 Aloha and welcome to Business in Hawaii with Reg Baker. We broadcast live every Thursday from 2 to 2.30 downtown Pioneer Plaza in the studios of Think Tech Hawaii. Beautiful downtown Halalulu. We have got actually one of the founding families of the hotel industry here in Hawaii. I kind of refer to them as the Trump of Waikiki, but people might have a different opinion of that. Andrey tends to be a little, not shy, but I guess a little bit, you know, unboasterous. So, but I'm very proud to have Andrey Tanabwet, Jane Tanabwet, and their daughter, Cecily Nisbitt, Tanabwet, here today, and we're going to talk a little bit about, well, walking down memory lane about the hotel industry and how the Tanabwets and the family got involved in this, but you've been in Hawaii for a long, long time. All my life, Reg. Oh, boy. Yeah. Well, and even before then, your father. All my father and, in fact, going back to my grandfather, who first landed here in 1909. 1909. That's a long time ago. It is. That was before my time. Yeah, but he's been involved in the business in one way or another in a while. Your grandparents, your father, and now you. Yes, correct. Yeah. And how did, just briefly, how did all this come about? You know, it's far too long a story to give right now, but essentially, my grandfather was an architect and a contractor, built apartments and residences around the city of Honolulu. And then my mother grew up in that business. So she was exposed to the apartment business. And then after World War II, she decided she wanted to maybe start a small hotel. So took an apartment, a couple of little apartments that she and my father had purchased in Waikiki and converted that into a little 14-room cottage-style hotel. A real boutique type of hotel. Yes, for the day. We could call it that. Yes. And when was that about? 1948. So you've been in the business for a long time. A long time. All right. I was a little boy in 1948 and would help. I can still remember helping the family in those days. Very good. And so you were in the business and you eventually became more of a hotelor. Is that the proper way to say it? Hotel air? Hotel air. Right. Yes. All right. And you were doing that for a while. And then I guess at some point you met Jane. That's correct. Yes. When did that happen? Well, we were both in the hotel business. Jane was an executive at what was then called the Kahala Hilton Hotel. And I was doing my hotel business in Waikiki and a couple of fellow hoteliers we met. And the rest, as they say, is history. Very good. And Jane, is that how you recall it? Exactly. Yes. Very good. So you were working out at the Kahala Hilton when you met Andre. And Andre spent a whole lot of time sitting out in the employee parking behind the hotel at the loading dock waiting for me every night because my hours were late and I was determined to do a good job. That sounds like a commitment. And so he made the real commitment and those hours at the loading dock were long remembered by other employees who were coming and going and Andre was always sitting there waiting. And I know you had a double major in college and can you talk about that briefly for a minute? Well, yes. I started out. I was interested in the food and beverage business and I started out life. My first job was as a pot washer and a summer job when I was about 12 or 13 and I got promoted actually to a dishwasher the following summer. You must have done a good job. I gradually got involved in the cooking and the kitchen. So at any rate I went to Cornell University and was accepted in the college of what was then home economics which is now human ecology and majored in foods and nutrition and institutional management. And I quickly discovered that I really enjoyed rather than the hospital side and taking care of nutrition and foods and service on the hospital side of life and the scientific side that I would far prefer the hotel side. And so I went and talked with the dean of the hotel school and was able to do a double major and have a major in restaurant management and hotels in the hotel school and graduated with that. So you've had that hotel business in your blood for a while too? Yes and my parents also had a small in not as Andre's but on Cape Cod in Massachusetts where I grew up they had a small in of about 10 rooms that just operated in the summer season because they were both school teachers during the year but this they had as and so I grew up in that anyway during my teenage years we cleaned rooms and all that sort of thing. What eventually brought you to Hawaii? I was hired my senior year at Cornell when I was in the hotel school part by Hilton International Hotels and they wanted me to work for them but they didn't know just doing what and they were very determined that I should stay with their program and head me down to New York at times. I had a wonderful job at Boston temporarily and one day they called and they said well it was going to be either the Istanbul Hilton or the Kahala Hilton which ever was finished first. Well let me think about that for an animal. Fortunately for all parties sitting here on either side of me it turned out to be the Kahala Hilton and that was finished a few weeks ahead of the Istanbul Hilton so they sent me here as manager of the Holo Terrace restaurant and that was my first job here. Super and then I guess what about what time was that? It was right when the hotel opened in 1963, 1964. So that's a brand spanking new? Absolutely. Very good. And then I guess Cecily you also have some hotel in your blood too right? Well my brother and I grew up in the business and we started out. I remember my brother cleaned ashtrays and I started out in the laundry department so we learned I guess starting about 10 or 11. He was a lobby cleaner? Yes. You weren't asking him? Very good. So you grew up in that environment and didn't you get a degree in it too? So I went to Cornell as well and I actually started out and graduated from the hotel school. Very good. And then my mother and I went on to have a restaurant on the mainland so we've kept the restaurant side going. Very good. So I know we probably have enough to talk about for a whole additional show about some of the experiences you've been through since the 50's and the 60's and how things have evolved and changed over the years. But actually when after you came together then things started to gel and things started taking off and you end up being very active and very involved in the entire industry and all of this. You know you look back on those times and you don't think about what's happening you just keep moving and growing and that kind of thing and what started as a fairly modest business, well not so small. My first, I did my first little hotel on my own when I was 19. 