Tourism

Recognizing the need to help the state balance it books, the hotel industry agreed to a temporary increase in the TAT rate which was increased two percentage points from 7.25% to 9.25%. The temporary increase is supposed to expire on June 30, 2015....

Air carriers have optimistically boosted scheduled seats from Japan, although in our view yen depreciation and higher room rates will act to limit further Japanese market gains....

Just bluff an increase in TAT and they all line up in favor of extending the ‘temporary’ 9.25% rate....

Growth in total visitor expenditures and arrivals in every month of the year elevated annual 2012 total visitor expenditures to a record $14.3 billion....

“This ruling will significantly increase costs for all tour operators, travel agents, OTCs, and other travel intermediaries...."

...there's still lots of room for Mr Obama's administration to do more, and the US Travel Association has a great plan to further improve the situation....

Higher income Asian economies have suffered the most from the trade falloff. At the same time, labor markets and fiscal conditions in East and Southeast Asian developing countries remain far stronger than in the developed world....

One of the subplots of the South Park episode is about residents of Kaua'i claiming to be natives of Hawaii when they're just longtime residents who got there before the more recent tourists, whom they despise....

The Pro Bowl will resume in Hawaii on Jan. 27, 2013, one week before the Super Bowl in New Orleans. But poor timing is the NFL's first mistake....

Marugame claims a TSA investigator (TSI) "sexually assaulted her" on Aug. 26, 2009....

"...those doing the attacking will die...." -- Occupy Honolulu

"It's Time We Get Our Priorities Straight," a message from Governor Neil Abercrombie, June 10, 2011

The Hawaii Department of Taxation is seeking an outside auditing firm to look at "systemic problems" with DoTax tax revenue reports.... 

It didn’t really seem anyone was in a great rush to pull out the paint and scrub-brushes for the arrival of the world’s media, business chiefs and heads of state for the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum meetings in November. At Honolulu’s wonderful, breezy, open-to-the-elements airport there’s little to suggest this is a city that wants to be in the same league as the likes of Seoul, Sydney and Osaka.

The ACLU is threatening a lawsuit against the City of Honolulu after the City Council voted to ban sleeping on sidewalks.  Today's Star-Bulletin editorializes:

Councilman Charles Djou introduced the bill because of concerns about how the homeless sleeping on Waikiki sidewalks is affecting tourism. Djou maintains that refusing to allow the chronically homeless to sleep on sidewalks would "put the hammer on people getting the help they need."

Djou needs to cite a precedent where such tough compassion has actually worked.

The answer is embarrassingly simple: Los Angeles. 

This leads to an obvious question the Star-Bulletin editorialists must answer:

Where has your laissez-faire attitude towards homelessness ever produced anything but more homelessness?

Knife wielding goons demanded money from campers.  Public workers sleep through their shift.  Pavilions are filthy and littered with broken glass.