Island immersion

On the North Shore, tucked just off the main road, the Polynesian Cultural Center operates far from the hustle and bustle of Waikiki.

The center in Laie is more than an hour’s drive from the heart of Oahu’s main tourism mecca and is closed on Sundays.

But that hasn’t stopped visitors from making their way to the PCC, which offers a taste of multiple cultures in one setting and has become the state’s No. 1 paid visitor attraction.

In the Tongan village, guests are invited up to the stage to try to match the drum beat of the performers.

Just down the path in the Samoan village, volunteers from the audience are asked to sample the milk from a freshly husked coconut.

And in the Hawaiian village, visitors are treated to hula, ukulele, weaving and poi-making demonstrations.

The PCC, which is in the midst of a 10-year, $100 million renovation that began in 2009, is marking its 50th anniversary a month early with a weeklong celebration that begins today at the neighboring Brigham Young University-Hawaii Cannon Activities Center. The PCC has come a long way since opening on Oct. 12, 1963, with the mission of providing financial support to BYU-Hawaii students.

"When PCC opened in 1963, the experts said this place will flop," said President and CEO Alfred Grace, 52, who on Feb. 26 became both the first person to come up through the PCC ranks and the first BYU-Hawaii alumnus to ascend to the top position. "They said it’s too far away and guests will not travel all the way out there to watch amateur performers. And several years later, the headline in the paper said (it was) the flop that flipped because people did go out there."

Grace said if the PCC were located closer to Waikiki attendance likely would be better, but the distance from BYU-Hawaii would defeat the purpose of the center.

"One of our main reasons for being here is to support BYU-Hawaii students by providing employment and training opportunities," Grace said. "And in turn, BYU-Hawaii students are the reason why the Polynesian Cultural Center is a success because they come from the islands of Polynesia and can share their culture, or they come from countries such as Japan, China or Korea and can serve as guides for people visiting from their homelands. So it’s a very symbiotic relationship with both entities depending upon each other for their well-being."

Grace said revenue and attendance through July was running about 5 percent ahead of last year when the PCC attracted 718,847 for the full year and generated just more than $60 million in revenue. The number of visitors ranked the PCC first for paid attractions, ahead of the Honolulu Zoo at 667,981 and the Battleship Missouri Memorial at 540,591, according to the State of Hawaii Data Book.

The No. 1 unpaid attraction last year was the USS Arizona Memorial at 1,751,224, followed by Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park at 1,483,928 and Haleakala National Park at 1,094,668.

"If you were to say what would make the Polynesian Cultural Center more successful, it would be opening on Sunday and serving alcohol," Grace said. "Neither of those will happen given our mission statement and our affiliation with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. So those are not options that we consider."

No matter. The PCC is doing just fine the way it is after attracting more than 37 million visitors in its first 50 years.

Grace said the center is popular among visitors because of the authenticity of the presentations and its contribution to the overall Hawaiian experience.

"They’re coming to Hawaii to experience the aloha spirit, the nature of the people here, the beauty of the islands," Grace said. "The Polynesian Cultural Center tends to exemplify that in the way our staff interacts with the guests, and through the cultural integrity of the villages and the protocol and presentations that go on at the center. There’s a certain thing that also applies to the enjoyment, which is the scope of the presentation."

That presentation extends over 42 acres and includes a canoe tour through the park and six recreated island villages from Hawaii, Samoa, Aotearoa/New Zealand, Fiji, Tahiti and Tonga, plus island exhibits for Marquesas and Rapa Nui (Easter Island). There’s also a Gateway Restaurant that seats 1,100 people and offers two dinner buffets.

The center has three luau facilities: Hale Aloha (550 seats), Hale Ohana (400 seats) and Hale Ku‘ai (200 seats), with Hale Aloha currently under renovation and scheduled to reopen later this month. In addition, the PCC has a large-screen movie theater that accommodates more than 400 people and a 2,700-seat amphitheater showcasing the evening Polynesian music-and-dance extravaganza "Ha: Breath of Life."

More than 90 percent of PCC’s $100 million renovation is scheduled to be completed at the end of next year with the opening of the new marketplace, which is twice the size of the old one.

