Hawaii travel will be coming back. We are hearing various dates and don’t want to hang our hats on any of them. Ones that are being thrown around in the industry are sometime from June through the end of July. We’re watching for more on that news coming soon and will update you as soon as we learn more.
Beat of Hawaii: When Hawaii tourism resumes, albeit slowly, we are fully expecting it to be the “New Hawaii: Healthiest Place on Earth.” There’s no doubt about it, Hawaii travel is going to be a clean industry and that is going to be its new brand. So read on for just what we mean by that.
Travel industry stakeholders join with health and government.
No one knows yet exactly what health measures will be implemented for Hawaii vacations. They are likely to be many and some will overlap by type and by timing. Testing is the end goal and standard we anticipate in the longer term. But for now, is it even feasible to think we can expand testing in time to open Hawaii travel? That is unclear to us and apparently, to everyone else involved.
Interim solutions will continue to be the following: distancing, face masks and many levels of sanitation both en route to and while in Hawaii.
When testing does arrive, and we can only hope that is sooner than later, we expect to see the travel shareholders take the brunt of the expense for that effort. In other words, the airlines and the rest of the industry that is reliant on tourism to come back will need to be very involved at all levels.
Beat of Hawaii friend, and Hawaii hospitality guru Jerry Gibson, said yesterday he would like to see both passenger testing and contact tracing be available for the resumption of travel. “We’ve got 220,000 people out of work. The trickle-down effect of that is almost half the population. We need to manage getting people back to work and getting tourism back.” Jerry commented too on what we mentioned yesterday, and that is how Emirates currently tests passengers prior to boarding. He said in that regard, “Emirates Airlines is already doing” just that.
You won’t get sick en route.
One thing we still remember, is sometimes getting sick on flights to and from Hawaii. Jeff came down with a hideous flu a few days after the flight from NYC to Honolulu. That was before the era of everyone was wearing face masks, the use of ubiquitous hand sanitizers, exhaustive aircraft cleaning, eliminated contact with flight crews, likely removal of seat back pockets, and the many other fast evolving measures.
Safety protocols and a slow visitor reopening in Hawaii
Hawaii travel industry leaders are working with state officials in tourism, health and transportation, towards final plans for safely reopening. The efforts required will be wide-ranging and include everything from hotel and vacation rental cleaning methods, to restaurant configurations and much more.
It it believed that once the door is opened to tourism returning, it will happen at a trickle pace. That should provide time for continual adjustments to accommodate unforeseen issues. Heck, at the moment, we can’t even got to Costco twice and have the same procedures be in place.
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I came down with the flu a couple of days after a jfk to Honolulu flight on Hawaiian too. Not a fun start to my 2016 vacation.
Hawaii is encouraging visitors to break quar antine law by giving them rewards by paying their return ticket back to their original city. Charge a deposit for the visitors something like $1000 per person, and hire contractors to check on them and if they caught someone who broke the law, their deposit goes to the contractor.
An additional $1,000 per visitor and 24/7 investigator outside the door Of every visitor is a recipe for “ZERO” return of visitors.
Let’s be realistic! How about Hawaii just require the same protective measures for visitors that are required for locals? Enforce equally for everyone. If fines are a penalty for non-compliant locals then also fine visitors if they don’t comply. But, let’s be fair and not single any particular group. Visitors love the islands too. We don’t come to intentionally inflict illness or any other type of problem on to locals.
You need us, and we love to come to the islands. Let’s figure out how to live together without disdain for one another. Visitors love local people!
Mahalo!
Hi TJ.
Thank you.
Aloha.
Too bad the people will be destitute and homeless while you play around with our lives to make it the healthiest place on earth. There will be no workers left.
Hello BOH!
I have a standing flight with hotel scheduled from the end of May to the second week of June. I’m feeling this may not be a good time to risk going in fear things won’t be ready for travelers. When do you think would be a good time to reschedule?
Hawaii has fared quite well through this relative to many other states. By and large people wore masks when shopping with little complaint, avoided large gatherings etc. we have had less of the “you can’t tell me what to do it’s my right to potentially be a silent carrier” type people here. A larger percentage of the population (not all) seem to understand that wearing a mask when appropriate is an act of respect for others. Call it an outgrowth of the Aloha spirit if you will. Tourists that want to argue restrictions infringe on their rights as we reopen are just the kind of tourists that we don’t want.
This is a difficult and unprecedented situation and the state will reopen and it will be different then before for awhile. Probably a long while.
But if you can’t respect Hawaii for our Aloha spirit please don’t come here.
Hi John.
Thank you. You rock – 40 comments and counting.
Aloha.
You may be the healthiest around but economical your going to struggle Who is going to fly 5 hours with this virus without a treatment for it Hopefully they’ll get the rail system running so you can keep greenhouse gasses down Maybe you can clean up your island and stop having brown water alerts since your the healthiest around while u polute our water with your street run off
Hi BoH,
We have a planned trip for Maui on July, do you think it will be open?
Mahalo,
Karen
Hi Karen.
We’ll let you know the instant we know more. Gut opinion is yes, but that’s all we can say.
Aloha.
Hi there,
We have a trip planned the first week of June. Do you think Hawaii will be to a point that we won’t have to quarantine and beaches will be open etc?
We travel to Hawaii every year but until there is no required testing and masks, we won’t be back!
Aloha!
I rec’d the following information this am. Unfortunately I have 2 East costs flights that are within [edited] the time frames when the airlines have received DOT approval to not fly many Hawaii routes.
I have contacted HA about both of my flights requesting a full refund on the Boston flight and a rebook on the JFK flight. Tried emailing and their site seems to be overwhelmed!
As a Kalaheo neighbor, I appreciate your site.
Mahalo!
Hi Lynn.
Thanks for your comment neighbor. Just because there is agreement to not fly many Hawaii routes does not indicate whether or not the airlines will fly them. It just provided that option should the airlines need it. They will try to resume service as soon as the isolation period is removed and they get bodies on planes. On a global basis, that is a big question – when will people fly. We are even trying to figure that out for ourselves. On one hand it seems like it could be among the safest times once travel resumes, and on the other hand, if it is unbearable even going to Costco with all the ever-changing protocols, then who wants to deal with travel.
Aloha.
I have been really interested in how Hawaii will manage this situation. From what I hear, mandating testing to cross state lines could be considered unconstitutional by a federal judge.
We have a trip scheduled for end of September on the big island with a house rented for a 40th anniversary do you think this will happen thanks and mahal
Hi Larry.
If you’re asking for our gut feeling, then yes. More to follow.
Aloha.