Kauai Tag

kukuigroveThis post is brought to you by guest columnist Jonell Kaohelaulii, Marketing Manager at Kukui Grove Center. Located in Lihue, Kauai.  Kukui Grove Center offers more than 60 shops and restaurants. Social networking has been a part of the customer service and shopping experience at Kukui Grove Center for over a year.  Our presence on Twitter, Facebook, Posterous, and other social media sites has allowed us to expand our online reach, beyond traditional website capabilities, to build relationships and communicate with our customers about services, sales, merchants, and community events. We utilize social media to increase Kukui Grove’s advertising exposure at every opportunity.  After a year of creating a database of online followers and fans, we decided to test Kukui Grove’s social media reach initially by promoting a new Toddler Thursday event via our Twitter and Facebook pages. The results were amazing!  Attendance increased each week.  Recently, we garnered our largest turnout of more than 81 toddlers thus, providing valuable entertainment for our weekday consumers and increasing pedestrian traffic for our merchants.
Pono Market"Pack to Fly" is a term heard often in Kauai restaurants and stores, usually referring to the packaging of food being taken on an airplane.  Most times, this food will be presented as omiyage (o-mee-yah-gay), the Japanese tradition of gifts given to co-workers, family, and friends upon returning from a trip.  Omiyage has been adopted by Hawaii and Kauai locals and usually involves food.  Anyone can take on this custom by buying and giving locally-made favorites from the places that they visit.
This year we had the distinct honor to award scholarships to two deserving and extraordinary recipients, Benjie Baclig and Shelcie Takenouchi.  Shelcie is in Southern California, where she will attend USC to pursue a master of arts degree in strategic public relations.  Benjie just graduated as the valedictorian from Waimea High School on Kaua'i's Westside so we were able to take him and his family to breakfast to meet him and learn what fired his ambition to be great.