Earlier this week, my favorite publisher, Fran Gallagher, discussed Hawaii’s questionable marketing strategies. It is a bit surprising that marketing for something as important and big as Hawaii would be so misguided, but I have seen many inept plans on a smaller scale.

When I worked at (the now defunct) Lerner Newspapers, one of my responsibilities was the distribution of Visitor Guides for certain areas. These guides were jointly produced by Lerner and various Chambers of Commerce or Tourism/Visitors Bureaus.

I would think these guides were meant to attract others to these areas. Instead, most times, The Powers That Be felt the guides should be distributed only in the areas covered. This certainly made distribution easier and quicker, but I doubt it did anything for the economy of the area. Ironically, The Powers That Be would often complain afterward that they didn’t receive any response from the guides, nor did they see any spike in tourism.

Another failed project involved a shopper publication. The newspaper consisted entirely of ads for local stores, many including coupons. I was shocked to learn that The Powers That Be wanted the entire run of the publication to be delivered to local businesses. After a few minutes of this pointless exercise, the project was abandoned based on the lack of consumer response.

How does this happen? I understand there are knuckleheads in every walk of life, but why didn’t someone see the silliness in these two examples?

Of course, on their resumes and in their minds, these projects were probably classified as successes. They probably bragged about their brilliance in promotion and marketing. They might even have parlayed these experiences into better jobs, like maybe at the Hawaiian Visitors Bureau.

– John Wroblewski, distribution specialist

Last year I vowed not to stay home for the New Year’s holiday this year, but guess what I did? Stayed home. I did some quick Internet searches, several times, on Orbitz, Travelocity and Kayak, but I found nothing that jumped out at me. I wanted to reach out to some of my client friends in the industry, but I was so bogged down with business and year-end work, I just never got around to reaching out.

So I was here the day after New Year’s, watching the news, when I saw that Hawaii is continuing a two-year downward slide. I happen to be a big fan of Hawaii and think it is a great destination. Many people think it is too sterile and too expensive, but when you go to Hawaii, everything works and the people cannot be more friendly. As far as the expense, I have a friend who refers to it as “Hawaii money,” and when I traveled there with my family, no matter where we ate dinner, it was always the same price. Expensive, but orderly, friendly and tasty; so definitely worth it.

But have you see a lot of promotions for Hawaii? Have you seen any spectacular marketing or advertising about the Islands? I haven’t. Additionally, Hawaii and its hotels cannot get their sights off the West Coast market. This is where they spend nearly all their marketing dollars. In case they haven’t heard, California is in the dumps, so perhaps they should open their minds and reach out to the less-recession-hit East Coast?

Several years ago, Hawaii won Best Domestic Tourism Destination from the readers of Global Traveler. When I reached out to the CVB, I received a less than “aloha” response. I was a little shocked. Not only did they seem not to care, but they were not interested in coming to the awards ceremony or responding to me as if they were honored.

Now they think President Obama’s trip to Hawaii is their best marketing tool. This is the same guy who told travelers not to go to extravagant meetings and not to travel (the AIG effect), which resulted in the loss of 100 meetings in Hawaii. Companies canceled their meetings in fear of what these meetings would look like in the AIG effect-hungry press. In my opinion, Hawaii could not have picked a worse spokesperson.

Hawaii is obviously misguided and has no idea how to get people back to the islands. It was an easy out to blame the economy. Perhaps the CVB needs to talk to some of the people who check guests in at hotels, who serve the meals and who attend to your needs while in Hawaii. They are the people that make Hawaii great. The guys at the Royal Hawaiian’s Tiki Bar have better insight on the true Aloha spirit than anyone at the CVB.

To all our blog readers, subscribers and friends of Global Traveler, a Happy New Year!

– Fran Gallagher, publisher and CEO