 Aloha. My name is John Kanching, and welcome to another episode of Hospitality Hawaii, where I have the privilege of speaking to leaders, executives from all different fields of our very diverse hospitality and visitor industry. Every two weeks, we have 30 minutes to gain insight, ideas, comments, suggestions, discuss concerns about what's happening in our industry. We also give our guests the opportunity to talk about their companies, their products, their enterprises, and to share what's going on and their own personal feelings about the industry. The objective is to provide different perspective, different points of view, and to provide information to those not only working in the industry, but also those are outside the industry. So it gives me tremendous pleasure and is a privilege to introduce our guests today. And they're all volunteer leaders who are giving their personal time to helping to educate and provide information to not only our current team members involved in the industry, but also to help nurture and develop future leaders in the hospitality industry. So I'd like to introduce the team from the Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association, the Hawaii chapter. First we have Mari Kam Aipa, who's the current president. And then we have Dan Waxman, who's the vice president of education. And last but not least, we have the immediate past president, Susan Kaui-Colar. So welcome all three, and thank you for making the time to join me. Pleasure. Mahalo, John. Okay. So before we get started with Mari, who will share information about what HSMAI and the Hawaii chapter is, just some personal thoughts about HSMAI that has been around for quite a while. I've always thought that education is the key to developing good, solid sales and marketing executives. And I know that through the years HSMAI has expanded from just going from the sales and marketing side to also the revenue management and also the e-commerce and marketing side as well. So many of us have worked with large corporations that have their own training programs, but many, many of our team members and workers who haven't worked with large companies just don't have that structure for good, ongoing education. And this is where I've always felt that HSMAI, both the Hawaii chapter and the national chapter, has been a great resource to help fill that void. So Mari, maybe you can share a little bit about HSMAI and what some of the things that you're doing here locally. Sure. I'm happy to do that. Hi. And thanks again, John, for having us on today to share a little bit more about HSMAI. Just as you had mentioned, our association is the leading global association for sales, marketing and revenue management professionals, really representing all statements of the hospitality industry and our partners. With more than 7,000 members worldwide, our association has really become the industry champion in identifying and communicating trends in the hospitality industry while also operating as a leading voice for hospitality sales, marketing and revenue management disciplines. As a member, individuals gain access to our global and local network, weekly tools, insights and trends, as well as discipline specific education and globally recognized certifications in revenue and marketing and also business acumen. Locally our Hawaii chapter meets monthly, providing really, if I do say so myself, some really outstanding educational and networking opportunities that are relevant not only to each discipline, but also to the local industry in general. Hey, Mari, thanks for that introduction. Can you share a little bit about your background? How you got started in the industry and what's your current goal? Sure. So currently I am the complex director of online marketing for the Kyolya-owned Marriott properties in Waikiki. So Sheraton Waikiki, Royal Hawaiian, Monastery Rider and Sheraton Princess Kailani. I actually started in F&B in the industry. Back when I was an undergraduate student, and you may remember this restaurant, actually it's no longer there, but I used to work at the Shorebird as a host. When I was in college, I had done a semester in Japan, come back, really wanted to keep up with my language skills and so they hired me because they were looking for, they needed at least one person on their staff who could speak Japanese. So I started there and later went into marketing in PR and other industries and I just loved, always loved to travel and I really loved food and I was really convinced actually that I wanted to start my own restaurant. So decided to go back to school. I went to Cornell Hotel School and got my master in management in the hospitality industry there. And then after when I was there, decided I just want to eat food and I don't want to actually run a restaurant. So anyway, long story short, after working in D.C. for a little while, I made my way all the way back home. I had the opportunity to work for Holly Kalani's corporate offices and help with their digital marketing initiatives and then have been with Merit Waikiki most recently. That's a great story, Mari. And I didn't know that as well. So I mean, that's actually perfect of what we want for the show. You know, because we don't necessarily need the and want all the high, high level executives that make all these major decisions, but we want to learn how people get started and how they work their way up to the role that you are. You obviously hold a very important role for major, major hotels. So how do you get involved with HSMAI to begin with? You know, quite honestly, I got involved as a student when I was at Cornell. That was my first exposure to it. And it's nice actually that that was my experience, I have to say, now looking back because we do also have a student chapter locally that we work with, that UH and recently in Maui, too. So it's a great way for students to get really exposed to our industry, especially here in Hawaii, just showing them how wonderful the industry really is. And then the networking opportunities that are available to them as students are just really invaluable as well. Great. All right, Dan, you're up next. So, you know, and I noticed when I was introducing everyone, everyone, both Mari and Susan had their middle name. So I guess you're Dan Taniala Waxman. I'll go with that. All right, tell us about yourself, Dan. You know, I know you're a long time Outrigger executive, but tell us a little bit about that, how you got in the industry and what are you doing now? Sure, sure. So like she said, I was with Outrigger for over a decade. I left about three years ago. So my role in Outrigger, I was Senior Vice President of Marketing