Hotels Add Children's Programs To Meeting Services

As families struggle to spend more time together, children are becoming commonplace at conferences across the country. In few places is this more evident than in Hawaii, where a number of hotels are rushing to cater to the growing work-family market.

"About 25 percent of the conventions that we have at our hotels have children's programs," said Cheryl Williams, director of marketing for Sheraton Waikiki. "The Keiki Aloha program we've had for the past three or four years has been an enhancement to increase conference bookings."

"What we usually do when we have conventions is that we add staff to our already existing children's program, which is run by Kaimana Kids, an outside contractor," said Williams. "Sometimes, if a meeting brings in a lot of kids, we set up a separate program. Whatever way it happens, she emphasized that being able to accommodate children is a convention selling point.

Jon Conching, director of sales of the Hilton Hawaiian Village agreed. "Any group looking at a resort destination for a convention is likely to have a children's program of sorts. One of the first questions we ask when finding out the requirements of meetings is, 'Are children invited?' " he said.

Having a children's program seems to be somewhat more important in Waikiki than on the neighbor islands. "A keiki program is just a part of what we offer," said Bob Jacobs, director of sales at the Hyatt Regency Maui. "We put everything together in a package to attract corporate meetings to Hawaii. We're blessed with a year-round program that has a different schedule every day of the week, so we have something to offer."

In Honolulu, where children are big convention business, the National Medical Association will bring 10,000 delegates, including 500 children, to the Sheraton hotels from Aug. 2 to 7 for the organization's annual meeting.

"We've had kids at our conventions for 25 or 30 years," said Pat Norman, the association's meeting and planning coordinator. "We usually contract the children's program out, but sometimes the organization's spouse's auxiliary bids and wins it. Our conventions are almost like three separate conferences--one for the members, one for the spouses and one for the children--and we always have to make sure there's room for each group."

Norman also said "the children's program in Hawaii will be a bit different than in others places. The board had wanted to hire a contractor who had done the program for us before, but I wanted to use a local child care contractor." She also wanted someone who really knew Honolulu, as well as someone who could supply lifeguards and people trained in CPR.

"We also have six different age groups to deal with--three-to five-year olds, six- to eight-year-olds, nine- to 11-year-olds, 12- to 14-year-olds, 15-to 7-year-olds and 18 and older. We don't let the groups overlap. The 12-to-14-year-olds and 15- to 16-year-olds don't relate well, for example." she said.

"We try to keep the kids out of the hotel as much as possible," Norman said. "The three-to-five-year olds are on site, and the rest are out most of the day. Our program in Hawaii will include the Polynesian Cultural Center, Sea Life Park, a Pearl Harbor tour, the Bishop Museum and boogie boarding at the beach. In the evenings, there will be a luau at Paradise Cove, a disco night, a carnival night and a Hawaiiana night to introduce the kids to the arts, crafts and dances of the islands."

Children's programming seems to be a growing trend in Hawaii, and may be even more so with the opening of the convention center next year.

"We're hoping the convention center establishes a children's care program," said Ray Sanborn, president of Kamaina Kids, which runs nine pre-schools and 18 after-school programs at eight locations in Honolulu, as well as the Keiki Aloha program at the Sheraton Hotel. "They didn't put any children's facilities into their plans, but we're trying to establish our reputation, so we can set up a program ourselves. We'd just use regular space for it.