(CNN) — Hawaii has always been one of the most popular vacation destinations for Japanese tourists. But they don’t show their love just by going there.
Food, clothing and even festivals across Japan show that people’s love for the islands is about much more than just beaches.
According to a 2022 travel trend report from Japan’s domestic travel agency HIS, Hawaii had the highest number of summer vacation overseas travel reservations, accounting for 20% of people who booked summer vacation overseas through the agency.
Japan’s two largest airlines, ANA and JAL, will resume their daily flights to Hawaii in July and June, respectively, for the first time since the pandemic.
“ANA and JAL know that Hawaii is the first place Japanese tourists return to when traveling abroad. It’s a place where they can travel freely without a visa,” said Kotaro Toriumi, a Japanese aviation and travel analyst. “These airlines amplify their campaigns in Hawaii the most… all they do is advertise travel to Hawaii.”
Japan’s love affair with Hawaii can perhaps be summed up in one word: iyashi. It means “healing” or “comfort” in English, but often encompasses the sense of freedom and relaxation that many Japanese associate with the islands.
Rise in popularity, rise in prices
Rise in popularity, rise in prices
While Japanese travelers’ love for Hawaii goes back decades, it will take some time for travel numbers to return to their pre-Covid-19 heights. Read also : Sales of video games in the United States fell by 10% in the first half of 2022.
Before the pandemic, Japanese travelers made up the largest number of foreign tourists in Hawaii. Based on data from the Hawaii Tourism Agency, Japanese tourists also spent the largest amount per visitor.
The number of travelers from Japan fell 95.2% in the first half of 2022 with only 34,925 visitors compared to 734,235 in 2019 Hawaii.
And there is another factor at play, which is the decline in the yen. The depreciation of the yen against the dollar has made it much more expensive for Japanese to travel to the US. Most current Hawaii flight reservations are for higher cabin classes such as business and premium economy.
“The people who want to go now are usually wealthy people or people with high salaries because it’s normal for them. I don’t think it’s possible for young people right now to just go to Hawaii.” added Torium.
Experience Hawaii without leaving Japan
Experiencing Hawaii without leaving Japan
For those unable to go to Hawaii, Japan offers local options. Read also : Uncivil Politics – Journal – DAWN.COM.
Hawaiian-themed festivals — featuring hula dancers, ukulele players, and Hawaiian food trucks — are hugely popular.
These festivals take place in metropolitan cities such as Tokyo, Yokohama, and Osaka, as well as in rural areas such as Ikaho Onsen, a hot spring in Gunma Prefecture.
“(In Japan) people are in too much of a hurry whether it’s going to college or (worrying about) other things like war or politics, but in Hawaiian culture there’s a culture of just preserving your island said David Smith, CEO of Leiland Grow, a Japan-based company that produces Hawaiian-themed concerts and events.
“I thought (these festivals) would lead to bringing that kind of Hawaiian culture to Japan and letting people know how good Hawaii is.”
Punalu’u is painted yellow to remind visitors of the sunny Hawaiian skies.
In addition to recurring festivals, there are Hawaiian restaurants all over Japan.
Punalu’u, a Hawaiian-themed homey restaurant in Yachiyo, Chiba, is decorated with a variety of both American and Hawaii-specific memorabilia. There is a Harley Davidson motorcycle as the centerpiece by the wall and a surfboard above it with the name of the shop.
The owner and chef, Yuji Nonaka, 57, quit his job as a payroll administrator and started his restaurant 14 years ago with his wife, Kiyomi Nonaka, 50.
Kiyomi discovered her love for Hawaii – especially hula dancing – during a work trip as an 18-year-old.
“Hula has helped me through so many things in life, whether it’s with my relationships with others or when something went wrong at work. When I do hula, it feels like I’m in a higher dimension. I wanted to share this feeling with others, so I opened my own hula school here 18 years ago,” she said.
A common misconception about hula is that it is a dance tradition exclusively for women. No. In ancient Hawaii, men were the first to dance hula, and the best dancers were even chosen to become warriors. Today, Ke Kai O Kahiki — one of Hawaii’s most famous male hula schools — continues this tradition by telling warrior stories through dance. To do this, dancers train in the same way as their ancient ancestors, using the land itself as a hard and unforgiving gym. To dance like a warrior, you must train like a warrior.
The roots of a relationship
Yujin Yaguchi, a professor at the Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Tokyo, focuses on the cultural relations between Hawaii and the US and Japan. To see also : Ministry Press Release – July 5, 2022 – United States Department of State.
Yaguchi notes that in the early 1800s, a large number of Japanese immigrated to Hawaii, making it a familiar and convenient place for Japanese tourists to travel to.
Many had relatives they visited, and it also helped with the language barrier.
Data from the American Community Survey conducted by the US Census Bureau indicated in a 2016-2020 survey that 22.3% of Hawaii residents identified as Japanese or part Japanese.
“Nowadays I think people (in Hawaii) speak Japanese for business purposes. It’s very easy to access people who can understand, if not speak, Japanese, and you have announcements and signage and everything in Japanese,” explains Yaguchi from .
