 I'm Marsha Joyner, and we are navigating the journey, this journey into Waikiki. I know we don't usually visit Waikiki, but today I have a very special guest and my new best friend. And you know, I only talk to best friends, so he's my new best friend, and he is the general manager of the Ohana East Waikiki Outrigger Hotel. Now Outriggers had been in Waikiki for, they were the one of the first hotels to be in Waikiki. So Mr. Thomas, welcome. Thank you for having me. Thank you for fighting me in newspapers and calling me. I did. I don't know, I'm still holding on to this newspaper. Thank you. I saw your picture, it says going places, and I saw his picture and I said, oh I want him on the show. So we've been trying to make this happen. Thank you for having me, and thank you for working on my schedule. I know I've been pretty busy the last couple of weeks. Well, as a general manager of a hotel, that has to be very busy. Very busy, yes. And it says here that you are head of all operational aspects of the property, including sales, post engagement, customer service, and financial performance. Yes, I am. Wow. Mr. Thomas was a resort manager at Outrigger Reef, Waikiki. And you were also at the Beach, Waikiki Beach Resort, and the Grand Hyatt Kauai. Prior to Outrigger, yes. But I was at the Outrigger Reef, Waikiki, I was a resort manager, which is technically the number two person in the hotel that reports directly to the GM. And from there, I was very fortunate that I was promoted to general manager at the Ohana East, Waikiki, and I've been there for about six months now. Yeah, from the date of this break. Yes, so now tell me, what kind of an education do you have that you go into this hotel management business? Well. Where does that start? Where do you begin that? I went to school in Florida, Bethukumin College. It's one of the historical black colleges in the mainland, Natuna Beach, and I studied hotel management. I actually did not know what I wanted to do when I was in school. But in my first two years, I tried nursing, I tried IT communication, and I just never really found it to be exciting. And I love working with people, and someone suggested that I should try hotels. And I tried it. I did an internship in Indiana, and I loved it. And then I picked that major and that's it. And that was it. Sky was the limit after that. A hotel in Indiana? Where? It was a small town called French Lake Spring Resort, where Larry Bird is from. Yes. And I was... And that's one of the few tourists. Yes, yes. My professor at the time had a relationship with a general manager at that resort, and every year they bring in a ton of people to help because in the winter time is very, very slow, but in the summer that's the peak season. They bring in, actually they bring, they have a company that they work with in Jamaica. They brought a bunch of Jamaicans in for the summer. And I just so happened to be available, and my professor called me and said, would you like to go to Indiana? And I said, yes, sure. So I went there. I was there for three months, and I really enjoyed it. It was a lot of work. It was my first time ever working in a hotel. And the one thing that I love about it, it was about people. And every day it changes. Yeah, every day it changes. The guests, and then obviously the associates. So yeah, it was a great time, and that's when I decided that I was going to pursue a career in hotels. Even prior to that, I still didn't know what I wanted to do. But once I got there and I worked, and I actually was an internship, so I was able to talk to some of the executive leaders of that property. And they told me how they grew in the industry, and I said, do you think I can do the same? And they said, yes, if you are willing to do these things, the sky is the limit. So that's how I started in the hotel industry. That is great. Now you mentioned Jamaica, but your accent is? So I was born in Haiti. I was born in Haiti. I came here when I was five years old. So that's, but there's still a little accent. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So then your name is Thomas and not Tomas. Thomas, yeah. That's my last name. Yeah. Not Tomas. Yeah. Okay. So then you begin this journey up the- Yeah. So I moved here when I was five. I grew up in Brooklyn, New York, where my parents lived. And from there, I went to high school and then moved to Florida to go to college there at Bazooka Bend College. And I, you know, two years into it, I realized that I was going to be a hotel manager. And I worked all over the country in a different position in hotels, and five years ago, I was in Kauai, and three years ago, I joined Art River Girl, which is probably one of the best things I've ever done. It's a great company to work for. And a year and six months into my job, I was given the opportunity to run the Ohana East-Wake Art River Girl, which is a great, great accomplishment because that's something that I've always wanted to do is to become a general manager. It wasn't immediately my goal, but as I grew in the industry, I realized, wow, I'm halfway there. I might as well just continue. And I think that the day it happened, it was almost like surreal because you work so hard throughout your entire career to get to one position and you get there. You realize now you're responsible for everything. Everything. Yes. So you wake up very quickly and you're like, okay, now I've got to change my whole mindset because you're responsible