour 11/30 & 12/2 Hawaii Seminar & Workshop, Mahalo Reception (Osaka & Tokyo) Thank you for reading our HTJ Newsletter! Should you have any questions, please refer to our contact information below. hawaii@htjapan.jp Address: 1600 Kapiolani Blvd Suite 723 (Pan Am Bldg), Honolulu, HI Tel: (808) Fax: (808)