 Hi, welcome to Seymour's world on Think Tech Hawaii today We are joined by a wonderful wonderful friend who I've actually just met a few months ago His name is Daniel Ihoo. He is from JTB Hawaii and Daniel. I have to say We have developed a friendship over the last little bit that really has been Wonderful, it's it all started off because JTB and you approached me to speak right at a conference That you had for the Honolulu festival and we're going to talk about that a little bit later but I was fascinated at how you and Everybody who worked there were so interested in making something about the Holocaust a very very real and demanding Work for all of your staff. So it was it was absolutely wonderful So before we get started tell me about yourself. Where are you from? So a little background about me. I Was born and raised in Okinawa, Japan My father was with the military. So we were stationed out in Okinawa when I was born there My father was from Maui. So I would go back and forth Maui in Okinawa So I had little ties of Hawaiian heritage and Okinawan culture. So I'm a little mixture of that So when I came out here to live out here in Hawaii about ten years ago And I was here for as a university student student. So Yeah, I was trying to get my studies done trying to figure out where I wanted to live Where I what I wanted to do for my career and that's what and whatnot somehow I'm here today right here. You know like working for JTB How long have you been with JTB? Not even a year yet. Actually next month. I'll make a year Yeah, prior to that I was doing a bunch of other marketing jobs as well But yeah, this time around work for JTB was a completely different Come from a different background. So it was completely different for me So I figured I can learn something and tourism is a really big industry for Hawaii So I figured it'd be a good to learn as I Hopefully I can make to make take something out of it and make it my own as well Well, I think for our international visitors because we have a lot of people that see the show All over the United States all over Europe and Asia Tell us a JTB stands for Japan Travel Bureau Correct. Tell us a little bit about the demographics of JTB demographics right now I would say about 98% of our customers are from Japan. We have annually We have about 4,000 to 35,000 last year. We did 4,000 to 35,000 people That you hosted here in Hawaii here Throughout the entire year. So we have a lot of people coming in daily even almost a half a million people So even today we had I check the numbers I believe we had about 780 people that are right just today through our company's travel Well, and you arrange everything for them? Our company does not me personally That would be kind of crazy but like our company is on destination management company So they take care of everything from all the tours hotel accommodations to Yeah, you name it We do a ground transportation and there they have everything covered for our visitors One thing that I always notice Daniel is how many Japanese weddings we have here in Hawaii Is that part of what you guys? We do have some divisions that do take care of wedding Not so it's not as strong as they used to be prior, but they they still do focus on weddings and yeah the Japanese market loves There's a yearning or kind of like admiration to have a wedding out here in Hawaii. So it's kind of a yeah, it's kind of It's something that the Japanese people really really want to do in their lifetime of belief You know, I think when we when we think about the Japanese tourists coming to Hawaii I have to tell you I started with the Japanese tourists in 1976 when I opened up my restaurant. Oh really and this is something you probably won't remember that only But at that time I had the New York deli We had Japanese tourists coming in one guy held a flag Mm-hmm, and there were 20 or 30 people behind them They'd all come into my restaurant with a preset menu everything was preset because there is no Most of those people don't speak English at that period of time And they would eat and they would leave and I would have bunches of them coming in groups of 20 led by leader That's no longer around. No, no, so how has that changed? I believe so like that. It's interesting. You mentioned that because I believe a lot of it traveling It's all about information experiences In today's world, it's all about information. We have the internet and I mean all these information you could get from social networks and You know Instagram sets a good platform for especially people my age right now I think whenever they plan out their vacations or wherever they want to travel They definitely Google where they're going to people in Japan as well, right? Of course. I believe that's That's definitely changing the way people perceive our destination as per even home mood itself I believe is changing a lot of people before Japanese people like you mentioned like they would just have a group They'll take them to a shopping destination the next sightseeing destination However, now they just want to break off kind of want to do their own thing Hey, I want to go check out that restaurant by myself or I kind of Or the rent cars now, so they're just they never used to do now So now they've become a little bit more independent, which I think it's a good thing for the travelers now the visitors not to be a little bit more independent and then Getting that organic experience almost. I think that's a good experience So has JTB had to adapt to the change because of social media and the internet? I believe I believe there's a little bit more changes in the future that JTB will have to adapt to because of course in the days of the information is moving very very fast So there's a lot of things that we need to play catch-up with and also keep up with as well So I believe it's it'll be an interesting Market for the tourism industry in the coming coming years. Yeah, we we still Have such great respect for the Japanese tourists here. You know why we still have almost every store has somebody who speaks Japanese Every store has Japanese signs. It's something that I think is it's it's inherently Hawaii