Transcript
JESSE TUNISON: Well Volcano village is really, for the most part, about two miles line of sight from the summit of Kilauea volcano. So certainly it is quite the hotspot but fortunately for us we are not near any of the lava that is going into the ocean about 4000 feet down below us, at the ocean, 30 miles away.
DON WISEMAN: So the lava is going down the other side of the mountain?
JT: Yeah indeed.
DW: And the attraction for a village so high on the mountain is presumably for tourism reasons?
JT: Yeah everything from cafes to fine dining, we have art galleries - some of the best in the nation, doing everything from glasswork to fine painting, woodworks, ceramics, everything and anything that you can think of. In the first month our income went down by 90%.
DW: You have got a plan to try and do something about it.
JT: All of the business owners in the volcano area decided to band together to create a platform called Experience Volcano Hawaii and really it's website that allows the visitors to see what else can be done for fun in the volcano area, other than wandering into the National Park, which is unfortunately closed at the moment. So it is really a public awareness campaign. We are located in a lush tropical Hawaiian rain forest, whereas if you go on the other side of the caldera, it is really just a lava scape, lava flows everywhere. Pretty much runs all the way down to the ocean.
DW: In terms of trying to bring people in, you have got the website but that is not going to be enough.
JT: The entire state of Hawaii is a tourist destination in and of itself. The fact that Volcano village got to be the gateway community to the most visited attraction in the state is really luck playing its hand. So short of having the national park re-open those numbers won't ever be the same. So the question becomes what number would become acceptable? We know it certainly won't be two million a year because we won't have that traffic coming through. So it means that we will all have to scale back, but we are still here and we are going right on through it.
DW: When you say scale back, a number of people have left town, or they are just putting their feet up until things settle down?
JT: They are just putting their feet up. Restaurants up here - a dear friend of mine he runs Ohelo Cafe. It's a wonderful place, kind of Italian/Hawaiian fusion, very interesting. But unfortunately he had a staff of around 16 people and he had to go and cut that staff in half. They had to stop doing lunches, just do dinner services only. They are asking farmers 'what do you have too much of. If we could can get a price cut on some of our sources,' Other businesses are thinking of other ways they can go ahead and scale back. Everyone kind of trying to re-invent the wheel up here and adapt and adjust.
DW: So the message you want to get is that as far as Volcano village goes, you are open for business.
JT: We are open for business. It is a safe place to visit and certainly when it comes down to visiting the Big Island of Hawaii the air is clear where we are. A lot of the other areas have volcanic vog [volcanic fog]. Just with the way the trade winds work around here the volcanic emissions kind of get swept all over the island, but Volcano village being situated where it is [is] a perfect place to kick back, relax, breath in the air, listen to the native birds, and just enjoy your day.
