What is Hawaii to do?
San Diego tourism lands an extra 4.6 million per month
It seems that recently San Diego has taken some of the wind out of their sails.
Of course, that’s some very good news for us. But for the Aloha State, this has already given them reason to worry.
Don’t get me wrong, Hawaii is still the unchallenged leader with a reported 128,000 Japanese visitors in the month of July compared to our estimated 5,850.
Still, Hawaii is already seeing a drop in their revenues.
Maybe it’s due to the general world economy, or because of the way that the Japanese Yen has weakened against the dollar… whatever it is, there is still one very large elephant in the room that San Diego businesses need to realize – this is a long term trend.
Think about it.
When Japan Airlines and ANA lost a combined $275 million dollars because of the delays with The Dreamliner’s direct Tokyo – San Diego route, you’d better believe that they were making plans on how to get it back.
VisitCalifornia.com reports that at this very moment there is an 18 million dollar media push on TV, print and online promotions all to showcase San Diego as the next big thing.
In one June broadcast titled “World Summer Resort” with a media value of 8.6 million dollars, San Diego has already been declared as “The #1 Beach Resort in the World”.
And the best part is that they were talking about Coronado.
Thanks to our #1 ranking by DrBeach.org, 2012, our small town has received some very big PR in the Japanese media. This series of programs, aired Sept. 14th and 21st, highlights our beach as THE place to come for a clean, quite beach experience in the silvery sand.
The effect of all of this advertising is clear to see.
“Japanese visitors to the US have increased 8.2% in July, 3.4% in August and a projected 4.7% in September. (Because) New non-stop flights to San Jose, San Diego and Denver have pushed up demand.”
So even though Hawaii will always be closer, we’ve already won some major PR victories.
Maybe this is why Hawaiian newspapers have been so down, reporting that, “Japanese visitors… stayed a shorter time, leading to an 11.2 percent drop in total visitor spending from Japan to $208.3 million. (Yearly)”
And, “It didn’t help Hawaii’s performance that those who came from Japan only spent $250 a day on average.”
I don’t think that’s so bad.
If you look at Visit California.com’s 2011 visitor profile for Japan, you’ll see that the average person spent 7.6 days here on vacation.
So even if you count out the fact that Japanese tourism has grown 8.8% since then, if you do a little simple math you can see that the benefit that Japanese tourists are bringing to San Diego is really pretty substantial.
Let’s make a conservative estimate.
5,850 visitors per month X $208.3 per day X the average stay of 7.6 days = $9,261,018 per month.
How’s that!
So even if we cut that in half in order to adjust for the low season, the fact remains – this is nothing to be ignored.
However, while this shift represents some very welcome revenue for us over on the main land, Hawaii is looking East and wondering what they should do.
CEO Mike McCarthy of the Hawaiian Tourism Council says that, “One key to sustaining growth will be opening more direct markets to Hawaii, especially cities in Asia.”
We should realize how lucky we to have finally done just that.
The San Diego International airport has handed our businesses an amazing opportunity with our first direct connection to Asia… much to Hawaii’s chagrin.
So let’s take full advantage of it.
Hawaiians knows just how important it is to understand their customer’s wants, needs and expectations.
And, just as Maureen Bausch, executive vice president of business development for the Mall of America and a board member with the U.S. Travel and Tourism Advisory Board underlines, “When neighbors travel, they tell everyone where they had a good time, and word of mouth generates more traffic.”
It’s time that we adopt that same approach with our Asian tourists as well…
That’s where my 8 years of experience living and working in Japan can help your business.
When you know exactly how to treat your Japanese tourists the next time they walk in your door, then you’ll also be in the best position to connect with the estimated 4.6+ million dollars of new tourism that’s landing in our airport every month.
Give me a call and let me show you how my copywriting services (in native level Japanese) can put your business at the top of the San Diego vacation itinerary.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
All the best,
Jeremiah Magone
San Diego’s only copywriter specializing in Japanese tourism