Japanese being a partner together. Yeah, it's it's almost that dynamic is really really interesting too Because I can I'm fluent in both languages So when I was when I was the university student when I was walking around town It would always like kind of It would confuse me almost Walking down the street sir. I am thinking I'm okay. I'm in Hawaii You know like all I should be only hearing like English one up and no walk down like you care All I'm on all you here is almost Japanese just flies into my hand. It's like wow It's like this is really interesting, you know, like so everybody really does cater to the Japanese market because they are Of all the visitor markets. I believe the Japanese do have the higher spending Capacity over here. So I do believe a lot of the businesses do cater to that market You know, I know you're right because the Japanese market has been here for so long What makes the Japanese tours come back over and over again, that's a good question that I want to know too because this is That's your job That's my job to figure out the answer, but it's like well if it's not broken don't fix it kind of It's also it's also I believe it's very interesting because um, you would think that okay people be kind of Not bored or they'll be kind of be like, okay Let's find a different destination next, you know, but Hawaii is still one of the places in the Japanese people's minds It's like it's it's one of those like goals to kind of go there once in your lifetime. I believe that's It's it's ingrained in their social But how would you say like it's not almost like a status symbol right to come to Hawaii Yeah, so but the Japanese are going all over the world. I see them in Vienna I see them in Indonesia everywhere and of course the Chinese are coming quick to not so much to Hawaii We don't seem to have as many as our HVB Hawaii visitors Bureau thought that we were going to get from China But at the same time the stability of the Japan market is absolutely incredible, especially with the wedding business. Yes Yeah, it's it's incredible. Um Without without asking you for specific numbers has your business been going up or is it is it stable? It's it's stable. It's definitely stable. There is a lot of factors that come in Especially international travel and all the economics the factors that comes into play Especially if it's Japan what's going on in Japan and what's happening here? And it's not just economics is about politics as well. What's going on in the world and you know, the Japanese people more sensitive to like the news is what's They relatively live in a kind of a safe country So whenever there's a news about some sort of international conflicts or one not then they do tend to kind of fear fear So they don't want to go out like to maybe Hawaii where it's or they may want to stay somewhere It's close to maybe like the Indonesia somewhere or Korea or Korea right, right, and they're very very Very dependent on what's going on in the world and I don't really necessarily think it's the only deciding factor But I believe it's a very big design. No kidding Well before we we take our first break I I want to try to talk a little bit about the Honolulu festival right and how we met I thought maybe we could bring up some pictures at the same time before the break So I got this call from you and said we have a few hundred actually a few thousand people coming to the Honolulu festival Would you like me? Would you like Seymour to come and speak and what was the impetus for that? So it was my first year. I'm still my first year with the company and they put me on board for this whole festival I've always been kind of interested and it's kind of seeing like what it's what this festival is about and what we do And everything and then I was put on this special project for the Sugiwa Chuna project I had no idea who this person was who just figured what he did in history So, you know, I just want to watch that movie and And it just hit me and I was sit there like wow it just happened You know, it was almost like a what just happened a moment I had to kind of understand what what he for what he did So I did a little bit of study on my own and I figured there's no way that I would be able to translate or Interpret this story to the mass So I needed someone with from the Jewish faith or you know someone that can actually teach me or guide us in the right direction so we could actually tell this story properly and Somehow And then I'm really really grateful for that day like yeah I'm like everything turned out to be more than I expected and what you yeah, everything is great It was a really great experience for myself as well We really we really bonded with that experience. We'll talk about it a little bit more after the break But I just want to let our viewers know that the the Chuna sugi hara was the console for Lithuania and at that point in time He over a period of a couple of years gave 3,000 Jewish people visas to be able to leave Lithuania before the Nazis came in and it was one of the most amazing Pieces of history of the Second World War were now there's well over a hundred thousand people alive Who we call sugi hara Jews because they are alive because of him We'll take our break and we'll continue a little bit more after that I'm Seymour Kazimerski with my guest Daniel Ihoo from JTB. We're on think-tank Hawaii. We'll be back in a minute Aloha, you can join Some water every Thursday from four to five. Did you finish them and I'm your close Matthew Johnson here with Justine Okay, and please end with a picture All the movers and shakers in agriculture in Hawaii So you're kind of their background in history Oh, my mind is all about their perspective on what they're doing and also the future for our agriculture in Hawaii So join us every Thursday You can tweet in your own comments and suggestions and be a part of the conversation at think-tank high and we hope to see you Welcome back to Seymour's world on think-tank Hawaii We just took our break and before the break we were talking about something that Daniel and I Got involved with I only got involved because of Daniel and that was for me to be the