 Wednesday, exciting here on State Tech, and we're going to talk about weddings and marriage today. And we have not one, not two, but three guests, but our major contributor, John Kun Ching, is going to help us figure this out. It's all about weddings in Hawaii and how they were affected by COVID and where they are going now and their jointers, so to speak, at the hip of the hospitality industry. So welcome to the show, John Kun Ching, Jill Eastley, and Yari Moana-Chanbun. John Kun Ching, can you introduce the other ladies so we know who they are? Of course I can. Thanks for having me, Jay. Again, I'm John Kun Ching. I've been fortunate enough to host a new show on the Think Tech Network series called Hawaii Hospitality. And so, look forward to having more people join us to learn more about what's happening in our visitor industry. So yeah, I mean the wedding industry is huge part of our overall visitor industry, and it has been tremendously impacted by what happened with the pandemic and so forth. Once the shutdown kind of came, you know, February, March of 2020, it really hurt a tremendous amount of businesses. And these two ladies that are special guests can share a lot of that, you know, their own personal and business circumstances with all of you. I'd like to introduce the former director of catering events at Turtle Bay Resort who handled anywhere from 300 to 400 weddings per year. That's Tiari, Tipoti, Moana-Chanbun, and then also Jill Easley, who's the owner of Love and Honesty and also Easley Designs. And together or separately, I'm sure they'll be able to share tremendous insight on what's happened in the industry, how they were able to manage through this last year and maybe a year and a half, and how bright the future looks now that we're in tier three. So why don't we take it away, yeah, well, you know, weddings are really inextricably intertwined with Hawai'i because it's such a romantic place. It was always us, you know, for 100 years anyway. I remember when I was in the service, my wife took me to Kauai, she was from Kauai, and she took me on a little boat up the river in Kauai. The guys been on that boat up the river, and they played the Hawaiian wedding song, and she had me then, she had me there. I tell you, it was so romantic, it was just hard to believe. And then, you know, you look at Elvis Presley and all the music that he had at that time, it drew as, as, as hapahaui music with what was his name back in the 30s at the Moana Hotel, Wembley Edwards, it drew people from around the world, okay, and it drew me, of course, and still draws people, doesn't it? Hawai'i is a great romantic place, and therefore a wonderful place to get married. So three or four hundred per annum, that's one every day, plus, how can you handle that? Right. We sometimes have multiple in a day, you know, that'd be a day without, but a lot of Hawai'i's business is destination weddings. So of course, they don't care if they're on Monday through a Thursday, they're all here to celebrate and enjoy the beautiful island. So we have them, you know, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, all the way through the week. And it's profitable, right? It is very profitable. I remember back in March, when all of this was starting, I was sitting at the back of the ballroom at Turtle Bay. We had done a destination wedding of 120 people, and we just did not know what was going to happen, where this was going to go. We all thought it was going to be a month or two or something. And I just started tearing up because I said, I think this is bigger than we all are going to imagine. And sure enough, here we are. It's over a year later, and we're finally getting some of these numbers back up again. It's been a long haul. There's a whole bunch of trades involved in the wedding industry, the wedding practice in Hawaii. Just off the top of my head, and I think of video because that's what we do, but there's a lot of video to be done. And video for weddings has to be high quality and therefore expensive. And then you have food, you have the room, you have, I don't know, there must be other people here. Who else participates in the coming together about a wedding. So so many of off top, you know, I think initially when everyone was impacted, they thought about venues. They thought about maybe the caterers, but not thinking about the florist, which is a huge part. Jill, the wedding planners, the musicians, the entertainers, fireknife and things like that all go into the videos, the photographers. There's just so many different moving pieces. There's companies that do rentals, such as we have Excel rentals, who I'm with now. We do the tents and things. And then there's small specialty companies that do photo booths. It was just such a huge impact by the weddings just coming to a halt. Right. And then we had our DJs and our musicians. And I mean, the musicians were at almost every single one of those little Japanese weddings that you see are the foreign or destination weddings. You know, they were every single time you saw someone out there was a musician out there. So they were really impacted, too. Let us not forget the tuxedos. Yeah, rentals. Actually, all of the makeup artists for the weddings and things like that. That you don't initially think of when you think of an event or a wedding, you know, there's just so many. Right. Now in the hotel, like in Turtle Bay, that would be indoors. But there's a fair number of weddings that are outside. And am I right about this? Have been outside of tents and, you know, temporary structures. With the new rules and regulations right now, they are only allowing 100 people at the outdoor