for everybody. It's been a great journey. So how many people do you have in, you have this one hotel or as a general manager, are there more hotels in your? No, so I have one hotel, Ohana East-Wake Kiki, and I have just around 80 people that I manage. And how many tourists come regularly? On average? At my hotel? Yeah. Oh, that's a tough question. Let's see if I can remember. Well, how many people do you have today? Right now, we have about a thousand people in the hotel. Okay. So you have four restaurants? Four restaurants. Coffee shop? Coffee shop. A bar? A bar. Two bars, actually. Two bars. A spa? We have a small spa here. Yeah. And... We have a 24-hour fitness center. Fitness? Yes. We have a pool. Pool. So, they come there and they don't have to leave the property. They don't have to leave the property and the beach is only five minutes away. Yes. Yeah. So, now, are there other activities within the hotel? We have a store that you can rent bicycles. It's a great place. They just moved in a couple months ago, it's called Bicadelic, and we have a real partnership with them so that the guests can go down and rent bikes. We also have a trolley that the guests can take complimentary as part of the hotel. They can go to different places as well. We have a small lounge in a lobby with television. It can be used for any reason. We have guests that take naps in there. We have guests that wait for the shuttle before they leave the hotel. They sit and wait. We have guests that just eat there. They go outside. They go to Subway. They get food. They bring it and they eat in there. And it's also a gathering place for families with kids because it's a nice lounge with TVs and couches that you can sit in. So, exactly where in Waikiki are you? So, it's right off of, we're right next to the International Marketplace. So, if you look at Kuhio and Kalani, right in the corner there, right there. I don't know if you heard this, so if you turn on Kalakawa, Kalani Avenue is right there and then you go right down that street and you get to Kuhio, we're right there, right in the corner. Yeah. Okay. I know where that is. Yes. Yeah. So, many years ago, my husband and I had beauty salons, two beauty salons with Mr. Kelly in the early days of Outrigger when they weren't so many hotels and I don't know how you know about Mr. Kelly would build one floor and pay for it. He didn't have a mortgage and then he'd build another one and pay for it and that is how it all, because he didn't have a mortgage and we had no lease, no contract, it was a handshake and if Mr. Kelly said it, you take it to the bank, that was it. He was a great guy and when he put the pool in the Edgewater, everybody says, why do you need a pool? You're right next to the beach. You wouldn't anybody want a pool. This was all in the growing days of Waikiki when people came for the season. Right. So, we had the people in Canada that came in December and then people in Australia came the other part of the time, because their seasons are just the opposite and they came, we got to know people when the newlyweds until the end of it because the hotel had kitchen huts and I don't know if they still do. Yeah, we still have kitchen huts as well. Yeah. So, we attract a lot of families that want to cook their own food, yes, absolutely. Yeah, so that was, I can't believe how long ago that's been. And you think about the pool, right? So, what you just said about the fact that people are looking at him and say, well, why are you building a pool? The pool, yes. Because the beach is right there. But you know what, at the Ohana East Waikiki, the best attraction we have is the pool because a lot of time people don't want to walk to the beach. When they wake up in the morning, they just want to sit in the sun, relax, read a book, jump in the water and it's a great amenity to have for the guests and they love it. Yeah. So, what about people from different parts of the world? How do you deal with the languages and what are your largest group of people? Well, for the Ohana East Waikiki, majority of our guests, they speak English and we, you know, that's probably, I would say, I'm not sure of the exact percentage but majority of our guests is from the mainland. And we have a portion of our guests that comes a lot from Australia and we have a percentage from Japan. The Japanese guests that don't speak English, we actually have a, we have one person that speaks Japanese and if that person is not available, we actually have a call system that we can pick up the phone and call and they can help us translate for what the guests need. But you do have someone on staff? Yeah, so most, almost all the Outriggers in Waikiki have, like the Outrigger Reef has actually a Japanese DAS that is just dedicated to Japanese and in some cases they have Japanese hosts that can speak Japanese. In our cases, we do have some that can speak the language but we do have the hotline that we can call to help them translate. So there's people come, but what about other Europeans? Do we get other Europeans come to Hawaii? We don't get, we don't get too many Europeans at my hotel. Very rarely, to be honest with you, the only guests that don't speak our language would probably be the Japanese guests. And we get some Chinese and Koreans as well, very small percentage. But for the most part, majority of our business is from mainly in America, yeah. We are going to take a break and we'll be back in one minute with my