LIHU’E — Kaua’i’s golf courses are a hit with visitors. A recent survey showed higher visitor satisfaction with the island’s golf courses than with beaches or accommodations. Some 72 percent of the more than 1,800 visitors surveyed at the Lihu’e
LIHU’E — Kaua’i’s golf courses are a hit with visitors. A recent survey showed higher visitor satisfaction with the island’s golf courses than with beaches or accommodations.
Some 72 percent of the more than 1,800 visitors surveyed at the Lihu’e Airport in July, praised Kaua’i’s golf courses. Satisfaction with beaches rated second and accommodations third.
The survey, taken during a month when the island attracted nearly 106,000 visitors, showed that 12.5 percent of all visitors golfed, 63 percent of those played more than one round, and 82 percent said they heard about golf on this island before arriving.
What departing visitors said they liked most about the island were: ?
The nature and scenery.
• Beaches and the ocean.
• Friendly people.
The things they liked least were:
• The weather.
• The high prices.
• Having to leave.
The survey also showed that the island is attracting more visitors from the East Coast and Midwest regions of the Mainland, said Sue Kanoho, executive director of the Kaua’i Visitors Bureau.
“Distance has always been an issue for them,” she said of Americans living east of the Rocky Mountains.
“We’re traditionally heavy, heavy, heavy westbound (West Coast). We made a conscious effort this year to try and push a little bit more heavy on the U.S. eastbound (east of the Rockies), so that we’re not putting all our eggs in one basket,” she said.
“And that’s more the first-time visitor, too. So, as a result of what I saw in the survey, it looks like that might have had an impact.” Survey results that surprised Kanoho were: ?
The importance of travel agents in planning vacations to the island for their clients (some 70 percent of first-time visitors to Hawai’i and Kaua’i).
• A majority (over 80 percent) of first-time and repeat visitors took in cultural activities.
• Only a small percentage of those surveyed came here to get married or to attend a wedding (less than 5 percent of the respondents both for first-time and repeat Kaua’i visitors).
At the end of September, Kaua’i was leading the state in visitor arrivals with a 5.3 percent gain over last year. The rest of the islands were showing negative numbers year-to-date.
Some 822,070 people visited Kaua’i in the first nine months of this year, up 5.3 percent from the same period last year, when Kaua’i greeted 780,910 visitors.
The number of visitors who stayed only on Kaua’i during their trips to Hawai’i showed an even larger increase. They increased 14.2 percent for the first three quarters of this year.
The steady upward trend puts the island on course to have its best year since 1991, and the third best of the decade, behind 1990 and 1991.
If arrivals for the last three months of 1999 are on par with those posted the first nine months of the year, Kaua’i can expect an overall increase of 4 percent this year, Kanoho said.
That would mean 1,081,520 visitors this year, compared to 1,040,360 last year.
“We still have not hit that 1.2 million mark (as in 1991). Once we gain that 1.2 million mark, then that would be considered true, true growth,” she said.
Westbound visitors continue to be the island’s mainstay accounting for over 89 percent of all visitors. Visitors from the Mainland, Canada and Europe are up for the first nine months this year, while eastbound visitors are still way off (16.9 percent down).
Where westbound visitors are concerned, the news is all good, said Kanoho, who for the second year in a row was named one of “The Most Powerful Women in Travel” by Travel Agent magazine.
“It’s important to keep (travel) agents up to speed on what Kaua’i has to offer,” she said.
Toward that end, the Kaua’i Visitors Bureau is nearly tripling its travel agent budget for the calendar year 2000, to $160,000.
Where marketing on the Mainland is concerned, Kanoho said, the KVB makes sure to indicate Kaua’i is not meant to be all things to all people (there are no rows of all-night dance clubs or Louis Vuitton shops), and the rural lifestyle is pitched.
She thinks that is one reason the visitor satisfaction level is so high.
The cultural activities and interaction are important, she said of the high percentage of visitors who enjoyed things cultural while on the island.
The romantic angle, luring people here to get married, renew their vows, celebrate anniversaries, or take their honeymoon, is a huge untapped market, Kanoho reasons, as the survey results indicate.
Another round of surveying will take place the first two weeks of December.
The July survey showed nearly half of all respondents ate meals at local restaurants, while 26 percent enjoyed room service or hotel restaurant meals, and 28 percent bought food and ate it in their rooms.
A large percentage of first-time visitors (55 percent) and repeat visitors (over 40 percent) stayed in hotels, a trend which could account for the high occupancy rates lots of island hotels have enjoyed this year.
Just 28 percent of the respondents stayed in condominiums, and 14 percent in timeshare units.
The KVB continues to follow three marketing themes, in this order of importance: Adventure and eco-tourism, capitalizing on the island’s natural beauty; the romance angle (a place to get married, honeymoon, renew vows, celebrate anniversaries); and golf.
Kanoho shows with pride pages of coverage of Kaua’i in golf magazines she said would have cost millions of dollars if the items were paid advertising.
Kanoho earlier this week presented results of the July survey to industry officials and employees at Gaylord’s restaurant in Puhi.
Copies of the survey are available for $18 unbound, or $20 bound, at Inkspot Printing (246-0147) in the row of shops between Lihu’e Townhouse and Ace Hardware on Rice Street in Lihu’e.