Nearly 20 years after the end of World War II, leisure travel abroad was banned in Japan, with occasional exceptions for study abroad programs or business trips.
Spa Resort Hawaiians was the first Hawaiian-style resort in Japan.
Pleasure travel was banned for nearly two decades after the war ended. The war ended in 1945 and travel abroad was severely restricted until 1964, but once the travel ban was lifted, Hawaii was one of the most popular places for the Japanese. . . to visit,” Yaguchi continues.
Even if they couldn’t go, they dreamed of Hawaii.
Spa Resort Hawaiians is a hot spring theme park in the Joban area of Fukushima Prefecture and was the epitome of a simulated Hawaii in the years following Prohibition.
When the coal industry deteriorated in the 1960s, the local mining company turned to tourism to save jobs and revitalize the local economy, creating the first resort facility in Japan, with a heated pool, palm trees and even entertainers from Hawaii.
The rise in the value of the yen and the Japanese economy in the 1980s gave Japanese affordability to visit Hawaii well into the 1990s, at the height of the bubble economy.
“Hawaii became something of a beach paradise in the 1990s and also a shopper’s paradise for the Japanese,” says Yaguchi. “Then there’s this kind of reformulation or reconceptualization of Hawaii as not so much a shopper’s paradise (but more of) as a sort of place for iyashi.”
The owner of Da Plate Lunch 808 wanted to create a plate lunch restaurant in Japan like he visited in Hawaii.
Peace on a plate
A plate lunch is a product of Hawaii’s multicultural background. Usually it’s two scoops of white rice, a side of macaroni salad with a generous helping of mayonnaise, and protein of your choice, usually topped with thick savory gravy.
“When I went to Hawaii and saw plate lunches, I thought it was fascinating. It was an amalgamation of American, Japanese and just Asian (cultures). That was really interesting to me and it got me hooked on plate lunches. I realized there were there weren’t many plate lunch restaurants in Japan that came close to what I had in Hawaii,” said Akihiro Misono, who started his plate lunch restaurant Da Plate Lunch 808 last year in Sakura, Chiba Prefecture.
Honolulu-based radio station KSSK-FM is broadcast to the restaurant from Hawaii. Customers often wear “aloha shirts,” which are called Hawaiian shirts in the US.
Eggs ‘n Things, a breakfast cafe and restaurant chain based in Hawaii, only has overseas locations in Japan. The first was opened in Harajuku in 2010.
Kota Matsuda, CEO of Eggs ‘n Things Japan, mentioned the brand’s popularity among Japanese travelers visiting Hawaii.
“Especially in these difficult times of Covid, the barriers to travel abroad are still high for many people. We give our customers who want to travel to Hawaii but are not quite able to yet, the closest experience to people come here not only for the Hawaiian-style food, but also for the unique ‘Hawaiian Vibe,'” said Matsuda.
Eggs ‘N Things is a Hawaiian breakfast chain with a huge Japanese following.
Wearing your fandom
Yosuke “Yo-chan” Seki, aloha shirt aficionado and driver, surfs every weekend and never gets tired of going back to Hawaii — he’s been going every year since 2011.
“Since I started wearing aloha shirts, I usually wear them in my daily life,” said the 47-year-old. “I hope people look at me wearing them and think they want to wear them too. Right now I’m wearing a replica of one of the expensive designs that can cost up to several million. Wearing is about 20,000 to 30,000 yen. “
Forty-year-old Asami Seki, also an aloha shirt aficionado, owns an accessory company called 82 or aloha. A year ago she started making hypoallergenic accessories that people can wear while surfing.
“I’ve only been to Hawaii once, but during this time, even if I’m not able to go because of the pandemic, I’ve gradually come to love Hawaii more and more,” she said.
“I always wanted to go to Hawaii and always admired it before I first got there. After I got back from my first trip, I started incorporating aspects of Hawaii into my lifestyle.”
Her husband, Yosuke, agrees with that sentiment: “It’s become sort of status for me.”
Hawaiian shirts are known in Japan as “aloha shirts”.
“When I want to dress up, I wear aloha shirts. I feel like I’ve dressed sharply when I wear them and it’s really exciting to pick a theme for the day and finish off with others accordingly vote,” Asami added.
The shirts are heavily influenced by Japanese artistry and design.
Sun Surf, an aloha shirt brand under Toyo Enterprise with about 50 years of experience in the game, focuses on reproducing aloha shirts from the 1930s and 1950s. The brand director, Yoshihiro Nakano, 47, is an aloha shirt researcher who started collecting the shirts when he was a teenager.
According to Nakano, aloha shirts started with Japanese immigrants in Hawaii.
“They even dressed in Japanese clothes in Hawaii. In the second half of the 19th century, people emigrated to Japan and soon after they started importing rolls of cloth, including Japanese clothes. The locals saw that and thought it would be interesting to make shirts out of it, so they started making aloha shirts with Japanese patterns,” said Nakano.
