Sunday, August 16, 2009

Rep Gene Ward - Political Tourism Killer

When Rep Gene Ward started sending one sided, anti-tourism flyers (click image) to the general public in Oahu for "staged town hall meetings" he forgot to add these statistics.

Oahu, Hawaii is currently suffering through it's worst tourism declines since the Great Depression.

Rep Gene Ward wants to hurt the economy further by halting 40,000 annual tourists from seeing sharks from cages.

Is this the face of a politician who is in touch with the realities on the ground?

VISITOR ARRIVAL DECLINES

The number of visitors arriving in Hawaii by air in October with the percentage change from the same month last year:


VISITORS PCT.
Domestic 190,215 -15.9%
International 122,923 -8.9%
Total 493,506 -13.5%
Overall total * 511,518 -13.5%
by island
Oahu 313,138 -13.3%
Kauai 75,119 -25.9%
Lanai 6,404 -29.7%
Maui 147,977 -20.5%
Molokai 4,672 -35.9%
Big Island 96,366 -19.7%

* Includes passengers arriving by ship
Source: Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism

District 9 - It's got da critters!

As you are aware this blogs love of cephalopods knows few boundaries. When were not talking about sharks these critters are high on the coverage list.

Naturally when a new film arrives featuring "crabby alien cephalopods", we had to take a gander. We were not disappointed at what we saw. For all the right reasons go see District 9: