Bringing Arashi here took 2 years of work

The Hawaii Tourism Authority spent $480,000 to bring the Japanese boy band Arashi to Hawaii for two concerts at the Ko Olina Resort in West Oahu on Friday and Saturday — the group’s first performances outside of Asia.

The band’s fans are expected to fill nearly every Oahu hotel, pump about $20.7 million into Hawaii’s economy, produce about $2.2 million in taxes, support 232 jobs and create about 200 local ones, said Eric Takahata of the HTA’s Hawaii Tourism Japan. Some 30,000 fans, about half of them from Japan, are expected to attend the concerts.

Takahata said it took about two years of planning to bring Arashi to Hawaii. A partnership was forged after HTA Vice President of Brand Management David Uchiyama and former board Chairman Ron Williams attended an Arashi concert during a trip to Japan to get a sense of the band’s significance and justify the outlay.

In comparison, the HTA said it spent $4 million to bring the NFL Pro Bowl to Hawaii last year, which drew 47,270 attendees and reached 11.4 million television viewers across the U.S., making it the most watched all-star game in the nation, resulting in more than $200 million in media value. It also contributed an estimated $71.9 million in direct visitor spending in the state, not inclusive of the production costs of the game and events surrounding Pro Bowl week, which is estimated at an additional $15.7 million.

The agency does not contribute to the Honolulu Marathon, which last year brought 13,585 runners from Japan. Overall, the event attracted 30,568 racers and contributed $101 million to the state’s economy.

While it’s hard to compare Arashi with major sporting events, Hawaii tourism officials and organizers say so far Arashi has delivered winning results.

"It’s gotten an incredible response," said Takahata, who hopes to use the event as a springboard to bring more Japanese-based entertainment to Hawaii. "We think that this is a great way to bring more Japanese visitors to Hawaii."

Barbara Saito, vice president of Tom Moffatt Productions, agrees.

"It doesn’t get much bigger than Arashi anywhere in the world," Saito said. "They sell out stadiums with hundreds of thousands of people and drop a single and sell out in a day."

Saito said members of the band, which formed on a yacht in Hawaii in 1999, also are known for acting in Japanese dramas and that one member, Kazunari Ninomiya, starred as Saigo in Clint Eastwood’s World War II epic "Letters From Iwo Jima."

"As you can imagine, the buzz about the Hawaii show is just amazing," she said. "It’s going to bode well for Hawaii."

The show’s lasting impacts are twofold, Saito said. A successful event will show other entertainers that Hawaii can host a concert of this magnitude and caliber.

"We’ve never seen anything bigger or more technologically advanced than this stage," she said. "The show will be quite a spectacle."

After the show, Saito said, Hawaii will continue to get exposure in Japan because the group plans to release a special DVD of its Hawaii concerts. Takahata said the event is expected to produce $100 million in media coverage for Hawaii’s visitor industry.

Barry Wallace, executive vice president of Hospitality Services for Outrigger Enterprises, likened the event to the Honolulu Marathon, only better.

"We don’t usually fill up at all of our hotels for the Honolulu Marathon," Wallace said. "Everybody is full for this group, and what’s really great is that it comes at a softer time when typically some of us would have vacant rooms. We’d be thrilled to see HTA do events like this three or four times a year. It would fill the off-seasons."