guest speaker at the Honolulu festival for the Sugihara For the Sugihara film called persona non grata Which was viewed at the film by a couple of thousand people actually it was amazing We had oh there you can see a picture of the auditorium and you could see me speaking there It was absolutely wonderful because most of those people were Japanese yes And I was thrilled that after my talks on both Saturday and Sunday How many people came up to talk to me? How many people wanted to share their story about a relative that they knew during the war after the war? And it just gave me an amazing feeling that what I was doing all this time of the last 20 years Really rubs off not just on the kids that I educated and the soldiers that I go to see But also on Japanese people You know that they really respect that a man like Sugihara is finally getting the due Respect that he deserves and Sugihara by the way is now at Yad Vashem in Israel And he is one of the righteous and he has his own place as one of the righteous right next to Schindler Right next to many of the other people who helped Jews escape from That's amazing. So yeah, I Was thrilled by that Daniel and I thank you from the bottom of my heart No, thank you for allowing me to participate in this and helping make that that festival a success No, it's not really thank you from my part, too Cuz like yeah, you really completed that entire project for us There's I mean I had to have help from so many different people to make sure all the story was right You know like everything can get interpreted correctly Um and making sure the message the final is the bottom line as long as the message got to people Which it did because people did come after the presentation like I mean, I think it speaks volume when When the guests are saying thank you to I was just a presenter I just sat there presented the you know like All I really need to do is press play but they said thank you for that And then honestly that to me was like it spoke volume because they actually took something out of this show You know out of this presentation and if they can apply that message into a daily lives You know whether it can be anything small if they can apply that I believe we actually did what we needed to do Like and we accomplished our goals, right? So I walked away with some sort of like, you know like accomplishment if you will yeah Well, you shouldn't you shouldn't put yourself as the button push much more than that In my mind this couldn't have not gotten off to the wonderful wonderful Start that it did the middle and the finish was absolutely amazing. I just couldn't You know I speak a lot on the Holocaust throughout the year some 20 30 times a year And and this was one of my favorite ones because it was truly an amazing an amazing Time that I had with direct the audience was so into it When they viewed the movie by the way the movie the movie is called persona non grata And I it's not available in film, but is it available in in netflix or where can people find it? I believe you could purchase it on Amazon yes, I did I did find some Blu-ray copies the other night when I was doing some I was looking through some other films as well. Yeah, I did come across it. Oh terrific. Terrific. So let's get back to jtb So jtb your role in jtb. Can you describe it? So, um, my role is to be a marketer I am in the sales and marketing. I take care of a lot of media More of the local site client tells what we have like, uh, it could be retails or it could be restaurants How do I get them? How do I increase their presence within our customers? in perspectives So it's it's more of getting to making sure their story gets known to our customers So that's I'm more of a storyteller if you will. I guess and do you have direct contact with the customer or with the agents? With the agents, yes, I do with our clientele is uh, when I mean clients It's more of our business our local businesses here I want to my my personal goal is kind of to have like more of the, um The local businesses to flourish within the tourism industry, uh, especially with the Japanese market, uh The Japanese market does have a tendency of liking the brand names. Uh, they like they like going to bigger stores Yeah, and then uh Little by little it is changing. So I want to make sure that like that shift can get Uh, we could put the spotlight into the local businesses that way Tourism can actually do like, you know, it can make a complete circle It just starts with not just where hotels and the um, the airline companies But then the local businesses they can get something out of it too. Then I think we can all We go out walk away with being happy. Yeah, but you know JTB also is very philanthropic And they do a lot for Hawaii. Can you tell us some of the things? Um, so My personal ones that I really like, uh, that we're involved with is, uh, something we do with the hawaii equal tourism association Uh, now what they focus what they do is, um, they focus On a natural environment, uh, protecting the hawaii's Uh, natural environment how we can how the tourism industry can thrive within and without actually damaging one of what we have Naturally and in our culture as well. Um, and part of what they do is, uh, That we were involved with the planning of the core woods, which I think is really that's for the big island Yes. Yes. So, uh, their their goal is to um, their word the mission is to plant at least 1.3 million, uh, qualities by uh, throughout their, um, In their what you call With the organization, but I think that's really cool because then they're trying to restore um, what what hawaii had The environment not only that but then what can we learn how can we educate our future our kids and how can we sustain this And how can we thrive and how can we everything just ties into it really well It's not just taking from our land anymore. How can we thrive with it? How can we economically grow with it? How can you know, how can we sustain it for the future? so I think these are really important things that, um That our company is actually taking initiative to and that it's not just taking from It's like actually building on top of an