venues, the indoor venues for the little hotels and the little chapels. They're still at 10 people right now. So we're, you know, tomorrow meeting with the lieutenant governor. That's going to be one of our questions is, when is that going to happen? And is that going to impact these smaller, you know, type of venues that have the chapels and the rooms that are indoors? Yeah. Thank you. That's actually a very good topic, right? That maybe you could explain a little bit more about what that new policy is because I thought it was up to 100, you know, per gathering. So there's a separate standard for smaller venues as well. Yeah. So many of the hotels on the venues right now are actually feeling a little bit lost because, you know, I mean, at Turtle Bay, you have your pavilion. So if you're going to be indoors at the pavilion, or if you're going to be inside the ballroom for the ceremony portion, you are still only allowed to have 10 people. The new rule in law that has just been recently passed is a hundred guests per outdoor venue and outdoor weddings. So that's going to be a big, big question tomorrow. And we are inviting, you know, everyone to come down. But with Josh Green, our lieutenant governor, is that he's going to, you know, hopefully address some of those questions that we have. So let's just say at a local wedding, obviously, we're not just talking about destination weddings, because we have so many local weddings as well. So if they, for the indoor part, like in the church, they can have a maximum of 10. But if they do an outside ceremony at the reception, they can have up to 100 people. Right. So a lot of these outdoor venues, like Sunset Ranch, they are just lamb. They have so many people that are calling them because now they can, you know, they have also, I think, a restaurant licensed to for the reception. So now they can have their 100 people ceremony and then their 100 people reception after two. And, you know, our local families are up at 200, 300 numbers way before this. So now they still have to cut their guest list down. But, you know, we don't know how that impacts the church wedding and are the laws for the church is different for the 10 people, because that's all indoors too. I think it's important. When I went to law school and we studied for the recrams for the bar exam, the rooms were never big enough for all the people who were going to take the bars. Right. So a certain number of people would be in the main room and they'd see the speaker's teachers alive. The other ones would be in another ballroom down the passage somewhere and they'd see it on a television, a monitor. You know, these days you can get a monitor that's so big, almost better than live, you know. And I wonder if you could get around that 100 by having 100 here, 100 here, 100 here, repeating with monitors. What do you think? I'm not 100 percent sure. That might be a good question to ask tomorrow. But, you know, what they do too is that they actually do a live feed. And so anyone that can't be there, they can just click on the link and watch too. So maybe you're inviting a hundred of your closest family and friends, but then you do invite to everyone else to do your link where they can all watch it from their phones and their computer. Yeah. So it strikes me that through the year 2010, there were an awful lot of family gatherings done on Zoom. We're talking about weddings, we're talking about funerals, we're talking about anything. What do you like? They're all on Zoom and they were all over the country. And, you know, from the point of view of the people organizing the event, it was cheap because they didn't have to have a room and have that food. You know, all these things you were itemizing, they didn't have to have it. So it was cheap. They liked it that way. Don't you think they want to continue that way? Isn't that something that, you know, because romance requires personal proximity. That's what you're going to tell me. Yeah, go ahead, Scottie. I'll let you. You definitely missed that special moment, right? And those memories that you live. So, you know, funeral services were allowed and a great point was made that, you know, we're allowing the funeral services. Yes, it's an unexpected event, right? Whereas a wedding is planned, which totally understandable. But there's people passing, you know, the grandparents and parents that are waiting to see their child get married now have been waiting a full year for all these postponed weddings that are missing that special moment, you know, walking their daughter down the aisle. The brides are missing out on those moments. I think weddings and, you know, those events bring people together. So it's often a time that you, you know, finally see your family and create these lasting memories, very impactful. And that's, you know, just been totally stopped. I did want to mention about the 10 to also keep in mind that includes your vendors. So it was really hard for anyone to have a wedding. Because really, as you mentioned, all of the vendors that go into it, if you have a photographer, a videographer and a musician, that's four of your 10, you know, then you've got you in the groom. And then that leaves you really for guests. So it's not even that they can have to serve you. So, you know, the hotels, gee, I know people who were going to get married during the early part of COVID and they got stopped in the tracks. And, boy, that's hard. It's hard on the hotels, because the hotels that, you know, forming up for all these events all over their calendar, and it gets stopped and the people who were going to get married have, you know, postponed their marriages. It's not like