Hawaii’s Big Island Means Luxury, Adventure — and Business

In addition to posh hotels, world-class golf courses and spas, and farm-to-table dining, the Big Island of Hawaii offers groups one-of-a-kind activities, starting with opportunities to experience a volcano in action. Helicopters, hikes and bike trips are among the ways to experience the volcano. Groups can also go zip lining through a tropical rainforest or race ATVs along a black-sand beach. And best of all for groups, these activities and the indulgent luxury can be designed to support the serious purposes of corporate meetings and incentives.

The biggest draw for many planners is the authentic way the island welcomes visitors, the Big Island Visitors Bureau’s senior director of sales, Debbie Hogan, told Travel Market Report. “I believe we all recognize this [the importance of visitors] and so we put our all into ensuring that their visit is special. Whether on an incentive or meeting or just vacationing, we treat them as if they are our family, our ohana. Our island recognizes the importance of group business, and from our hotels, attractions to service entities we go out of our way to assist and make the participant feel aloha.” 

Hogan noted that the Visitors Bureau has worked with its partners to create Big Island Adventures. “Groups can experience a treasured spot on our island that, of course, has history and culture, and create a group day activity around that. Spectacular coastal views, activity excursions such as waterfall hike and swim, remote views that only can be experiences by helicopter, horseback riding on a black-sand beach, ATV rides through hills and valleys with good local grinds.”

Overcoming AIG Effect

All this pampering and fun comes with a downside: perception and the economy. “The Big Island is hard to surpass as far as incentives are concerned, but again perception and economy can play havoc on decisions making. At times we deal with the negative connotation that Hawaii is not a place to hold serious meetings, which we know from experience and the history of our groups is not the case,” Hogan said.

“Although lead inquiries are up for 2010 compared to 2009, group business actualizing in the year for the year has been challenging opportunity. Groups book much more in advance than leisure business [does], so 2010 for groups was pretty much set one to two years ago for Hawaii. Nevertheless, we have been pretty fortunate with late bookings for fall 2010 that are substantial in size and traveling internationally,” she said.

The island is seeing more site inspections, said Hogan. “This tells us groups are now considering offshore programs and the economy is improving. Also we are experiencing group incentives from emerging destinations such as China.”

BIVB Support

BIVB, the visitors bureau, gets very involved with our hotel partners, activity vendors as well as our community and county, said Hogan. “BIVB is the expert and can offer advantages, opportunities, logistics so the planner can easily see why [to select] Big Island over other destinations. We are very serious about the importance of group business to our island and will assist groups in developing their programs, site inspections, presentations, island contacts.”

For more information, contact dhogan@hvcb.org.

Next: Planners share their experiences on Hawaii’s Big Island, plus an update on new facilities and activities.