19 and you did your own hotel? Right. That's impressive. About Clegghorn Street while I was attending the University of Hawaii. Started that in my sophomore year at the University of Hawaii. And then subsequently my first really major endeavor was building the Pacific Beach Hotel with 360 rooms overlooking Waikiki Beach. That was 1968. So you broke ground and actually built that one? Yes. Wow. And the ground up. Very good. That was quite exciting. I would imagine. Yes. But you also, you've had your fingerprints on a lot of the different hotels in Waikiki? Yes. I'm not even sure that I tried to count but it's in the many dozens of hotels. I mean I drive around Waikiki and I remember this one and okay my company operated that one and we were involved doing a transition and a turnover here and we took this sick hotel and made it into a profitable one so there's a long interesting list of different projects that I've been involved with. Right. I know that I had an opportunity to do a little bit of research and I saw a document of a whole lot of different properties not only on Oahu but also on the neighbor islands. Yes, correct. So when did you start to expand to the neighbor islands? In the late 70s acquired the first neighbor island property and then moved fairly quickly after that time. Waikiki was always the hub. That was the keystone in the arch as it were. But the neighbor islands were an interesting opportunity and actually in some ways it turned out really well because the talent pool in Waikiki was broader and deeper than it was on the neighbor islands. It's generally the case. Yes. So I was in a position to bring some resources to some of these neighbor island properties that might not have been available otherwise. That actually could do quite well for the neighbor islands because it could bring some of the more productive, more profitable. Yes, absolutely. That's great. It's very gratifying to see. It was nice working with owners and hearing them say afterwards, we weren't sure what you can do but after a year or two they say, wow, this is really nice. That's good. We appreciate the difference. Job well done. It's always nice to hear that. Yes. And Jane, are you involved with Andre and working with him during this time? I mean, what was your role? Well, actually, the week we were married was the week he broke ground on the Pacific Beach Hotel. So we postponed our honeymoon for a few years. That was a, but basically speaking, I stayed working for other people. I always felt that perhaps the best thing for a marriage wasn't to work directly together. And I said if I ever did work for his company that I would not work directly under him. I would work under some other division head or something, which is eventually what I did do. I worked for Western International Hotels after leaving the Kahala after five years there. And I helped, I went out and helped develop Makaha when that was under construction, hired all the staff for it and set up all the dining rooms and so forth and so on and trained the housekeepers and the whole deal. That's a long commute every day. Well, it was a long commute and that's before Chino's highway was built. And it was a long haul, but it worked out and we successfully opened it. Unfortunately, it has had a tragic history, but that is the way of the tourist business. One never knows. And over the years, Andre and I, eventually I came to work for him and was general manager of two of his hotels, the Waikiki beach tower when that opened and then moved over to the Waikiki beach side when that opened. And the beach tower was constructed. Andre put that together and he was the developer for that. And then the beach side, he purchased and redeveloped that one. And so I went on and was general manager of both of those and stayed in the business at the corporate level as the years went on in human relations and community relations and so forth, but always kept a hand in the development of the hotels and the renovation of hotels. Right. Go ahead. I was going to say, I gave her some of the tough ones, like the beach tower. That was a complicated, difficult one, a lot of moving parts. And what Jane didn't say is there was another manager in there, bless his heart, nice fellow. After about six months I could see this was a little out of his league. So I said, Jenny, how about taking a look down? Sure. And she did a great job. Very good. Absolutely knocked the ball out of the park. Well, that's great accolades. You know, we're talking, we're covering a lot of ground, but we're going to take a short break. This is business in Hawaii with Reg Baker. We're talking with the Tanneboite family and how they have been involved with the hotel industry in Hawaii for 50 years. We'll be right back in about 60 seconds. Hi, I'm Stan Enigaman and I want you to be here every Friday. Noon, thinktechhawaii.com, watch the show. Be there. I'll pin it a full way. Hello, this is Martin Despeng. I want to get you excited about my new show, which is called Humane Architecture for Hawaii and Beyond, and