they, they are a scope or anything. I mean, a lot of local people would not follow. They would wait for the big shending because the big shending is not the same if you've looked already, you know, so I'm just wondering, John, about, about the how the hotels feel about weddings. How important are they? It seems to me that if you're looking for the big events and the big ballrooms, a lot of them are going to be weddings, right? Yeah, you know, you know, obviously things have changed pretty significantly over the last year, right? You know, at pre-COVID 2019, business was so strong that weddings were always important, especially for the local ones here. Most of the destination weddings weren't that large. I would say some of the Neighbor Island hotels and maybe Turtle Bay got the larger ones, but if you were like the Waikiki Hotel, like the Hyatt or the Hilton or the Marriott, you didn't get the large destination weddings, but the big local weddings were very important, right? So, you know, there were some weddings you could get a thousand, thousand people and so they were important and for the hotels that had large ballrooms like the Hilton, the Marriott, the Sheraton, the Alohielani Hotel, you know, from maybe May all the way through August, it was difficult to find a weekend, a Saturday night, especially and maybe a Sunday afternoon or Sunday night for your weddings. And so now with business levels dropped significantly, yeah, the volume for wedding inquiries has gone up tremendously. You know, I have a lot of contacts that are in sales and catering positions for some of the big hotels and their phones are going crazy. They're getting emails, you know, now that they know that Hawaii's opened up a little bit, more people are traveling, their grandparents have gotten their vaccination, people are feeling a little bit more comfortable with making that travel. So I can speak firsthand, so I was at Turtle Bay when it closed and I was there until mid-September and during the COVID, especially, you know, in April of 2020, I mean, we were inundated with calls of people, there was, you know, couples from the mainland and local that were going to have weddings in April, May, June and July and obviously they were frantic, they made all their arrangements, they had bought airline tickets, they had all their musicians plans, they had their tents, their videos, everything organized and deposits paid. And so obviously they were asking, okay, if you're cancelling us in April, are you going to be open in June? And, you know, no one has that crystal ball. So we were just moving weddings further down the road, you know, maybe three months, six months, you're not. You know, till finally, I think during the summer of last year, when things got really bad, I think a lot of the brides and the grooms decided, hey, it doesn't look good and there's no sense in moving it to the fall because, you know, let's just hold it off the next year. And so I know a lot of the hotels in Hawaii are slammed with those wedding requests and back to your question, yeah, I think it's even more important now because business levels are softer. So any business is pretty much good business. Oh, that's a very interesting thought. You know, we have to reopen. We have to reopen the hotel. And there's an avalanche of weddings out there that have been deferred. And these people want to get married, it means it's a natural thing. We have one member that she can hardly wait. And her family, you know, hundreds of people, they can hardly wait. They're one of those telephone calls you're talking about. And so there's a lot of them out there. And when, you know, you open, you open this up, they're going to be all over the hotels, they're going to be a huge avalanche of business for the hotel. Even if you can't fill the rooms, you've got to fill the ballrooms, right? Yeah, you know, I think it's going to be really interesting how the hotels handle that, right? Because, you know, when you do a banquet catering event in a hotel, you know, you get a certain obviously profit margin. And a lot of times you have the staff already working. So but with a lot of these hotels without meetings, without any other banquet or catered events, most of their catering, their banquet, their culinary staff are still on furlough. So, you know, it's a little suspect that you're going to bring a team back to handle a wedding and the weekend. So it's going to be interesting to see somebody's, how these hotels react to that. I mean, you know, everyone's excited that the demand is coming back. But if you have to bring a team back just for a four-hour shift or a six-hour shift to handle a wedding that you may not make that much money on it, you know, will they actually want to do it? Or will they, you know, will they regret it and say, hey, we're not open for that business yet? Yeah, well, I mean, this goes to the changes that might result from COVID. For example, if I was working here, if I was working in a hotel before as part of a team that was regularly available for weddings, and there have been essentially no weddings for the past year, now we're uncertain about exactly when and what degree we're going to have weddings. If I'm a hotel, I'm going to say to you, fellow, if you're on a team, be a contractor, be a company. And when we need you to come down, and it won't be every day, every moment, we'll call you and we'll make a, we'll make a deal for that, for that wedding. Isn't that the future more than it was before? I think my, maybe possibly there's, I think a lot of people pivoting, right? So it's what makes business sense, like you said, without being able to predict when weddings were