Summer program at isle school attracts many students from Asia

While the word for "fun" differs according to language, kids at a unique Summer Adventure Program that is run by St. Andrew’s Priory and frequented by visitors and locals alike have learned that the concept is universal.

"We look forward to seeing the Japanese kids. A lot of them end up being returnees," said Lauren Beury, a 14-year-old incoming freshman at St. Andrew’s Priory, who has participated in the summer program for four years and is interning as a helper this year. "We learn a lot from them. They teach us about their food and their language."

Beury is just one of the local kids who is benefiting from a decision by St. Andrew’s Priory to capitalize on a growing tourism trend for Asian parents to send their children to U.S. summer camps in Hawaii and elsewhere. China Daily, an English language newspaper, reported that more than 60,000 Chinese students planned to go to summer camps in the U.S. in 2011 and the number is growing exponentially.

Increased demand for American-style education and socialization opportunities from China and from other parts of the Asia-Pacific has helped St. Andrew’s Priory carve a niche for itself in Hawaii’s lucrative visitor industry and differentiate from its competitors at a time when competition has led to some private school closures. Several years ago, mostly local kids attended the school’s Summer Adventure Program, a one- to four-week program for kindergarteners to eighth-graders. However, once the school removed its English language proficiency requirement, visitors began enrolling their children, too.

"When I started five years ago, there were less than 50 kids in the program and they were all local. I was worried about the program because we were a lot more expensive than Kamaaina Kids, who run most of the rest of the summer day camps. I just kept trying to build a solid program and it’s paid off," said Summer Adventure Director Vicki Lepick.

This year, the $400 a week program, which offers multi-week discounts, welcomed 300 students, of which two-thirds were the children of Japanese visitors. Lepick said attendance from Japan really boomed as relationships between Hawaii and Japan grew closer after the devastating earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster in eastern Japan in 2011. Now, the school works with four or five tour agents in Japan to recruit students and also has begun to forge similar relationships with operators out of China.

"We’re working with an English-speaking school from China that wants to bring 200 students next year," she said.

While St. Andrew’s Priory isn’t aware of any other private schools with the same focus on providing educational experiences for the state’s youngest international visitors, several private and specialty schools offer educational tourism opportunities for teens and beyond. Intercultural Communications College (ICC Hawaii), which offers a summer language camp for teens aged 13 to 17, has noticed similar trends. Demand for English as a second language study was so great this summer that ICC saw its summer camp grow to 29 students from China, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and Serbia and had to lease short-term additional classroom space beyond its downtown campus at the Ala Moana Pacific Building.

ICC Executive Director Mika Sasamoto noted an increase in Asian students taking English as a second language, especially from Taiwan and China.

"More and more Asian parents want their children to go to high school in America, or even to early education like preschool and kindergarten," Sasamoto said. "They want to help their children experience American culture and learn English. English language is universal."

Visiting parents like the fact that their children spend weekdays in St. Andrew’s Priory Summer Adventure Program doing activities that they wouldn’t get to do in their home countries and likely wouldn’t do on vacation with their parents, Lepick said.

They learn American-style English while are doing things like making solar s’mores, visiting the Governor’s Garden, going back to the days of knights and princesses, hiking at Kualoa Ranch, visiting the Pacific Aviation Museum, feeding marine life at Sea Life Park, giving one another wacky hairstyles, taking a plunge on an Atlantis Submarine, playing mad scientists or barreling down water slides at Wet ‘n’ Wild Hawaii. Local parents also like that these camps offer opportunities that the students wouldn’t necessarily get during the regular school year, said Stephanie Jones, who works at St. Andrew’s Priory and has two daughters, Brooke and Jordan, at the school’s summer camp.

"I think it was a great experience for the girls because it exposed them to even more everyday cultural activities than are here at our school," Jones said. "I’ll be sending them again."

Like St. Andrew’s Priory, ICC expects continued program growth for summer. The school also hopes to establish a winter camp that focuses on China, Taiwan and South Korea.

"We are hoping to double the student count next year," Sasamoto said.

If St. Andrew’s Priory is able to finalize its deal with China, the program could see similar results.

"We have so many visitors now that we’ve grown to the point where we have to evaluate how big we can go," Lepick said.

Because of the range of activities as well as the program’s unique international perspective, St. Andrew’s Priory has noticed that the number of parents from around the world who want to invest in a children’s summer camp experience is growing. Lepick said there were even a fair number of visitors who elected to pay $1,200 to send their children for the entire program, which ran from July 22 to Aug. 15 this year.

Such expansion will be good for Hawaii’s visitor industry and for the economy as a whole since summer enrichment camps add an important component to the mix of visitors, said Dave Erdman, president and CEO of the PacRim Marketing Group Inc. and PRTech LLC.

"Asia is an important source marketing for students for these ‘camps,’ (which often) include tuition, home stay fees, activity fees, meals, and often lots of shopping," Erdman said. "Some of the students do come with their parents, or parents may visit at some time during the program."

With positive experiences, "school visits" create loyal Hawaii enthusiasts and travelers, who will most likely have a repeat visit in the future, he said. Educational tourism also bolsters the state’s overall economy, Erdman said.

"The students also open bank accounts or exchange currency, which may initially seem small, but are important to beginning a banking relationship depending on the length of stay and return visit potential," he said. "And parents may be encouraged to take advantage of the opportunity to look at real estate options and consider investments in Hawaii."

Erdman said the social nature of student travel also makes it a great way to expand Hawaii’s Asian visitor arrivals from new and emerging markets such as China, Taiwan and South Korea, and from areas in Japan that have only just gotten direct flights.

"Students are important in using social media to spread good words, comments, and most important, photos of their positive experiences in Hawaii, adding to our overall Hawaii destination marketing," he said.