it's going to be on Think Tech Hawaii from downtown Honolulu on Tuesday afternoon, 5 p.m. And we're going to talk about to make architecture more inclusive on the islands, which is one of the definitions of humane, which is being tolerant of many people, of nature, of many other influences. So we're going to have some great guests, like today's guest, for example, my collaborator, David Rockwood, who is the author of the awesome manifestation of humane architecture in the background. So see you on Tuesdays, 5 p.m. I look forward to. Welcome back. This is Business in Hawaii with Reg Baker. I'm here with the Tana Boets and we're going through a little bit of a walk down memory lane here of the hotel industry for the past 50 years. And Cecilia, I just want to ask you, during all this time that Andre and Jane were doing all these really neat, fascinating things, what were you doing in the business? Well, as I mentioned, I started out folding laundry, went to the hotel school, majored in hotel management, and during that time I went to work in Germany for six months as part of my schooling in the hotel business to work on my German skills. But there, I did a rotation, worked in housekeeping, worked at the front desk, the concierge department. Once I graduated, I was hired by Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts and went to be an assistant manager at the Pierre Hotel in New York City. Wow, that's a great organization. Strong union property, that was hard work, eye opening, I worked there for a year, and then I actually ran the Northeast sales office for Aston Hotels and Resorts. And I worked and made sales calls to all the travel operators, both agents and wholesalers. Wow, was there a lot of travel involved in those days? Throughout New England, that was where I was based and I did a lot and really, I think brought the Aloha spirit, brought chocolate covered macadamia nuts, wore lays, wore moomoo's, I really enjoyed that. So you were an ambassador of Aloha? I was. I really felt I could have almost worked for the visitors bureau, but I was really pleased to be promoting Aston Hotels and Resorts. Very good. So it's great to have that family business. You know, I guess over the decades, you must have seen an awful lot of change in the industry. You know, what are some of the more significant changes that you've noticed here recently? Oh, you know, it really has changed. I started, let's put it this way, visitor arrivals in the early 60s were less than a million people. Wow. Well, last year, some people may know that we hit almost 9 million. So just from the standpoint of raw numbers, fantastic. In raw numbers, I just would like to insert that in 1967, in December, early December of 67, the entire state was aware of and celebrating, and certainly the tourism industry, the one millionth traveler to Hawaii, tourists to Hawaii that year, at a certain day in December. And that was met, that couple that were designated the one millionth traveler were met with great festivity and public relations. It was all over the state, and that was 1967, just the end of the year, one million. 1967. And now we're hitting pretty high numbers. Yeah, we were just shy of 9 million last year, and I expect this year we'll break that number. And that was a record from what I understand for 2006. Yes, correct. So the industry in raw numbers has grown tremendously, but in many other ways the industry has changed and grown. The distribution channels, where we get our clients from, I mean, when I was very young our entire market was made up basically of Americans traveling here. We have now evolved to be a global destination. We have people literally from all over the world. And I'm sometimes in a hotel lobby and I will routinely hear people speaking French and German, obviously Japanese, Chinese, Korean, occasionally even some Russian, I know a few words of Russian, oh there's some Russian tourists chatting in Russian. So it's wonderful that we're able to draw from the world. We are wonderfully regarded by people from around the world. And the benefit of that is if one market hits a little economic rough patch, we can offset it with others. The versification is a wonderful thing. Oh absolutely, absolutely. And the ease of air travel today is great. So from that standpoint it's really exciting. And I'm very glad about it. You touched on the marketing piece and I guess the internet, I mean that's got to be a game changer of sorts. Massive game changer, absolutely. The internet and a whole host of different technological pieces that just, we moved really almost by contrast with the old days at warp speed. Yeah, well you know and to the point of diversification with the internet allows marketing and branding to take place a lot easier than it used to be. Oh yes, absolutely, absolutely. There's no question about it. And it's created a whole new management department in the hotel's revenue management which is a whole new area. It's a whole different technology that if you do it well it can really pay back. Yes. And I guess the mode of travel, I mean transportation itself, I mean with the ability of being able to get from say California to Hololulu in four hours or so. Yes. It makes it a little bit more easier in a way to get here and have a vacation and then leave and it doesn't take a whole day or two or a week to get here. Well, early days of course there were only ships, but in the fifties, propeller aircraft would take roughly between 10 and 11 hours from here to the west coast. Not the most comfortable ride. No, not the most comfortable ride, you're correct. So all of those pieces really help our industry in a wonderful way. That's another one of those game changers and now the efficiency that the aircraft have in fuel consumption allows to bring the price down in the planes of course, the occupancy in the planes are getting more. And so it's more reasonably priced I guess