going to come back or what degree they're going to come back to. And then to the point we discussed earlier, like how long is it going to last? Is there going to be another shutdown? You know, there's, it's really unpredictable. So I think there are a lot of people looking to come up with creative solutions to manage labor and things like that. As you mentioned, it's a huge, a huge change from what it was, whereas we had constant weddings, as John had mentioned, you know, 400 events a year, we had a full team. But with weddings, it's kind of something that you do need constant because you're still in constant contact besides event days, you've got lead-up calls every day. Jill can attest to this, so she gets the money every day. You kind of need that support 24-7. So I do expect catering departments and things to fill back in at the hotels. There's just so many behind the scenes things that need to happen besides wedding days, as far as contractors and vendors coming back and managing their labor. For example, at Now With Excel, we had 150 employees at the end of the shutdown. We've just started to reopen and it was down to like 15, you know, on Island here and then a small team on Maui. So that shows you how many people were affected by this. And then, of course, it's now trying to ramp up and predict when is it going to boom. I can attest that my phone has been going absolutely crazy. For Excel, we sell tense events and event items. So of course, with the outdoor, people are pivoting their ideas and those that have the small ones reserved in ballrooms are moving out so that they can allow more people at the weddings. So it's just everything changing, kind of unpredictable. I don't think the whole business community has the same issue. But I think it's more accentuated with this because there's so many emotional strings attached. And, you know, for small companies such as mine, we are not going to be able to bring people back full time for a little bit. We're still going to have to have our skeleton staff and the hiring contract workers because, you know, we've pivoted so many times with the date that all these weddings that we're having this year coming up, they're all paid for last year. So it's like, we still have all the expenses now. But, you know, all the money came in last year and we kept promising our clients no matter when this goes forward, we'll move the date. But we couldn't make any promises and we still can't like, you know, we can say, this is what's happening now. But we're, you know, we're all in this together, basically. But you can manage it to some extent. You know, John and I did a show a couple of weeks ago and one of the things we discussed about this is, is branding for safety. Right. And, you know, there are 27 things you can advertise to demonstrate that your operation is safe. And the restaurants are in the same ballpark. They also have the brand for safety. And when you can do that, you know, then, then you're going to have more customers because there'll be people who'll be less reserved about coming back. So, you know, I think part of this for the hotels and for the wedding organizations, so to speak, is to, is to bring people in who would otherwise be afraid. You know, whatever the number of people permitted is, you know, you want them to, yeah, your clientele are really the attendees. It's not, it's not just, you know, the pride improvement of families. You don't have to appeal to the people who might come or not. And you have to prove to them that this is safe. You have to see their whole experience from the time they leave their homes till the time they, you know, are at the wedding. So how do you do that? How do you do that? You know, this would help in reopening, wouldn't it? If you brand it for safety, what would you do here, the brand for safety? So it's just following the guidelines. And there's actually a fun kind of cheat sheet that the three has made. So there was an event team kind of working event coalition, working to bring back events and demonstrating that there are these professionals that have this knowledge, right? And that we can execute safely. This is what we do for a living. So that was one of the points in allowing weddings and events to come back. Conferences are cleared as well, but it is with the six foot social distancing. So keeping people distance, enforcing masks, having adequate or as much as possible the sanitation, right? Having the dispensers and things for hand washing and for sanitizer, wiping common touch surfaces. How about requiring proof of a vaccine? That's, yeah, I think something that may come about too as we see it popping up right now in the news, right? With travel and things considering that. So it's also not only the attendees though, what I worry for the bigger things like corporate meetings and stuff is, it's the host having to be comfortable and knowing that they can bring their people and promise safety, right? So like you said, it's demonstrating that and thinking through these things and it's definitely doable. You know, anyway, if we can come to a mall or anything like that, we can definitely execute safe meetings and events, right? So what about you, what would you add to that? So we've done a couple of weddings that were on a smaller scale that, you know, your temperature checks, just everybody has to, you know, they have to sit in their seats. There's not a lot of dancing allowed. And if there is up and about wearing masks, but I just think that once we start the ball rolling, we're going to be able to tweak it as we go and see what needs to be made, the changes that need to be made and new rules. And I think that's, you