Q. What are some of the key challenges in being a leader in the visitor industry?

A. We should always be destination marketing, promoting Hawai'i as a major destination always. Each hotel or property has its own unique logistics that they have to promote as well. Making sure you don't take your eye off of the main destination, which is Hawai'i. Making sure you're allocating enough resources to both, property specific as well as destination. And coordinating your efforts with the other players and hotels within our state.

Q. What do you like about being in the hotel industry?

A. Happy customers. I like people. I love it when they leave happy. It's even more enjoyable when people come to me when they're not happy and I have the ability to make them happy or turn things around. I think that's a great feeling.

The other side of it is even more fulfilling. You have young adults entering into this industry. You get to assist them in learning and they end up growing and becoming managers and then general managers one day. Watching young people coming out of the University of Hawai'i, HPU (Hawai'i Pacific University), turning them into industry professionals. Many of them end up all over the world. And they call you from time to time from all over the world, from Singapore or somewhere else. ... And they ask for some advice or they just want to share what they are doing. It's a wonderful feeling.

And you meet people from all around the world. Every chance I have, I travel to different locations and that is also a hobby of mine. I like to see how they do things in our industry. And I've always been an avid historical buff.

Q. Where do you like to go on vacation?

A. Everywhere. There's so many places to visit that's unique that you never run out of choices. If you just look at things on a global level, it's just exciting. The next one that I would like to go to would be Russia and India. I like going into Asia, probably Southeast Asia, multiple countries there, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia. And Costa Rica.

Q. What are some of the challenges of leading in a family-run company, first with following in the footsteps of a well-liked founder?

A. Trying to understand the values. We want to keep the old philosophies as current as possible without losing focus on where the new challenges of our era are. With older companies, if you don't change to the times, you end up going out of business. There's a lot of businesses that have been 100 years old or older that have gone out of business recently because they haven't been able to make the shifts or changes to the new global marketplace. For us, it's almost like that book "Who Moved My Cheese?" You have to keep finding new places of where the cheese is coming from to keep your business afloat. Constantly searching or finding quality people to help you. Always looking for and recruiting intelligent team members that have the expertise that you don't. It's not easy to find people anymore.

Q. Your company has had some bitter union battles. What can you say about them?

A. We remain positive and try to do what's best for our company and our employees. We are involved with the National Labor Relations Board right now. At the end of the day, they'll decide. As far as the boycotts from the union — as they hurt our business, they're also hurting work opportunities for our employees. That's less hours that we're able to provide for them. We don't have anything personal against anyone. We just try to do the best we can for our business and our future. I'm sure the union feels they're doing the same thing. "

Q. What's ahead?

A. The visitor industry slowdown gives us a chance to revisit some of the things that we always wanted to do. For example, the downturn in business allows us to replace all of the carpets in all of the rooms at the Pacific Beach Hotel, which we couldn't do when we had very high occupancy. Challenges bring opportunities.