to get here. Inflation adjusted terms, airfares are measurably cheaper than they once were, really. So those are all the different components that they got us to these record numbers and this worldwide recognition, great for Hawaii. Where do you see all of this going? What do you think the future looks like? You know, I'm hopeful and optimistic that our industry will continue to grow. It won't be double-digit growth, it's going to be a more moderate rate of growth, but I think it will continue to grow and my guess is it's going to be a little more of a quality visitor experience. It's going to be more thoughtfully driven than it was in the past, not the willy-nilly kind of thing. So I feel pretty good about that. Almost like a niche marketing type. There's going to be different properties I would think that's going to be focusing on different experiences. Yes. Very correctly. And I think some of those experiences could be the nature-lovers experience. Yes. And a wellness experience. That's exactly it. And what's nice is when your industry is large enough, we can have a diversity of types of hotels with different types of experiences so that travelers can go online, take a look at what is it they're looking for, what kind of experience. So we can provide something to them in almost every different area that they're looking for. So it's really nice from that standpoint. And what's nice about that is it builds in a reason for a return visitor. Absolutely. After they can come in and have one experience and then they can come back in a year and have another experience. Yes. Yeah. It's a built-in obsolescence, if you will, where you have to just keep buying that product over and over again. That's right. Yes. And how are the tenable wits going to tap in? Where do you see opportunities for you? I mean, you're still young. You've got a lot of years to be taking advantage of this. Well, it's a good question. What I enjoy doing now, I enjoy moving around in particular Waikiki and looking for underutilized opportunities. Hotels that are ready for a cleanup, a reposition, and basically I'm thinking of you've got to do renovation, you've got to do new marketing, maybe change management. And there's still an opportunity to add measurable value to the asset and to provide a vastly improved experience for the guest in the hotel. And as a part of that, we're going to be creating more jobs for our people. Wow. Interesting. And you've got some talent right here next to you that can help with that. I have a great amount of talent. Right at home. Yeah. That's great. I am so lucky in that regard. Well, and you know, it sounds almost like we're talking about, you know, turnaround situations where you get to go in and find these properties and help turn them around and get them back profitable. Exactly. It's been so much fun to do that. Taking a hotel, for example, maybe in one year, early 90s, one hotel had all earnings of about $500,000, finally persuaded Japanese owners to let me take it over from gave them attractive guarantee. And at the end of five years, we had moved it from $500,000 to just over $5 million. Wow. Yes. They were very pleased. I would imagine so. Yeah. As a matter of fact, we should have them on here to do a testimony so we can support that work. That's great. And Cecilia, you're currently living on the mainland. I live in Chapelville, North Carolina. North Carolina. So with all this activity and everything, you might have to come back someday and help out with the family business here. I would be glad to. We'd be doing it. Yeah. That sounds like exciting times ahead. Yes. So now you mentioned Waikiki. Do you see opportunities like this maybe on the neighbor islands as well? There are, but there are fewer. It's what's nice here in Waikiki. We've got a market that happily is a little more fluid. And I can actually we live at one end of Waikiki, my office is at the other end. I am going through Waikiki multiple times a day, seven days a week. So I'm in a good position to see what's happening. I pick up intel on the street or coffee shop. You've got the eye for it. I mean, you can see this. Yeah. Exactly. And I, and I know different people who either are in management position of the hotel or owners of hotels. So, so I pick up some some nice intel and I do recon as I'm moving around and say, oh, okay. And I'm working on one or two right now. They're just really unbelievable diamonds in the rough. And I'm looking forward to seeing if I can So somebody wanted to do something in Waikiki. Yes. They should pick up the phone and call you and you might have some ideas for them. I might have some ideas. Yes. Absolutely. And I do get calls routinely. I think what impresses me is my father's creativity. He knows Waikiki like the back of his hand and has known all these properties and can see a vision for them that no one else can. You know, and sometimes you have to have that eye to see those opportunities because sometimes they've got cobwebs and overgrowth and all kinds of stuff on it. And you got to look beyond that and see where it's at. Now, Jane, you had some real hands-on experience with this too going through the renovation process. Exactly. And the renovation process addressing hotels and these hotels, their age all need renovation now of some sort and not just putting lipstick on them. It's a whole, the whole thing, the piping systems and mechanical systems and so forth as well as the pretty things. You know, we may have to have a show where we just talk about renovating and how to get these things going, but we have run out of time. We've run out of time. And I'm so sorry, but we have so much time. We'll have part two coming up. But this is Business in Hawaii with Reg Baker. We just spent the last 30 minutes talking with the Tana Boets about the hotel business in Hawaii. And it looks like we've got an exciting future ahead of us. Until next week, aloha.