"It’s not inclusive to the center," Grace said. "It actually reaches out toward Kamehameha Highway through the parking lot. There’s short-term parking for drive-by guests to stop. It’s not a ticket-controlled environment. People will be able to just come right in and spend a few minutes at the marketplace or spend an hour at the marketplace, and enjoy all the entertainment and food that we’re going to have there, the retail shopping and so forth."

OTHER MAJOR improvements already have taken shape.

"Ha: Breath of Life" debuted in August 2009; the remodeled Gateway Restaurant reopened in November 2011; and the renovated Hawaiian Journey Theater, formerly the Hukilau Theater, opened in March 2013 with the premiere of "Hawaiian Journey." The revamped Hawaiian village also opened in March.

Grace said the time was right to update the Polynesian Cultural Center, which in 1966 was featured in the Elvis Presley film "Paradise, Hawaiian Style."

"It’s about renovating a 50-year product that’s located on the North Shore that’s subject to wind, ocean spray, sun and so forth that can really deteriorate the facility," Grace said. "Part of it is to make sure we have our facilities in excellent condition. The other half of it is to enhance the experience."

In addition, a new hotel adjacent to the PCC is being developed by Laie Ventures LLC, beginning with 140 rooms in the first phase. Local land manager Hawaii Reserves Inc. is providing a ground lease for the new facility.

The hotel will replace the 49-room Laie Inn that was demolished in 2009, and is expected to be a Courtyard by Marriott with a projected cost in the range of $25 million. Ground-breaking for the new hotel is expected to take place early next year with an opening date sometime in 2015.

Plans calls for the Laie McDonald’s to be relocated about 200 yards farther north to make way for construction of the hotel.

"The hotel will accommodate our opportunity to do multiday packaging at the Polynesian Cultural Center," Grace said. "One of the major concerns guests have with the center is that there isn’t enough time to do everything. But given our location from Waikiki, it’s always been challenging for them to come back given their length of stay in Hawaii.

"So those who want to spend more time on the North Shore, enjoy everything from Haleiwa all the way around to Kualoa Ranch, including the Polynesian Cultural Center and Waimea Falls Park, all of these activities will be literally 30, 40 minutes away from them if they’re staying at the hotel in Laie."

From its inception, the nonprofit PCC has had a close relationship with BYU-Hawaii, a private university with about 2,500 students owned and operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The center employs about 750 BYU-Hawaii students during the peak summer season with the number dropping to about 650 during the off-season. Overall, the center has roughly 1,150 employees.

BYU-Hawaii students work 19 hours a week on average, with their PCC wages covering about 50 percent of their cost to attend the university. Health insurance is provided by BYU-Hawaii. The remaining expenses are covered by scholarships, grants, loans and family contributions.

Many students who work at PCC participate in BYU-Hawaii’s financial aid program called I-WORK that helps cover costs for international students.

"It’s one of the primary reasons for the existence of the Polynesian Cultural Center because that school was designed to cater to students from the South Pacific who at that time (the center was founded), and currently in many cases, don’t have a lot of opportunity for higher learning," Grace said.

"The Polynesian Cultural Center was established as a means to preserve and perpetuate the Polynesian culture which was getting sort of overrun a little bit by Western civilization in the different islands, but at the same time provide employment opportunity for the students at BYU-Hawaii."

Grace said like any major attraction in Hawaii, it’s hard to attract repeat visitors without refreshing the product.

"So for some of our markets, ‘Ha: Breath of Life’ is still a new show and they’re discovering it as they return to Hawaii after four, five years," he said. "That’s the reason why we repurposed the IMAX theater and took it from an IMAX theater to a four-dimensional experience with moving seats, scent, spray, state-of-the-art sound system, 4K projection unit and our very own movie showing scenery of Hawaii that is rarely seen by anyone, including locals, and an amazing story line that helps guests appreciate the connection that the Hawaiian people have with the land, with the aina."

The challenge, he said, is enhancing the overall experience for the first-time visitor while targeting the repeat visitor with one or more new attractions.

"So if you haven’t been to the Polynesian Cultural Center in the last five years, you haven’t seen ‘Ha: Breath of Life’; you haven’t gone into the new Hawaiian village; you haven’t seen ‘Hawaiian Journey,’ the new movie; you haven’t dined in the new Gateway Restaurant and, a year from now, you wouldn’t have seen the new marketplace either. So these are all elements that we can position as reasons for you to return to the PCC."