By Dr. Richard Kelley
The past 12 months have been the most challenging our company has ever faced. Visitor arrivals have been down a little over five percent, and room rates have fallen sharply, as hotel managers everywhere compete to attract travelers. Hawaii’s Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism (DBEDT) reports the average per-person, per-day spending by air visitors dropped to $162 from $178 in the first ten months of 2009. That adds up to a $1.3 billion decrease in revenues from 2008. And 2008 was not exactly a good year either, with hotel occupancy, rates, and visitor spending dropping significantly from 2007, the last boom year of the decade.
In spite of economic and political challenges, we have, nonetheless, continued to make progress with our renovation program and to give our guests exceptional service and warm hospitality in Hawaii, Guam, Fiji, Australia, and Bali. We added new properties in Thailand, continued to work on an exciting project in Hainan, China, AND we just announced that our company will take over the management of Maui’s beautiful, upscale Kapalua Villas, effective January 4.
Within our company, the Ke ‘Ano Wa‘a Voyage of Discovery, Renewal, and Inspiration has sailed forth, and Alaka‘i from all properties have been busy coordinating many activities and events in celebration of the 6-Paddle Process.
Together we are a powerful team. Whether you are at the Front Desk, in Engineering, Housekeeping, Accounting, Reservations, Renovations, or some other area, your individual efforts are what has made our success possible. You are all hugely appreciated.
This was also a year in which many individual members of our ‘ohana were recognized with prestigious awards. Among these:
- Danny Ojiri received our company’s Chairman’s Award for his outstanding leadership in developing the Japanese market.
- Monica Wong was named Statewide Housekeeper of the Year by the Hawaii Hotel & Lodging Association.
- Nancy Daniels was named the Gregg W. Perry Public Relations Professional of the Year by the Public Relations Society of America – Hawaii Chapter.
- Nelida Dimatatac and Paulina Perkin were given the Above the Call of Duty Integrity Award by the Guam Hotel & Restaurant Association for returning guests’ valuables to them safely.
- Fran Kirk was honored by the City & County of Honolulu with a special “Forever Young” recognition of her tireless work in many projects throughout the community.
- David Carey received a Special Alumni Award from Santa Clara University for his many lifetime achievements.
Many of our properties received accolades from leading travel companies such as Expedia, TripAdvisor, and Orbitz for meeting and exceeding expectations of outstanding value, hospitality, and operations.
Ronald McDonald Charities of Hawaii recognized Outrigger and the Kelley family for all the assistance we have given them and the many out-of-town families of children who have come to Honolulu for medical and surgical treatment over the past 20-plus years.
As we look ahead to 2010, we know there will be challenges. The United States, indeed the world, is struggling.
I am quite concerned about the future. Globally, radicals using religious fundamentalism to promote their political agenda are attacking the Western concept of civilization. It is a centuries-old struggle that has intensified in recent years with attacks on U.S. embassies, barracks, the destroyer U.S.S. Cole, the Pentagon, and the World Trade Center’s twin towers in New York.
For the first time in history, technology has given single individuals the ability to inflict mass destruction and mass casualties with easily concealed and transported packages of explosives. I was warned in recent briefings in Washington, D.C., that the planting of car bombs on America’s streets is not out of the realm of possibility.
Nationally, we are witnessing an attempt to drastically change the free-market system that has made the U.S. the greatest nation on earth for the past 200 years. Massive federal spending is predicted to more than double the national debt in the foreseeable future. The value of the U.S. dollar has plummeted this year, and there is every indication that a rise in interest rates will soon follow.
I believe the attempt to ram through Congress a change in the way we pay for health care is part of an agenda to transform our free-market system – and not for the better. Earlier this year I offered a four-point plan to reform health care economics and make the cost of health care affordable. The four elements of the plan I offered were:
- Individual Choice & Free Market Competition
- Tax & Geographic Equity
- Personal Responsibility
- Tort Reform
Sadly, none of these concepts are included in the bills now being seriously considered by the U.S. House or Senate. In fact, items that would advance each of these points are either eliminated or made far more difficult in the current drafts. I fear we may end up with runaway costs, increased taxes, and, of course, bureaucratic control of personal health decisions, declining quality of care, and rationing, as is prevalent in Canada and England.
A majority of U.S. voters agree with me. The latest (December 21) Rasmussen Reports tracking update shows 55 percent of voters nationwide are opposed to the bill recently passed in the middle of the night by the Senate, and only 41 percent support it.
Many reasonably conclude that the real agenda is not health care reform but the imposition of government control over a major segment of our nation’s economy.
Stepping back for a moment, it is important to remember that, over time, civilizations change and, usually, disappear. In my 76 years on this earth, I have been fortunate enough to see the haunting remnants of magnificent bygone civilizations. I have climbed the ruins of the Mayan temples on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, stood in the shadow of the Egyptian pyramids and the Great Sphinx at Giza, wandered through the rubble of the iconic Parthenon in Athens (where democracy first flowered, then perished) centuries before the appearance of Christ, and walked through the ruins of the coliseums built all around the Mediterranean by the Romans around the time of Christ. At each location, I wondered how such great civilizations could have crumbled. What led to their fall?
In the first half of the 20th century, Germany was one of the most cultured, advanced countries in Europe. It was full of music, art, museums, hospitals, laboratories, and universities. My first wife’s grandmother, Agnes Stamm, who was of German ancestry, told me how beautiful Berlin was when she honeymooned there in 1897. She vividly described the wide, well-cared-for streets, particularly Unter den Linden, a lovely, tree-lined boulevard running through the center of the city to the Brandenberg Gate.
Then, following the wrenching changes in Europe resulting from World War I and again during the Great Depression of the 1930s, the economic crisis spread, with runaway inflation and bank failures creating social and political chaos. Eventually, an appeal for “change” in Germany resulted in the restoration of order … but at the price of freedom. Many objected, but those seeking “change” silenced them. Again, I ask myself, how could this have happened?
Recently, as I watched reports on CNN showing activists slandering and maligning Sen. Joe Lieberman for expressing his valid concerns about the current drafts of health care legislation, I could not help but hear echoes – faint echoes, thank goodness, but echoes nonetheless – of the intolerance and the contempt for their opponents that marked Germany’s advocates for “change” some 75 years ago, as they set off the events that soon plunged Europe into darkness.
Are we in the United States approaching a tipping point, in which the way of life we cherish will be eroded, and perhaps even washed away, in the swirling tides of history? I certainly hope not.
We must be careful, and remain active and involved.
When we get through the current economic downturn – and I am confident we will – I hope we will not find that we have voted ourselves more government at the expense of freedom, individual choice, and personal responsibility, which are the basis of everything that has made our country great for over 233 years.
In any case, I am confident that whatever happens in the world around us, here at Outrigger and OHANA, if we continue to work as a team, we will get through the current economic turmoil and grow in coming years, both as a company and as individuals.
Again, my thanks to everyone for all the great things you accomplished in 2009, and my warmest wishes to you and your families for a happy and healthy 2010.
Bill Comstock, Myra Kuboyama, Statewide Housekeeper of the Year Monica Wong, Kim Agas, and Barry Wallace
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