Then mass production began. Instead of importing rolls of fabric for Japanese clothing from Japan, stores in Hawaii imported a wide variety of printed fabrics just for aloha shirts.
Today, these aloha shirts are also considered collectibles.
“There are a lot of (customers) who never wear (the shirts) and just collect or frame them,” Nakano said.
It’s all in the spirit of iyashi.
Japan is finally taking steps towards reopening to tourists in the summer of 2022. Tour groups made up of international travelers have been able to enter the country from June 10, while the number of allowed arrivals per day has been increased to 20,000.
Is Hawaii still accepting visitors?
Hawai»i is open and ready to welcome you. There are no COVID-19 related entry requirements for domestic travelers. Travelers arriving in Hawaii directly from an international airport must still meet U.S. federal requirements. For updates on international travel, visit CDC.gov.
What is Hawaii’s Second Supplemental Proclamation? Second Supplemental Proclamation, COVID-19. 1. Pursuant to Article 127A-13(a)(1) HRS, all persons entering the State of Hawaii are subject to mandatory self-quarantine, except for persons performing emergency services or critical infrastructure functions who are exempted by the Director of Emergency Response. The self-quarantine period begins from the time of entry into the State of Hawaii and lasts for 14 days or the duration of the person’s presence in the State of Hawaii, whichever is shorter. This self-quarantine mandate will take effect on March 26, 2020 at 12:01 PM. In accordance with section 127A-25, HRS, I hereby approve the Rules regarding COVID-19, which are attached hereto.3. Pursuant to Section 127A-29, HRS, any person who violates the quarantine rules will be guilty of a felony, and if convicted, the person will be fined not more than $5,000, or jailed not more than a year, or both.
Is there a travel advisory level 4 for COVID-19 at this time?
There are currently no Level 4 COVID-19 Travel Health Notices.
Is the Department of Health in Hawaii still operating isolation facilities during the COVID-19 pandemic?
HONOLULU — The Hawai’i Department of Health (DOH) will cease statewide operation of isolation/quarantine facilities on December 31, 2021.
Are there any pure Hawaiians?
In the most recent census, 690,000 people reported being Native Hawaiian or of a mixed race that includes Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander. There may now be as few as 5,000 full-blooded Native Hawaiians left in the world.
What breed are Hawaiians mixed with? In Hawaii, the vast majority (70%) of multiracial residents say they are a combination of white, Asian, and Native Hawaiian/Pacific islanders.
What race is Native Hawaiian?
Native Hawaiians, or simply Hawaiians (Hawaiian: kÄ naka, kÄ naka ʻŠiwi, kÄ naka maoli, and HawaiÊ»i maoli), are the native Polynesian people of the Hawaiian Islands. Hawaii was founded at least 800 years ago with the voyage of Polynesians from the Society Islands.
Where do pure Hawaiians live?
Many of the last Hawaiians, perhaps 50,000 people, live on Oahu’s Waianae Coast in cities like Nanakuli, Maili, Waianae, and Makaha. According to the 1980 census, there are 118,000 partially Hawaiian islands in the Hawaiian Islands, compared to 332,000 whites and 240,000 Japanese.
Do we need visa stamping for Hawaii?
3. Re: Do I need a passport/visa to come to Hawaii? Hawaii is a US state and is a domestic travel destination for US citizens. If you are a US citizen (you can’t tell exactly from your post whether you are or not), you can travel to Hawaii with only a valid ID, you don’t need a passport.
Does an Indian passport need a visa for Hawaii? Visa & Customs All international visitors, regardless of country of origin, must present a valid passport or secure document when entering the United States, including Hawaii.
What documents are needed for Hawaii?
Domestic Travel When flying to Hawaii within the United States, all you need is a valid government photo ID. A list of accepted IDs can be found on the TSA website.
Is flying to Hawaii considered international?
Non-Direct International Travel to Hawaii Beginning November 8, international passengers entering the US from another state or territory will be treated as domestic travelers when entering the state of Hawaii. The Safe Travels Hawaii program continues for domestic travelers.
Can a non US citizen travel to Hawaii?
If you are a foreign citizen (non-US citizen) traveling to Hawaii, you must have a passport. You must follow the same procedure when traveling to any of the US mainland states. It would be the same because the Hawaiian Islands are part of the United States.
Can a non-immigrant travel to Hawaii? Can I fly to Hawaii or Alaska as an undocumented traveler? Traveling to Hawaii or Alaska is considered a domestic flight. Both Hawaii and Alaska are states of the US. Therefore, flying to either destination follows the same TSA guidelines as traveling to any other state in the country.
Can I go to Hawaii with no papers?
Domestic Travel When flying to Hawaii within the United States, all you need is a valid government photo ID. A list of accepted IDs can be found on the TSA website.
Can I go to Hawaii without a green card?
Hawaii is a US state and therefore passport documentation requirements for US citizens and LPRs do not apply. The entry requirements for non-US citizens are the same as for entering the United States from a foreign destination.
