“Hawaii Hotels Barely 68% Full”
That was the headline for THIS STORY in Pacific Business News. It’s another example of the negative sensationalism that may sell papers, but does nothing to help the current state of affairs. You need to read the article carefully to discover what’s behind the headline. Deeper in the story we see that:

• Oahu occupancy declined 6.5 percentage points to 72.5 percent.
• Maui occupancy was off 13.2 percentage points to 68.4 percent.
• Kauai occupancy plunged 15.2 percentage points to 64.6 percent.
• Big Island occupancy tumbled 19.3 percentage points to 57.2 percent.

If you are looking for the positive side of things, as I always am, please notice that the largest % fallout is on the Big Island and Kauai, where the total numbers of people are surely the lowest. Oahu, where the most people are is ONLY down 6.5% from last year, or better said “93.5% of last year.” Why can’t that be the headline? That’s a lot of people, and they are NOT people who have lost their jobs and homes. They are people spending money on a Hawaiian vacation.

The press needs to give us a break and skew the news in a positive way. The truth is the same either way. The problem lies in the perception of people who don’t bother to read past the headlines or fail to stop and think about what they are really saying.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 28th, 2009 at 10:23 am and is filed under Success. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.