know, the key is, is that everybody follows the rules, right? So people are out there and they just do whatever they want and they don't follow these guidelines. They're going to ruin it for the rest of us. So I think that's what we're kind of working with, with all of our vendors. Well, that would be the worst case analysis, wouldn't it? But somehow you have a spreader event and they all go home and two weeks later, you get a high percentage of cases. Oh, that would be awful. And so whatever you do, you have to prevent that. You know, one of the things, John, that's come up in this discussion is about the deposits. Because, I mean, as in the case of a staff member who's getting married, she was very organized and she, you know, she was, she's a business woman. And so she was arranging things, every little detail, you know, attention to detail. That's what weddings are about, isn't it? It's kind of like an opera, attention to every single detail. And that's the payload. That's the mark of excellence. But to do that and to organize it the right way, you've got to make deposits. And, you know, in the case of this one staff member, she had a lot of deposits out there. And I'm not sure how it all worked out. But, you know, some organizations would like to give you your money back. Some organizations would like to hold on to your money for, you know, until it's, until it's soup later. And some organizations are going to fail. And that, and that money is gone. No refund. So what are your thoughts about that, John? No, good. Excellent point, Jay. You know, that, that is a, you know, that, that, that's really interesting how some companies and individual businesses reacted to that, right? So it seemed like a lot of the bigger companies, at first, whether it was corporate meetings or weddings or other special events, they didn't want you to cancel. Because, you know, as we talked a little bit earlier, nobody knew whether this shutdown was going to last one month, two months, three months, six months. I mean, no one expected it was going to last as long as it did. So people were saying, okay, we're not going to let you cancel. If you cancel, there's going to be X amount percent that will retain as a penalty. But if you just rebook, so if you had your wedding in April, if you were able to rebook it in June, then there would be no penalty. Where some companies came right out front and said, hey, we understand the concern. And you know what, we'll refund you 100% of your money. And when you decide that it's safe enough for you and your family to travel, whether you, you know, book in a meeting or a wedding or another special event, hopefully you'll think of us. So from my perspective, it was really interesting to see how the different big companies, small companies, facilities like Sunset Ranch, like Turtle Bay, like Hilton, like Hyatt, not just locally, but across the country, handled the deposit, refund, rebooking situation. And it was really interesting. I mean, there were definitely some concerns. So again, while the hotel was closed, I was fielding a lot of these requests about, you know, people who had put significant amount of money down for deposit. And so we took a real clear stance at Turtle Bay, saying that if you clearly wanted to cancel, we didn't want you to have to worry about whether you would get your deposit or not. Because we understand if we were in your same situation, we would not want to be held hostage, knowing that I had to rebook in another three months or six months. So we clearly said if you know you want to cancel, then just let us know in writing and we'll get your full refund back as soon as possible. But if you decide that you want to stay at Turtle Bay because you've dreamt about this wedding at the beach or in the lawn for the last two years, 10 years, 20 years of your life, then you know what? We'll hold your deposit and then when it's safe to rebook, then we'll rebook it. But you're right, Jay, that has been a really interesting dynamic in how different companies have reacted to that. And some have created lifelong customers for the future and some have created situations where customers might say, hey, I'll never do anything with your company again because you charge me a 50 percent penalty on my deposit when I had no recourse and it was completely out of my control. Yeah, that really touches an important point and that is this is an opportunity to have an engagement with your customers that will define their feeling about you for the rest of their lives. If you do it right and it doesn't have to be ridiculous, do it fairly. You will have them forever. If you do it unfairly or as you say, put a penalty on it, they're gone. They'll never come back to you and they'll be talking stink forever about you. So it's really an important, important issue and that goes for the wedding organizations too. How do you handle, how have you handled this issue about deposits, Jill? It was very difficult when, you know, we had moved several of the weddings and we're event planners, right? So we start planning from the very beginning. It's not like they paid for something that's going to be down the line. So we had a hard time because when our clients come in, we already tell them all of our deposits, no matter what the situation, are non-refundable. We make that very clear with them. So most of our clients were very understanding. It really folded our heartstrings like when some of them had to cancel and they said, you know, we understand this is non-refundable. But, you know, I'm a small company. If I have to give back 50 deposits that are at like $1,500 each, I'm out of business because I don't