new best friend. Aloha, my name is Wendy Lowe and I want you to join me as we take our health back. On my show, all we do is talk about things in everyday life, in Hawaii or abroad. I have guests on board that would just talk about different aspects of health. In every, in every way, whether it's medical health, nutritional health, diabetic health, you name it, we'll talk about it, even financial health. We'll even have some of the Miss Hawaii's on board and all the different topics that I feel will make your health and your lifestyle a lot better. So come join me, I welcome you to take your health back. Mahalo. Aloha, my name is Victoria and I'm a host at the Adventures in Small Business. This is a collaboration between US Small Business Administration, Hawaii District Office, and its partners. Where we showcase the stories of local entrepreneurs and small businesses, talk about how to start a business, talk about great tips for small business owners. Please join us every Thursday, 11 AM, at Think Tech, Hawaii. Nisa, Mahalo. Hello, I'm Marcia and we're back. And we are navigating the journey through Waikiki. How's that? Okay, tell us about tourism now. This is how you see tourism in Hawaii, because you're right on the front lines of tourism. Is it too much? Is it not enough? How do you see tourism? I think there's, with everything that we do in this world, there's a balance, right? But I think that Hawaii is such a special place and everyone wants to come here. And I think that tourism is the more economic drive into Hawaii next to the military. So it's really good for us to have visitors come here. But I think as they come, we have a responsibility to make sure where we take care of the islands as well. One of the things that, the reason why I joined Outruger because there's something that we believe in is the Outruger way, right? And we care for the guests, which is coming in. We care for the hosts who lives here. Our hosts are our associates. We care for the place, which is our environment, the buildings, the things that we can do to help the community. So I think that as we look at the visitors that come into Hawaii, we look at it in that way. It's our responsibility at Outruger to make sure we are taking care of those people that are impacting our business. If you have a lot of visitors, it could be good. If you don't have enough, it could be bad. All depends on how you look at business, right? But I think it's important that as the people, as our guests come here to stay at all the different hotels in Waikiki, the number one thing is we need to make sure that they're safe. We need to make sure that everything that we do caters to them, and we need to educate them about the culture of Hawaii as well, because I think a lot of people come to Hawaii to actually not only enjoy the beauty, but to educate themselves on the culture of Hawaii. Do you have special classes that? I don't have specifically at my hotel, but we have two beachfronts hotels, Outruger Waikiki, Outruger Reef. And both of those hotels have a cultural director that does classes every day. It's part of the hotel program. And so that's about the local culture? Yeah, so we have ukulele lessons, which is everyone loves that class. We have laymaking. We have stories. Sometimes we sit down with kids and tell stories. I've done it myself in the past. And we have just classes about just educating our guests. We actually, at the Outruger Reef, we have a hale. It's called a house. And it has a lot of history and culture as far as certain things about the hotel and also history of Hawaii itself. So the guests can come in and have a conversation with a cultural person. And if they want to put a one-on-one time with them, they can schedule that as well. Oh, so they really don't have to leave to go anywhere. Now, about the environment, you mentioned that the hotels, the Reef Tower, the industry, or the Outrigger Reefs, or the Outriggers. I'll get it right. Now, what do you mean about taking care of the environment? Well, taking care of the environment meaning being good stewards to where we live. One of the things that we do is we're an advocate of making sure we're protecting the reefs. So we have a program called Outrigger Ozone that focuses on educating folks on the purpose of making sure we protect the reefs. And the company itself has a lot of programs where we volunteer. A couple months ago, we all volunteered to go and clean up the beach. So we want to make sure that not only that we work in Waikiki, but we want to make sure that part of our effort in Waikiki is to make sure that we're a good steward by doing some of these things that's going to help the environment. And the other thing, too, if you look at some of our hotel, we have recycling available. We offer recycling to guests. We also, some of our hotel are moving towards adding filtration unit water in the public areas so that way people can use their bottles instead of using plastic bottles. So there's a lot of things that we're doing to make sure that we're helping with the environment. Now, I know Outrigger is huge, but where else, other than Hawaii, where else are the hotels located? We obviously, most of our hotels are here in Waikiki, but we also have hotels in Fiji. We have hotels in Maldives. We have a couple of hotels. We actually have two hotels in Fiji. And then we have one in Maldives. We have one in Castaway. Where is that? That's all in the Asia. Castaway. Yeah, it's