environment. So I think that's very very good And hopefully we do have a lot of ground transportation and uh, it is one of our goals to make it equal friendly To go all of our buses to go Equal friendly by within the next five years. Oh, wonderful. Wonderful. Well, I have one for you that I'd like you to think about As you know, I'm involved in many different organizations my music program and all that and one of them is my foster youth program And we have an operation called you are in charge Which is part of the hawaii foster youth coalition and I would like jtb Of course, I'm putting on the spider But I would like jtb to get involved in that because we have 30 buses that stop Right next to our location really and we want to get our foster youth more involved in the daily life of tourism And what better way than to have a retail store? Where these kids can work where they can buy and they can sell and they can do things directly with the tourists We might ask you to get involved with that. That might be that might be something I mean, I can't I would love to say yes right now But yeah, believe it or not. You just said yes and you don't know that concept. That concept is great I love it. I mean that concept is great like It's like giving back to the community. That's what we need to do and then Yeah, that's something that we should build up on To me that is a very important part of what What we all need to do all of us who have made a living in hawaii or are making livings in hawaii I I love the echo idea that you're doing I I'd love to see more tourists rent less cars and go into the forests and into the mountains That's much easier on the big island and on kawaii and mawaii But here in in Honolulu where we're choked with cars and choked with buses and all that stuff It would be so much better if we could get the tourist market more involved in that because it would give them another reason to come to hawaii Correct, you know get away from just the sun sand and surf and maybe start thinking about what else hawaii has to offer right And then it's not just here with the experience with maybe they could take that back to their own homes And then you know start something there as well like absolutely Absolutely, I mean we're you know, we're looking at various ways to make hawaii a more attractive place for tourism And obviously there comes a point in time where all of us and this is going to be the subject of another show by the way How many more tourists can we have in a while at what point is there a saturation at what point do we say We can't have any more cars on the road Now there are certain places in the world like Bermuda that restrict the amount of tours they have in the Galapagos for instance They only allow 750,000 tourists a year and that's all there is to it And they keep it very clean and pristine and all that stuff here in hawaii. We have a tendency to have the developers Pretty well have their say and decide how high how many and how big and my feeling is That's something that we have to get people like you guys involve We need jtb to be part of the sustainability Of hawaii over a longer period of time. So i'm hoping that that's something i'm going to call on you on to help me with Hopefully I could be there for that Good good because I think that's a critical issue for us to look at Now tell me a little bit about you yourself. What are your plans for the next couple of years? Next couple of years. Well, it's always about self-improvement and what I can would um from what I gain I want to make sure I could return to a community as well. So whatever Whatever I learned from here on out. I want to make sure I can spread that back out to our community Especially our kids through the future, you know, like I want to make sure they could do good back for the community as well So it's uh, it's just drawing a big old circle. Yeah, something I learned from you as well Well, I thought you're learning from me But it's uh, it's the right thing to do Daniel and I think you and jtb and all of us Have to make sure that we do the right thing and the right thing is to make sure that the generation after us gets at least a decent A decent place to live It's not too crowded. I'm talking about Hawaii not too crowded and is still Able to make a living without it being too expensive. So all of us have a responsibility You know to do something like that in whichever way that we can From my personal perspective, I agree with you 110 The kids right, uh, whether it's foster youth the way we just talked about or other kids if we could help them Make the world a better place or as I always quote see the light at the end of the tunnel Then we'll have a a country or a state or whatever it may be that has less crime That has more appreciation that has greater gratitude That's the the fortunate part about being able to Do something like this and realize that you're doing something not for just yourself But you're doing something for everybody, right? So I want to thank you very much for coming on the show Thank you It was just wonderful to have you and to share the few minutes we have together until The sea wars world and all our and all our visitors around the world What what jtb does and what you are doing personally and I look forward to working with you again Yes, and hopefully we'll do something in the next year or two to to help kids Of course because that seems to be one of your passions And for all my friends out there I will be leaving for europe this week and we're going to be doing a show From germany in the next two weeks It'll be a skype live show if we can organize it with our producers here And I think it will be possible. So I just want to wish you a wonderful wonderful Month ahead without me Directly here in hawaii, and I hope all of us just live a happy healthy life aloha from seamore's world on think tech hawaii Perfect. Wow, that was cool The half an hour went quick, huh? Yeah, that was half an hour. Yeah, yeah Amazing, huh? That's cool. Yep. It's terrific. This is where I returned it Yep And now I have to Always just Yeah, oh no today, I think we have about 700 because we're in the main auditorium