While most of the Hawaiian Islands were spared during Hurricane Iselle, we know that those on Hawaii Island, particularly in the Puna area, are still recovering and in need of basic necessities. We send our thoughts and aloha to all of them and encourage anyone who would like to assist, to donate to the Hawaii Red Cross.

On behalf of the HTA, I would like to extend a sincere mahalo to our partners in the visitor industry, elected officials, government agencies and the media for coming together to keep our community and visitors aware and informed during Iselle. It was through your collective efforts that we were able to provide regular updates for the duration of the storm.

The HTA's role during times of crisis is to act as a liaison between government agencies and Hawaii's visitor industry to provide information that is pertinent to visitors. We encourage you to share our email updates with your colleagues and have them to sign up on our website to receive them directly.

Mahalo,

Mike McCartney, HTA president and CEO

Hawaii Tourism Conference:
Future Trends in Tourism

The Futures Company provides expertise in future trends through strategic planning, insight and innovation. With a greater understanding and foresight of upcoming trends that may affect a particular industry or the overall economy, any company or industry can set better goals or expectations.

Jeff Yang, senior vice president at The Futures Company, will be the afternoon keynote speaker on day one of the 2014 Hawaii Tourism Conference. He will share his knowledge on the changing landscape of media and technology and its impact on society, as well as provide critical trends that are shaping the consumer marketplace. Read more.

Strengthening Hawaii's Cruise Market through New Technology

In 2013, Hawaii's cruise industry contributed $51.8 million toward the state's economy with 287,681 visitors. For the first half of 2014, a total of 134,851 cruise visitors traveled to the Hawaiian Islands, 15 percent less than the same period last year due to seven fewer cruise ships, year-to-date through June.

The HTA is looking to strengthen Hawaii's cruise market through the development and implementation of a single maritime scheduling software for the state of Hawaii that will be built by its new contractor, The Mariner Group. This software, which is anticipated to be completed and executed by mid-2015, will help integrate the Department of Transportation (DOT) and Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) ports into one system in order to ease vessel scheduling and use of dock space. Read more.

HTA recognizes the use of the 'okina ['] or glottal stop, one of the eight consonants of the (modern) Hawaiian language; and the kahakō[ā] or macron (e.g., in place names of Hawai'i such as Lāna'i). However, HTA respects the individual use of these markings for names of organizations and businesses. Due to technological limitations, this current communication may not include all Hawaiian diacritical markings.