By Bill Comstock
The Aloha Friday Luncheon Show on December 11 at the Outrigger Reef’s Kani Ka Pila Grille was a star-studded affair. Visitors and guests were treated to top island music, a delicious Hawaiian buffet lunch, and a few well-known personalities in the audience. The show also aired on the radio via AM940 and streamed live to the world via AM940Hawaii.com. Read the rest of this entry
By Kathy Hansberry
Waikiki Beach Walk continues to showcase Hawaii’s best island talent through free concerts and entertainment, including some very exciting upcoming holiday shows. Read the rest of this entry
By Nancy Daniels
The beach fronting the Outrigger Waikiki on the Beach was a bit more crowded than normal at 9 a.m. on Saturday, December 12. The reason? Hundreds of visitors and residents were on hand to extend a warm aloha to Santa Claus, who arrived by outrigger canoe courtesy of the Outrigger Waikiki. Read the rest of this entry
By Fran Kirk
After a successful two-week engagement, the Society of Seven Las Vegas (SOS LV), Waikiki’s best entertainment show, is welcoming back one of Hawaii’s favorite comedians, Andy Bumatai, for an encore performance with 12 more holiday shows beginning Friday, December 11, at 8:30 p.m. until the end of the year at the Outrigger Main Showroom. Bumatai will open the show with a hilarious stand-up comedy routine that will be followed by SOS LV’s sensational and popular show. Read the rest of this entry
By Nancy Daniels
Arts with Aloha is a local marketing group made up of more than a dozen Honolulu arts and cultural institutions that work together to promote the outstanding offerings of art, music, theater, history, and culture available to residents and guests on the island of Oahu. Read the rest of this entry
By Luana Maitland
The holidays are here, and the Outrigger Reef on the Beach kicked it off with the Annual Tree Lighting Ceremony on Tuesday, December 1. Read the rest of this entry
By Pila Hanson
Recently, Outrigger was fortunate to team up with the Travel Industry Management Student Organization (TIMSO) at Hawai‘i Pacific University (HPU) to host a Career Day for Travel Industry Management and Business students attending the University. Over 80 students gathered at the OHANA Waikiki East Poolside Terrace to hear from Outrigger executives and managers about Outrigger, and to learn first hand what it takes to be successful in our industry. Read the rest of this entry
By Kathy Hansberry
The Na Mele No Na Pua Kama‘aina Concerts are held every other month on the Grand Lanai of the Embassy Suites® - Waikiki Beach Walk® from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m.
By Kathy Hansberry
The 46th Annual Outrigger Hotels Rainbow Classic served as the season opener for the University of Hawaii’s men’s basketball team. Read the rest of this entry
By David Carey
(Dr. Richard Kelley is traveling. His column will return on December 5.)
Jim Heather; Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann; Terry Telfer, President, Reynolds Recycling, David Carey; Senator Brickwood Galuteria; and Alan Naito
On Monday, November 16, I had the pleasure of accepting on behalf of Outrigger Enterprises Group the inaugural “Green Leader Award” from Reynolds Recycling, recognizing our company as a recycling and sustainability leader in Hawaii’s tourism industry. The presentation was made at a press conference held at Waikiki Beach Walk® and was attended by Terry Telfer, President of Reynolds Recycling, Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann, Senator Brickwood Galuteria, whose district includes Waikiki, and representatives of many of our Waikiki hotels who participate in the bottle and can recycling program.
Since 2006, Outrigger’s owned and operated hotels in Waikiki have prevented over 48,000 pounds of recyclable material from entering Honolulu’s landfill by recovering more than one million beverage containers from our Waikiki guest rooms.
One of Outrigger’s core corporate values is “Wahi,” the Hawaiian word meaning ‘”place,” which signifies that “we protect, care for and live in harmony with the land, our workplace, its people, and cultures.”
This “Green Leader Award” from Reynolds Recycling is a great example of our company’s and employees’ commitment to living our values, and I’m particularly pleased that it is our employees who have suggested and driven many of our eco-friendly efforts.
Such is the case with our recycling efforts. At the press conference I asked Jim Heather and Alan Naito to join me on stage. Jim, now the General Manager at the Outrigger-managed Courtyard by Marriott property, can be credited with starting our Reynolds Recycling efforts several years ago at the Outrigger Waikiki and Outrigger Reef hotels when he was the General Manager at the Outrigger Waikiki.
A year or so ago Jim passed the baton to Alan Naito, General Manager at the OHANA Waikiki East. Alan instituted the recycling program at his own hotel, which soon carried over to the OHANA Waikiki West, OHANA Waikiki Malia and OHANA Waikiki Beachcomber hotels, as well as to the Outrigger-managed Embassy Suites® – Waikiki Beach Walk and the Outrigger Luana Waikiki.
Thanks to these two gentlemen’s leadership, and with the assistance of our Housekeeping and Maintenance staffs, we’ve been able to make a significant contribution to keeping Hawaii green by simply collecting and recycling the bottles and cans left by our guests in their rooms.
But our sustainability initiatives go far beyond recycling. I am proud to say that we have long practiced energy-saving techniques at many of our properties in an effort to be more eco-friendly and to preserve our island’s natural resources. For example, the installation of low-flow toilets and showers reduces the amount of water – including hot water – that we use every day; and to lower our energy consumption, we have replaced incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs. Also, a number of our properties have installed the INNCOM Energy Management System, which allows hotels to adjust thermostats so as to minimize unnecessary use of air conditioning when rooms are vacant.
The OHANA Waikiki Beachcomber received an ENERGY STAR designation earlier this year from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); and the Outrigger Waikiki and Outrigger Reef hotels collect items such as grass beach mats, plastic body boards, air mattresses, inner tubes, and other beach toys left behind by departing guests. Working with local retailer Kini Beach, these items are then transformed into eco-friendly bags and paddle covers.
It was appropriate that the press conference for the Green Leader Award was held at Waikiki Beach Walk, since that project is another great example of recycling and sustainability. During its construction, much of the concrete rubble from the various buildings that were demolished was crushed on site and recycled as fill to plug the holes left behind by the basement cavities of the previous properties – an initiative that not only reduced debris going to the landfill, but also enabled us to avoid hauling the debris away from the site and trucking fill material into the site, thereby reducing traffic on the roads by an estimated 1,800 heavy truckloads and saving a lot of diesel fuel and cutting air pollution as well.
Clearly, the phrase “going green” has taken on big meaning for Outrigger. The Reynolds Recycling Green Leader Award is a shining example of our company’s and employees’ commitment to living our values and being contributing members not only of the island community in which we live, but of the global community.
Mahalo to Jim Heather and Alan Naito for their leadership role in our Reynolds Recycling partnership, and to our housekeepers and maintenance crews for the hard work they put into the program each and every day.
Hawaii’s attractiveness as a visitor destination and the natural beauty its residents enjoy every day rest heavily on keeping our environment pristine. As tourism industry leaders, it is our responsibility not only to maintain, but to improve our Hawaii home for future generations to enjoy. We pledge to continue growing Outrigger’s efforts to help achieve a more sustainable and greener Hawaii.
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You'll find insight and observations about travel, tourism and all things Outrigger at The Saturday Briefing. Featuring Chairman Richard Kelley's weekly blog, plus the latest news, happenings, photos, guest stories and updates on the special Ohana that is Outrigger Hotels and Resorts.
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