have any more business coming in. So it's not like I can refund it. So we just really were understanding with our clients. We said, listen, we will roll, we will ride this out with you even if you come back to us and say, okay, our company or our venue is not reopening. So we're going to move it to this place or we're going to get married in two years and we're going to do our ceremony first. Can you make the Brottable K and then do our reception flowers into the next two years? We basically bent over backwards as far as whatever we could do to help them. And I would say 95% of our clients were very, very understanding about that. 5% were not. But, you know, I think a lot of my small companies like myself and a lot of others just have to stand their ground on that. Well, you know, it goes to a point about the industry is the husband and the wife and the families and the attendees, they all want to feel there's love in the air. And that's why you want to show some love. And you can show it in various ways, even ways that are essentially business-like but also have love. And if you don't have that, if you have a hard-nosed kind of unfair, unpopular solution, it really crushes their whole experience as, you know, as participants in a wedding. You'll always remember that. And I'm going to tell you my own stories, but I think that everybody has a story either good or bad about how things went. So Terry, what would you add about deposits? Anything? So like you said, you know, ideally we would all love to be able to give them back. We all understand, as John mentioned, a lot of the bigger companies were able to. And I think if you're able to, you know, great, we understand that this is already a hard situation for them. But to Jill's point, there's so many smaller companies that some that just don't even have the money to give back at that point, right? If you made your deposit almost a year ago, that money's been invested already or spent. So there was a lot who I know really struggled with it, you know, going back and forth with their clients and just having to stick to that guideline. Most I think were understanding, as Jill said, we all know this is a totally unexpected situation. So I have a small company as well, which luckily I didn't have that many, you know, bookings, so we were able to refund or move. I have a lot that have just moved their event. So we just kind of been staying, playing the way to game, like Jill said, and just moving them as they go. You think that people's perception of the whole experience will have changed over this year? I mean, I keep looking for that, because our lives have changed. My life anyway, has changed a lot in my daily existence has changed. It just has. And my way of thinking, my way of dealing with people, all that. And so I'm always looking for what kind of profound changes are, have we learned about it? Have we experienced that change the way we're going to do things in the future? Do you think people's view of weddings will change, aren't changing? I think, I think Jill will be great feedback on this, but my short note on it is, I think they are going to cherish it more. For me, that's what it's meant for me, is to look at, really appreciating the moments that you have with your loved ones. My family is based in New Zealand, New Zealand and Australia. Been able to see my family. You know, I have family that's been ill. We've had funerals. Nobody can go to, and I think that's impacted a lot of people. So it's really taking advantage, like have I, do I have the opportunity to visit and go to a wedding now? Definitely jumping on it, you know, because you don't know when the next time is that you'll see your loved ones. Yeah. Well, to see them with a mask on is better than not. You can quote me on this. It's better than not to see them at all. Jill, you already said you know a lot about this. What is your thought? Yeah. A bride is a bride is a bride, no matter what time it is, you know. So I actually have a bride that just walked into love and honesty right now. She's going to get married center court here on Saturday at Woodward Mall. But I'm telling you, like, they're just dying to plan. Like everybody can't wait to finally walk down the aisle, be there with their families. I know we talked about Zoom, but you know, you can't see the little details of their shoes on Zoom. So it's just all those details coming together. So I think it has not stopped people from being excited to plan. It is sad in some of our clients because, you know, when they were going to get married last year, they had their grandmother that was going to attend. But now maybe necessarily not. So there are a lot of different things that are changing up where they're making sure that they have the remembrance table and pictures up of their family members that could have been here. But I have not seen any changes with how these brides are just so excited that, you know, we're finally opening and we're ready to go no matter what level it is. It's hope. It gives everyone hope. I think it reminds us, this all reminds us, and it plays well in the context of this discussion, that, you know, birth, marriage, death, and other cultural holidays, but mainly those define our culture, define our community, define our lives. And we can't live without them. We can't give up those very special moments in life. And we have missed those things for the past year. And as we return, we return with a with a sense of familiarity to the basic cortisone's life on the planet. And so I expect you guys should probably go out and hire a lot of staff right now. Just in case, okay? Yeah, dropping out. And John, I want to I want to