Two out of three visitor-industry related companies expect the shutdown of Aloha and ATA airlines to have a negative impact on their business revenues, according to a survey being released today.

Only 22 percent do not expect any effects from the shutdowns while just 9 percent said they think business will improve for them.

The Business Banking Council produced the semiannual survey sponsored by American Savings Bank and conducted by QMark Research and Polling.

A survey of 100 Hawai'i businesses that identify themselves as directly involved in the visitor industry also reflected pessimism stemming from the recent decline in visitors from Japan and increasing reliance on visitors from the U.S. Mainland.

"The reality is pretty bad news from the survey participants point of view," said Jean Santos, a consultant who worked on the survey. "The challenge is to keep looking for the positives."

The state's lead tourism agency is wrestling with the best way to fight a decline in the number of visitors coming to Hawai'i. State tourism liaison Marsha Wienert told fellow members of the board of the Hawai'i Tourism Authority at a meeting yesterday that it's time to take another look at the quality-over-quantity approach to tourism.

Wienert said the state may need to shift the strategic policy away from aiming at fewer, higher-spending visitors and broaden the net to compensate for a 6 percent decline in the number of visitors so far this year.

To keep the level of spending of recent years, Wienert said, "do we want to increase visitors to make up for the 300,000 we've lost?"

Wienert said the state should still target higher-spending visitors but try to attract more of them.

Hotel executive John Toner said it makes sense to broaden the push with hotel occupancy sagging. "The reality is we need more visitors."

But Kyoko Kimura, Diamond Resort Hawaii president and general manager, cautioned against shifting gears too fast in abandoning a reasoned policy that emphasizes a quality visitor experience over sheer volume.

Such a move could prove "really short-sighted," Kimura said.

Santos said the combination of declining growth and optimism is worrisome. "That's a pretty powerful negative impact."

In addition to questions directed at businesses connected to the visitor industry, the survey also polled the broader business community about overall economic conditions in the state. A total of 403 random interviews were conducted from June 19 to July 2 for both parts of the survey. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.90 percentage points with a 95 percent level of confidence.

While visitor-related businesses said their profitability was lagging that of businesses in general, they "tend to see more room for improvement and are generally more optimistic about the future than is the overall sample," according to Santos.

She said tourism has proven a mainstay of the local economy. Even with competition, a declining dollar and "economic conditions we can't control," the state remains a huge tourism magnet.

"There is an allure and a draw that Hawai'i has," Santos said. "People are going to save their pennies and find a way to Hawai'i because it's their dream."

Just 10 percent of the broader business community believe the economic outlook for the state will improve in the coming year while 63 percent say things will get worse. One in four expect little or no change.

"When the data is tracked we find the level of optimism about the economy declining drastically in the current quarter, with the proportion of businesses that feel the economy will worsen in the next year increasing to its highest level ever," the study said.

Following are other highlights from the survey of the broader business community.