Fellows mentioned in this story:
Daniel Chun
Yunji de Nies
From Hawai‘i News Now:
Hawai‘i’s tourism industry is experiencing a soft summer with booking down in both air travel and hotels.
On Spotlight Now, experts say that the industry is working hard to save what’s left of the season.
“There’s not as much pre-advanced booking, so I think people are offering very low discounts and specials to get people to come and stay with them,” said Kelly Sanders, Highgate Hawai‘i Group president.
“So it’s kind of a race to the bottom to see who can get the guest, which impacts our overall RevPAR, or revenue per available room, which we’re projecting to be down about 5.5% year over year, which is pretty impactful, not only for us, but also for the $1.2 billion in tax revenue that we generate,” Sanders said.
Watch at hawaiinewsnow.com.
Aloha State Daily — Hayase was recently promoted to lead The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation’s $150 million in annual grantmaking nationwide and in Israel. She joined the organization in 2019 as program director for Hawaiʻi. Aloha State Daily spoke with her about how the foundation has evolved since then and its priorities for the future.