called Outrigger Castaway Resort. So most of those hotels, obviously, resort-like hotels, those are destination hotels. And it's a far trip to fly there. From here to from here, it's not that too bad. But if you're flying from the mainland, it's a long way. That's a long way. But some of our hotels are just spectacular. And it's almost like an oasis when you get there because it's just small island with you and nature. And it's great. That is fabulous. Did you want to work at any of those? If my wife is willing to move, yes. Oh, that makes a difference. Yeah, I don't mind moving. Moving is in my DNA. Yeah, no. Yeah. But I guess to be that isolated, a little time would be fine, but for a long stay would be a little. Well, I lived in Kauai. And Kauai is very isolated. But it's just such a beautiful island. Sometimes you don't think about being isolated. You just think about, look what I have. And you wake up every morning and this is paradise. Yes, I have so much to do, right? Because a lot of times you live in a place and you think it's beautiful, but you never take advantage of the beauty and some of the activities. You only do it when people visit. Yes, yes. And thank you, God. Yes, yes, yes. And so how long were you in Kauai? I was in Kauai for four years. And while I was in Kauai, I met my wife, who was living here at the time. That's why I moved over and I have now a son who was just turned one two weeks ago. Oh, great. Yeah, so you met your wife here? Yeah. The journey that I took put me in the path of my wife. How magic, because how magic is that? Yes. So I have everything to think to Hawaii. Yes. Oh my goodness. You come to paradise and fall in love, right? Yeah, it's a dream, right? Yeah, that is a dream. And become GM. Yeah. And those are the things, the stories of you see that on television and say that's not real. The one thing about hospitality, you can start at the front desk. You can work your way up to where I am today. I actually, our CEO started at the front desk and now he's the CEO of Outrigger. So I think the opportunities in the hospitality industry are pretty, the sky is the limit. So if you were looking to be part of something great, Outrigger is a great company. There's a ton of industries out there. But I think the hospitality industry is just a great place if you want to have an opportunity to either stay in it. If you love Hawaii, you can stay in Hawaii. But if you want to travel the world or you want to live in the mainland, most hotel companies have hotels all over the place. So you can transfer and you can grow your career. It's a really good professional path for people that are looking for a career. OK. All right. Well, now speaking of which, if we have young people that are interested in hotel but like you don't know where to begin or any of this, can they come see you? Yeah. So and then they can also go to Outrigger.com. We have a career tab. They can click on the career tab. And we have information about jobs that are available on our website for not only the hotels that are in Hawaii, but all of our positions are posted for the other hotels in BG and Maldives as well. And if they want to contact someone, they can actually just look online, look at the hotel, and call. And not just say here's a job, but to talk to you like we're talking about a career path and what to expect and all of those kinds of wonderful, just like we're talking. If somebody wanted to do that. Absolutely. And you know the best way for them to reach out is they can just Google my hotel, O'Hana Waikiki East Power Rigger. And if they call, they say, I want to speak to Chris, the general manager. They connect them right to me. Yeah. I don't really screen any calls. I like to talk to anybody. And I do get students sometimes that call. They want help with a project. And I love doing that. So yes, they can do that easily. Now, all the schools here have all the community colleges have tourism and what have you as part of the curriculum. Do you partner with any of those? Yes. So we actually are a partner with high schools, actually. We bring some of the, we partner with high school and colleges, but we bring the kids over to our hotel. So typically, we interview the students as if they're applying for a position. And then based on the interview, we pick out of the pack. And we get the names of the students. And the hotels pick who they want to enter at the hotel. And in part of their internship, they have to go through the entire hotel and learn each department. Wow. That's great. As an intern, high school, you said. High school, yeah. High school and college. Yes. And are there any restrictions on who can and cannot? No restrictions. They just have to be, the program is with certain school and they just have to apply to the program. Wow. That is fabulous. Yes. So we're growing our own. Is that it? Absolutely. You know, we want more kids to think about joining the tourism industry, because I think it's a great path. If you love to work with people and you love to travel, you love just being in different surroundings, tourism is a great professional career. Well, it has been a real pleasure, Chris, being with you. And you will come back. Yes, yes. Please invite me back. You will. Anytime. Anytime. Thank you very much for inviting me over. I really appreciate it. I love your show as well. Oh, thank you. It's such a pleasure being with you. And thank you so much. And we'll see you next time. Allah.