talk to you about the the whole down as a hotel consultant, been in the hotel industry for a lifetime. And, you know, from a planning point of view, I'm a hotel, and I, and I talked to you and we try to figure out how we're going to handle this. It's not, it's not a done deal yet, because we have the possibility of surges and variants and issues about travel. It's not over at all. There's so many moving moving parts. I'm reminded of the Holly Colani and closed up last year, and they said, we are going, we're going to do a renovation. We've been waiting for the opportunity. Now we're going to spend a year or more. This renovation, we're going to open until the summer of this year, they said, right? The summer of this year sometime. Was that a good idea? And what kind of planning goes around that renovation versus trying to reopen? You know, the whole thing about the timeline, when are people ready to come back? When is the wedding industry ready to start up? What would be your advice, if you can formulate advice, you know, within a sea of unknown variables? Well, I don't know that I'm qualified to give any advice, but I'll share my opinions and thoughts. So if you're a company like Holly Colani and even Blackstone, who owns Turtle Bay, you know, this was a great opportunity for them to stay closed, doing that, the business levels. And I think they looked at it, you know, they saw what was happening in January, February of 2020, things got really bad in the end of March, the island shut down, you had to surge. And I think at one point, you know, it was touch and go, anyway, I can speak for Turtle Bay, that they were, you know, do we open? Does it look like demand is coming back? Does it look like our source market, our major market being North America might have an opportunity to come back? At the same time, I know that Turtle Bay was going through a major renovation. So how was that affecting contractors? How was it affecting the funds that were going to be able to be provided to do the renovations in the timeline that they wanted? So, you know, the Holly Colani was a little bit different. They knew that they had this major renovation. They know that the majority of their customers were from Japan. So I think they made the best decision saying that maybe that market is not going to come back for a while. Let's shut down. You know, we don't have that many North American customers. Let's just shut down and do as much work as we possibly can. And hopefully the market will come back by June or July. Now, it doesn't look like the Japan market is going to come back at that time. It may be the last quarter of 2020, or it could be the first quarter of 2021, or it could be the first quarter of 2022. But with Turtle Bay, with the North American customer being their number one source market, I think they're primed for a great reopening sometime in July. Obviously pending when the renovations are done. But yeah, it's been an interesting situation for its hotels. As we talked earlier, Jay, a couple of weeks ago, there are some hotel owners and management companies that decided to stay open during the entire time. For example, some of the smaller ones like the Surf Jack never closed. Some of the, I think the Outrigger Waikiki never closed. The Laylow, the Marriott Autograph Collection on Cugio Avenue, I think the Hilton Garden Inn never closed. So some of those hotels, they suffered through the worst times in April, May, and then the summer, when literally the occupancy might have been 5% or 10%. And most of that might have been some of the existing airline crews still flying cargo flights back and forth. And then all the incoming medical personnel, the nurses and the doctors that were coming in to support the medical facilities here. So without that business and then other government business and some corporate business that still had to take place, they would have suffered. But on the other hand, now that business is starting to ramp up, they may have a leg up because they've already been operating lean and mean. They're starting to add on people little by little. Yeah, so it's an interesting situation. In every hotel, the situation is different because obviously all the owners are different. They have economic impact on that particular owner. And then you've got the difference between a union hotel and a non-union hotel. If you're a non-union hotel, you can bring back somebody who can work at the restaurant. And then when the front desk gets busy, he or she can spend a couple of hours at the front desk and check gets in. But if you're a union hotel, you can't cross-mix any of those responsibilities. So I think for the union hotel, which are most of the major and larger hotels on the islands, they've had to do a lot more strategizing and thinking about how do we reopen and when we do reopen, how much staff do we bring back? Well, boy, I tell you, every time you look, it's more complex. And every time you look, it seems to be a moving target. And I hope you guys, Jill and Thierry, were taking notes from when John was speaking. Because although that doesn't necessarily relate to the local wedding market, it certainly speaks to the visiting wedding market. Very complex, very important to the state. You're all very important to the state. And through you guys, there are hundreds of thousands of people affected by this industry and by hospitality in general. I wish you all the best of luck. Thank you very much for coming on, Jill and Thierry. And John, thank you for setting this up. It's wonderful to be able to have this kind of discussion. It's so timely, so talkative. So say goodbye to the guest, John. Hello, hi, everybody.