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It's true that Europeans have more vacation time during the year (six weeks is typical) but am not convinced they take longer vacations. My experience is they take more vacations and occasionally take a long one every so often when they want to explore.
Most of the European tourists I've met in Hawaii tend to make the trip here as part of a general trip to the US; they'll visit cities such as New York and San Francisco (for example) and tag on a few days in Hawaii if they can afford it. I've met very few that visit Hawaii for a long time.
As AKpilot states, it's just not a destination spot that appeals in Europe unless it's tagged onto a US mainland trip.
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It could be they make the US mainland part of the trip just because they have no option but to go through there!
Plenty of Europeans make it to Bali and it's about the same distance, flying-time-wise.
Bali is nowhere as well-known to Europeans as Hawaii is, I think there's a lot of pent-up demand.
Of the European tourists I've encountered here, they're mainly from the German-speaking countries.
You ever notice any Brits around, Tom?
I hope Hawaiian goes for it.
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"You ever notice any Brits around, Tom?"
Most tourists I've met here from Europe (and there aren't that many of them) tend to be German or British.
When I regularly worked on Mauna Kea's summit, I was always outside around sunset and would talk to visiting tourists, although that's by no means the only place I've done that. Most were from Asia, the next biggest group was from the US mainland, and a small minority were from Europe.
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It's hard enough finding direct flights from the West Coast of Canada to the Big Island. I can't imagine how hard it is to get flights from Europe. I've had 2 day trips in the past because anything faster cost hundreds of dollars more. I know WestJet flies direct to Kona and you can get decent rates if you book around 6 months in advance. I've had flights go Vancouver-Seattle-Portland-Kona and then drive at night to get to Mountain View.
Me ka ha`aha`a,
Mike
Me ka ha`aha`a,
Mike
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Australia is a very popular place to visit for Europeans, especially Brits. This is a bit of a stretch, but perhaps Hawaiian could market Hawaii as a great spot to spend time on a stop-over.
The overall flight time to Australia would be longer than the normal route (via Asia) and Honolulu would have to compete with Bangkok as a stop-over destination (it's a hugely popular city for tourists), but that might be a way to go.
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Not a bad idea, Hawaii is much more appealing than Bangkok or Dubai.
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Most of the Europeans that I'm aware of (my aunt included) flew in/out HNL and took the cruise ship to the other islands. After the cruise portion (7 days) they spent additional time in Honolulu before and after. It is the same way we saw Europeans visit in Alaska. They seemed to like having everything arranged for them and very structured.
