Hotel for the holidays? For a number of Hawai'i visitors, a vacation here offers a less stressful way to celebrate the season with fewer hometown obligations.

Various hotels celebrate in different ways: some offer special gingerbread displays, many provide entertainment and others design special programs.

At the Halekulani hotel in Waikiki, the holiday season has become so popular that executive assistant manager Gerald Glennon finds himself with a full hotel, and half of the travelers in the 455 rooms who are there have stayed at the hotel before. That's up significantly from the normal 30 percent of returnees, he said.

In many cases, Glennon said, "when they left last year, they made reservations for this year."

Stan and Marjie Finkelstein, of Olympia, Wash., fall into that category — times five. "This is our 25th stay," she said.

He adds, "we're fortunate addicts."

Stan, 64, and Marjie, 59, love to travel and do a lot of it. Their destinations last year included Paris; London; Manchester, Vt.; and five trips to Chicago.

They started coming to the Halekulani in 1988. When their two sons were small, they brought the kids along every other year, they said.

Next year, they plan to expand the holiday tradition with the next generation, coming with their older son, his wife and a granddaughter.

Stan works as a director of a statewide association of cities and also is a professor at Seattle University, teaching public finance, city management and budgeting. "We live comfortably, not extravagantly," he said.

Both say they appreciate the positive energy of Hawai'i in general, and the friendly spirit of the Halekulani. "We never encountered one in which the personality of the hotel and the personality of the staff were so positive and gracious."

Glennon said this is the second year the oceanfront luxury hotel has offered a special "12 days of Christmas" program to guests, offering different holiday activities that offer something for guests of any creed.

The extra activities are free, and range from yoga, free limo rides to Ala Moana Center and mini-massages, to cookie decorating and trolley rides to see the Honolulu City Lights.

"We don't have snow but we have shave ice," Glennon said. "We try to make the whole month festive."

State tourism liaison Marsha Wienert said December traditionally starts slow but turns strong for tourism during Christmas and New Year's.

"Hawai'i has been — and continues to be, thank goodness — a destination where people want to spend the holidays gathered around with family and friends," Wienert said.

"They tend to come here year after year after year," she said. "For the hotels, those returning guests are almost like family."

Normally, the rush then depends on the day of the week that Christmas falls on, so the surge happens between two to four days before. "Many of our properties are sold out at the holidays," Wienert said. "It's very difficult to get a room."

She said the lower-key holiday appeals to many. "It's really giving them the ability to spend that quality time with their family and friends away from their normal environment where there's all kinds of distractions," she said.

"This is not a new phenomenon. This is a tradition for Hawai'i and for many of our visitors."

The Finkelsteins said the hotel program gave them a chance to connect with holiday activities that they enjoyed, including the trolley ride to the lights. "We have never experienced that in all of the years we've been coming here," Stan said.

"Our children are grown and gone," Stan said. "Our lives are so complex that being able to have this block of time away from the rainy Northwest here in the magnificent sunshine of Hawai'i is a respite."

Reach Robbie Dingeman at rdingeman@honoluluadvertiser.com.

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