and Distribution. I left Outrigger about three years ago. I had the great idea of starting my own business. Didn't realize a pandemic was going to happen. I started in the middle of that, but it went well. My focus in my business is marketing, distribution and technology, which fits in very well with HSMAI. I spent about a decade or so in Asia, doing different sort of travel businesses and getting involved in technology and distribution there. I got my, actually got my start, although as you might not be able to tell from my accent, I am not originally from Hawaii, although this is not my first time in Hawaii. I actually got my start in Hawaii. Maybe people who are old enough might remember that little kiosk across the street from the Hawaii Convention Center. Do you recall that, John, that little kiosk that sold cheap tickets? Yeah, yeah, I do. That's the corner where the ABC store is, right? That's right. They knocked it down for the vendor when it was coming there soon. But so I got my start at that company, Cheap Tickets, back in the late 90s. They were a call center-based business. Everybody thought the business was that little box. They used to say, well, those people work in that little box, but we actually had five call centers and over 600 employees. And I got my start as a trainer, training people on the call center side. Now, who was the founder of that? The name is on my tip of my tongue when he sold it to Mike Hartley. That's right. He made a ton of money selling it to one company. Yeah, he sold it to the send-in. He went, the best timing in the world, Mike, a great guy and a great family. But he sold, he went public right at the peak of the internet boom. And he sold right before 9-11. Best timing in the world. So he had a great run of it. So I was there, got my start there. And we actually put it in. So we were just a call center-based business. We put a web front end on it and exploded. And then I became kind of the web guy from then on. And I've been involved some degree in travel, web, travel technology ever since. Great. Great story. So what is your engagement with HSMAI? And how'd you first get started? Part of being a member and then picking a leadership role and a voluntary role? Yeah, so I actually started on the national. I didn't get involved in the chapter until really last year. I was involved at the national level for a bunch of years. I actually was the chair of the marketing advisory board for a couple of years. And I just found it to be such a fantastic organization. Early on, you mentioned that we're all volunteers. So none of us get paid for this. This is just volunteer work. And I think we do it for a couple of reasons. And Mari and Susan can tell me if they agree. But number one is we love the industry and we want to give back, right? We want to help and just get people interested, help people get educated, help people network. That's the altruistic motive. And then the selfish motive is it's a great organization to meet people, to network with people, to get educated, to learn. I know I used to joke with people on the national level that I literally live on an island. So I don't have a lot of information. So I want to get off that island and learn more. And one good way to get off our island, both literally and figuratively, is to meet people outside, right? Outside of our organization, outside of our geography. And, you know, find out, are we doing the right things? Are there other things we can learn from other organizations and other people? And that's made the huge benefit of the organization. So Dan, I mean, before we move over to Susan, you know, obviously, as I mentioned before, the organization was just sales and marketing executives, right? And now obviously the progression is revenue management and marketing distribution and so forth. Can you talk a little bit about that progression? Probably over the last, maybe five to seven, maybe 10 years. And maybe what you see in the future, like, you know, is the focus more on sales or is it on technology and revenue optimization in a lot of different ways? And maybe it'll always be a combination of both. But I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. Yeah, well, my answer is going to be just that all of the above, right? I mean, I think what you're seeing is a convergence of the three, because they're not separated anymore. When I first came to Outrigger, we had the marketing team and we had the digital team, right? That doesn't exist in most organizations anymore. Marketing is digital, right? It's not, there's no separation between the two. And sales is becoming more and more digital. You can't run a sales department without having effective digital tools and the ability to understand and implement those. So there's lots of crossover. So, you know, there's a convergence. They're all still extremely important. You see a lot of organizations now have changed their structures. They have, you know, they have chief commercial officers or chief revenue officers now. Instead of having, you know, necessarily a CMO, a revenue person, you have somebody who understands all of the disciplines and can figure out how to converge them because they don't work very well in silos. Great. Yeah, no, no, it is very interesting. And, you know, as we look at all the different job postings that come above and then the companies that are reorganizing their system structure, you know, I mean, you know, when you look at the former Sheridan Starwood organization, it seemed like they always went from individual properties having their own director of sales and marketing to clustering and then every five, six, seven, 10 years, it go back the other way around. And now you're seeing organizations that just have their director of sales just focusing on groups and they have their revenue or marketing distribution people doing all the FIT and transient business and they have a focused marketing person as well. So it actually is really, really interesting the progression. And I think it probably adds more employment opportunities for the young people because, you know, things aren't as all in one anymore. I mean, now you've really got specialties. Just to add to that really is this, again, we're here to talk about HSNAI, one of the plugs that I have for HSNAI is they help you learn about the other's discipline, right? So if you're revenue management and you want to learn about digital marketing, there's a class you can take and a certification you can take. If you're a marketer and you want to learn about sales, same thing, right? So you can sort of cross-pollinate and get that information. In fact, again, shameless plug here, but I teach