AFTER THE RIOT: THE SEARCH FOR ANSWERS : Hawaii Apparently Reaps L.A.’s Tourism Losses

Hawaii’s tourism trade appears to be benefiting from last week’s rioting in Los Angeles.

A number of island tour companies said Tuesday that they booked packages for hundreds of Japanese tourists scheduled to visit Los Angeles, but who have changed their minds because of the violence that erupted in the wake of the Rodney G. King beating verdict.

Meanwhile, in California the state Commerce Department has scheduled a meeting Friday in Los Angeles for various state and local officials to discuss ways of allaying fears among out-of-state tourists who are considering skipping California during coming months because of the disturbance.

Legislators and representatives of convention and visitors bureaus from around the state, the California Tourism Commission, the California Tourism Corp. and the California Travel Industry Assn. have been invited.

The meeting could lead to a state and privately funded marketing campaign to address the fears of would-be tourists, said Commerce Dept. spokeswoman Jeanne Winnick. “We’ve gotten together after other . . . disasters, such as earthquakes or the prolonged drought,” she added.

Wil Hokama of JTB Hawaii, a large Japanese tour company, said nearly 400 Japanese tourists have already changed their Los Angeles plans and booked trips to Hawaii instead.

“Definitely, there was an effect,” Hokama said.

Another large Japanese tour company, Kintetsu International Express, didn’t have exact figures, but said it stopped sending people to Los Angeles last week and that many of those people came to Hawaii instead. The company again began booking trips to Los Angeles on Tuesday.

Other companies said they moved people out of Los Angeles when the rioting began and brought them to Hawaii, while some firms said they lost business when people who had booked combined trips to Hawaii and Los Angeles canceled without rescheduling the Hawaii portion of their trip.