Good News About The Far East From The Other Far East

Aloha Kakou:

President Bush has decided to lift the visa requirements for a number of allied countries. Most notably for Hawaii, the affected country is South Korea.

Even with a visa process described as "arduous", approximately 40,000 South Koreans visited Hawaii last year. Most visitors stayed on Oahu, with about 14,000 venturing to Maui.

Tourism officials expect that, once the visa restrictions are lifted probably sometime in January, 2009, the annual South Korean visitor count will double each year for two years.

While not entirely replacing the now-gone, once seemingly omnipresent Japanese visitors, the South Korean visitors should help to given Hawaii tourism a much needed boost.

http://mauinews.com/page/content.detail/id/509929.html
http://www.starbulletin.com/business/businessnews/20081017_Isle_officials_pleased_with_plans_to_ease_travel_rules.html