a class for HSNAI called the Hotel Digital Marketing Essentials class. And what we do there is we help people understand the basics of hotel digital marketing so they can speak the language and understand it and work better with their colleagues. Right. And there's a similar revenue management one as well and a sales one as well. All right, thanks, Dan. Hey, we've actually got a great question, but before I bring up that question, definitely want to introduce Susan Kauwe-Kohler, who is the immediate past president and she's, I think, been the immediate past president for the last five years or so. But Susan, welcome and tell us a little bit about yourself, how you got started, what you're currently doing and what your focus is on with HSNAI. Sure, well, I, as a local girl, I did go to school on mainland in Denver and I had my start in Southern California with Sheraton, was with Hilton for many years before I finally made it home. And with the MC Suites White Kiki Beachwalk and then transitioned over to the Westin, the Moana Surfrider, which became part of Marriott and currently I am still with Marriott on the North Shore. So for me, certainly I've seen the evolution of sales marketing with revenue management as a discipline and also digital marketing come along and it's really been enlightening and appreciate what HSNAI has done on being able to participate in that evolution. I got involved in HSNAI in Southern California but really, just as a member, I really got engaged when I came back to Hawaii, never worked in the islands. It was my way to be able to network and build my network here locally as well as to take advantage of the resources and also develop. So joining the board was pretty early on but it gave me exactly what I was looking for and that was to be able to certainly spread my web and get to know a lot of people in the industry and while doing so be able to really foster the commitment to some of these other disciplines because I always believe in my background of sales. I always believe that a salesperson really needs to understand these other disciplines in order to be successful. As Dan had mentioned, it's important to understand they're all integrated and they are. If you try to be too siloed, you will be left out and so for me going from a larger property now to a smaller property even more so that certainly in a smaller property you're wearing a lot more hats and it's really good to be able to have an understanding of all of these different facets. So what are you focusing on in your volunteer work with HSNAI? Well, I am currently as past president certainly I get to choose what I would like to do which is great but one of the things that I am involved in is in the upcoming golf tournament. Certainly in order to and membership and in order to really continue the efforts of this great organization it is about supporting our members, increasing membership, providing the resources and certainly the programming and also to provide some sponsorship for our students too because you talk about future leaders this is a perfect opportunity that we're able to help with that. So the organization also subsidizes the students that participate in the student chapter. In order to continue the efforts that this chapter has made over the past year where so many of our members were actually impacted it certainly was the industry that was impacted the most with the pandemic. In fact a really good statistic to understand is 75% of our board members actually were directly impacted either furloughed or their positions eliminated whatever may have happened we did lose the number of members, board members who happened to lead the industry all together but the positive is we actually brought on seven new board members individuals who are really energized and interested in wanting to give back as well. So in our efforts certainly and in order to support our members as well as non-members we've been providing some great education and in order to do that we also have been looking for sponsors. So the upcoming golf tournament is twofold certainly is to continue that effort but also to benefit the Hawaii Food Bank. And so on July 23rd we're hosting the 11th annual golf tournament for HSMai Hawaii at the Hawaii Prince Golf Club and there are many ways to get involved. Certainly we would love for you to come out and participate as a team come out and have some fun but also you can participate as a sponsor you can also volunteer or donate a prize for our silent auction or raffles. There has been such a wonderful response and I do think that our members are so eager to get out be able to network again and come out and just have a great day. So yeah we invite you all to come on and join us. All right so Susan you brought up a good point right so so yes the probably the hospitality in the visitor industry was the one most affected and probably for the longest period of time too as hotels are still coming back and you know I know a lot of the hotels in San Francisco and New York are just opening up now this week or if they're even open. So what did the national do? Was there anything any support from the national with respect to membership? So you know as you know executives were furloughed especially the sales and marketing and all the other you know categories that members fall in were furloughed and or even laid off. Was there any concessions that are being made to keep the membership or is it just we'll just kind of wait to see when the economy picks up and then we'll pick up from there. Actually there's no doubt that a lot of individuals lost memberships because of the fact that either they were furloughed or there were budget cuts. The national organization really stepped in to help and whether it was to offer some very special membership pricing discounts or even subsidies. Some of the group they actually also provided grants to those individuals that wanted to continue their education or gain certifications. So it was a really wonderful show of support from our national chapter for all of our members worldwide. But here locally it was about providing education at no charge. You know continuing to engage our members and provide education so that they could stay you know sharp in their knowledge. But it was also a way to stay connected and we really felt that people needed that. It was important because a lot of us were separated right. And what is probably one of the biggest successes for this chapter this past year is the fact that we were able to expand to the neighbor islands. So this virtual platform has provided us to increase our memberships on Maui and the Big Island and also include them in our programming