In a board meeting in Honolulu on Monday, just a few days before Christmas, the Hawaii Tourism Authority approved a strategic short-term plan with new targets for the next three years. They’re now targeting 6.7m visitors in 2010, and 6.9m visitors in 2011 and 2012, with $13 billion in annual, direct spending by visitors.

Barack Obama on vacation in Hawaii, visiting USS Arizona Memorial

And just in time to help them get the new plan off to a rollicking start, President Obama arrived for Christmas on his annual family vacation in Kailua, along with a torrent of media attention focusing on the First Family’s every move, with iconic images of Hawaii in the backdrop, and a vacation in Hawaii as the central theme of each story. 

According to the Anholt-GfK Roper Nation Brands Index, Obama has boosted the value of Brand America by over $2 trillion, from $9.7 trillion in 2008 to $11.8 trillion this year. A healthy part of this brand boost shows up as visitor interest, especially in destinations related to Obama, such as Hawaii, Chicago and Washington DC.

The connections between Obama and the Hawaii Tourism Authority have also started shifting from the intangible to the real and quantifiable, mostly due to the HTA being proactive in making use of Brand Obama.

Last month, when the media found that the President was headed for Hawaii again, visitor interest in the HVCB site started surging. According to HVCB spokeswoman Darlene Morikawa, the number of visitors to the site nearly doubled after they set up a micro site detailing Obama’s links to the islands.

Since kicking off the Presidential campaign, the Obamas have taken four vacations, three of them in Hawaii – in the full glare of the national and international media. In addition to the free media coverage, the HTA has also initiated campaigns with Obama as a central theme. 

'Obama's Hawaii' promoted in China

Earlier this year in July, President Obama selected Hawaii as the theme for the annual congressional picnic, with a Luau on the White House South Lawn. Chef Alan Wong prepared the island-inspired menu for more than 2,500 attendees, and members of Tihati Productions, including Cha Thompson, provided the entertainment.

The HVCB used the Luau as an opportunity to feed the media with a storyline promoting Hawaii as a destination, and the resultant media coverage in blogs, print, internet, and broadcast stories ended up producing over 700 million impressions. There’s no way to buy this kind of exposure with a paid-for campaign. 

On the business front, the HTA’s new plan 3-year plan specifically states that they’re seeking meeting, convention and incentive business because large groups help improve per person per day spending. This shift from leisure to the convention business no doubt takes into account the impact of the 2011 APEC conference, and a desire to get more such conferences.

From November 12-20, 2011, around 10,000 participants from 21 member nations will be in Hawaii for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, bringing in a flood of global attention, boost in hotel occupancy and visitor spending. 

In addition to Honolulu, other cities bidding for the summit included New York, the Los Angeles-Orange County area, San Francisco and Miami. After the choice was narrowed down to between Hawaii and the two locations in California, the White House decided to go with Honolulu, citing security issues. The fact that President Obama’s Hawaii vacations have been going smoothly without any untoward incidents was a big influencer.

It’s a good bet that with more Obama vacations in store and with the White House actively steering business in their direction, Hawaii’s tourism industry will recover more easily and faster than other leisure hot-spots.

Barack Obama photo – public domain, work of the U.S. federal government (source)

I’m a rail fan. I’ve ridden the Iron Rooster all over China, traveled mostly on rail from Beijing to Wales, and even subjected my family to a few Amtrak trips.

The Acela is the only true high-speed train in the United States

So you can imagine how I drooled when President Obama started to talk about the stimulus package investing in America’s infrastructure. If anything needs funding in this country, I figured, it’s projects like California‘s long-dreamed-of bullet train that would race from San Francisco to Los Angeles in less than 3 hours.

I mean, if the Japanese and French get to go 300 miles per hour on magnetic levitating trains, why can’t we? Given the chance to get from A to B in a timely fashion without driving dangerous freeways or suffering through airport security, it seems like most Americans would ride high-speed trains. And providing a practical alternative to driving is the one thing that truly stands in the way of cutting the carbon emmissions that are destroying our planet.

All these years, local governments have lacked the start-up funds to get these high-tech locomotion systems started. Now, I thought, is finally high-speed rail’s big moment.

But when the stimulus bill passed, I heard surprisingly little about high-speed trains. I put my hopes aside until I heard Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal mock a planned Las Vegas to Disneyland train in his rebuttal to President Obama’s speech this week. I thought, “Wow, what a fabulous idea! Think of the tourism dollars that will bring in!”

Then I eagerly looked for more information on what kind of great rail projects the stimulus bill would pay for. And was quickly disappointed: The final package included only $9.3 billion for rail, and some of that will go to much-needed maintenance just to get American train travel back to where it was a few decades ago.

Nine billion dollars may sound like a lot, until you hear that California’s project alone, which would produce a train that could go over 200 miles an hour, would cost $45 billion.

Which leaves me singing the kind of blues inspired by the sounds of lonely train whistles. Instead of propping up the auto industry (and let’s hope we don’t end up doing the same for the airline industry) so they can continue enabling us to foul the planet, I wish we could put every penny of those bailout checks into high-speed rail.

Photo by Gilliamhome, used vie Creative Commons license.