as well. Well you know it's interesting right now as more of the hotels and companies whether it's airlines or transportation or attractions are starting to reopen or they're reopened and businesses getting back to close to pre pandemic levels. People are starting to get hired back. You know I hear you know the revenue more revenue people are being hired back more sales and marketing people are being hired back. So it bodes well for membership growth for HSMAI. You know I will say though you know just from experience maybe just as a thought you know and I don't know and I'm sure you've done that but it's the people who control the purse trains right. It's the directors of finance and it's the general managers who are the ones that really need to be sold on it especially now during this time when they're looking to keep overhead expenses as low as possible. Maybe that's an opportunity for all of you to do a concerted effort against the general managers to make sure that they keep the membership funding going or at least they you know it might be a way to attract the members. But anyway let's go to a question. We actually had a question from from someone who's viewing and the question reads there is a lot of debate now amongst the politicians regarding whether we now have too many tourists. Now obviously this is this is specifically HSMAI related. Is there a future for the sales and marketing in the tourism industry if the powers that be decide that they want to discriminate or disincentivize tourism arrivals? It goes somewhat to the discussion that that I brought up a little bit earlier before the show about instead of the HTA being a tourist tourism marketing organization to being a tourism management organization. So who wants to comment on that? Ann? When I first moved to Hawaii I think the the the count of tourists was about five or six million. I think in our peak we're about 10 million. So certainly there needs to be better management of tourism all right and then how we approach it. But I think sort of taking this snapshot in time of this post COVID you know what people are calling revenge travel is probably a mistake right. What we're having is this this this weird dynamic of an influx of tourism which by the way is still lower than normal right. But it doesn't appear that way to people because things like restaurants are 75% but with six feet distancing. So it feels like it's much more crowded. People just got used to having nobody on the roads anymore and now we have people again. So you know we have this rush and we we're the one you know international place for people to go now. Of course we're not international but you need to get on a plane a flyover notion to get to us. They can't go anywhere else really right the limited to it. So we've got that boost as well. So again I think taking a snapshot in time and saying things are really bad now is is a wrong perspective. We have to take a sort of a look at how it's going to unfold. And I think a lot of people might not be as happy when all the other destinations open up. Everything is back open 100% and we're still at lower than you know 2019 occupancy levels because this is our tax base. This is our employment base. So those are things that you know absolutely need to be considered. I just think people need to look at what's happening now. As a really short term issue over the long term it's going to you know it still needs to be managed but it's not going to be what it appears it is now. Yeah I completely agree with you that is that you know once Europe's open which it has recently right France Italy Greece some of the other European countries have opened up once they open up fully. Once Canada opens up and once Japan and Korea and all the other Asian countries open up which they will eventually I guess once they feel comfortable with the level of vaccinations they have within their own countries and all of a sudden you're absolutely right. People have more of an option of where to go and then you know what what happens to our September October November and will the first quarter of 2022 be as strong as what people suggest that they might be right now. So so you know I don't know my my my response to that viewer who asked the question is that absolutely you know there might even be more of an emphasis on sales and marketing as more destinations open up and things kind of get back to normal globally where we're again fighting for our market share for the most part we're as you mentioned and we're the only one of the only game in town. So so yes once things open up I think the emphasis and the importance of having trained educated optimal working experience sales and marketing professionals is going to be even greater than ever. Any comment Mari or Susan to that. I agree and I and I think you know and kind of just bringing it back to just me I what we talked about you know we talked about the different verticals and silos but really looking for opportunities where we can all work together collaboratively not only the hotels but with our partners and the industry and in the community to make it something that can still be successful for us both as professionals and also as residents of the community. All right Mari we actually have we are running out of time so as the current president of the Hawaii chapter of HSMAI how would you like to leave the viewers with what what messages and last comments would you like to leave. No I just want to thank you again actually John for the opportunity to come here and share with you just everything about HSMAI you know as you've heard from each of our individual stories which are so different yet so alike in how they relate to HSMAI and what we've been able to benefit just personally and professionally from it. I think that that's what keeps us engaged as volunteers and keeps us going we really just want to provide value for the industry. So we really hope that if you're not already involved with HSMAI there are so many opportunities to get involved like we said with our upcoming golf tournament or even we typically do monthly event so information about that is coming up soon as well. So reach out to us on social by email and yeah we look forward to seeing people in person again and getting together. Great great closing comments Mari. Again Mari, Susan, Dan thank you very much for your time. You've been watching the latest episode of Hospitality of Hawaii. My name is John Conching and I am privileged to be able to every two weeks bring individuals like the three of them here today to share their thoughts ideas and opinions about our visitor industry. So until next time Aloha and have a great afternoon.