History of Sheraton Waikiki Hotel

Osano Empire

Sheraton Waikiki （from Waikiki beach）

In 1974, Japanese brothers Kenji Osano and Masakuni Osano bought the Hawaiian holdings of the Sheraton Corporation, including the 3 year-old Sheraton Waikiki Hotel. The Osano brothers formed Kyo-Ya Company Limited, a subsidiary of Kokusai Kogyo Company Limited as the corporate entity charged with overseeing the hotel properties. The purchases put the Osano brothers on the Forbes List of World's Richest People in 1999. After the death of the Osano brothers, Takamasa Osano inherited the billions of dollars owned in properties. The Sheraton Waikīkī Hotel is used as the corporate office of the Osano Empire. In 2004 Takamasa Osano sold 65% of Kokusai Kogyo to Cerberus Partners LP to cover $4 billion in defaulted loans. He still controls 35% of the company.

It was renovated in 1982 after the Hurricane hit part of O'ahu.  It was Hurricane Ewa.  And again in 1992 Hurricane Iniki hit parts of the island also.  Tokyo, Japan is home to many visitors visiting Waikiki.  Travel companies as Nippon Express, Kyoka Company, Kintetsu, Jal Pak, are all tour travel agency bringing the tourist from Japan to Hawai'i ever since the 1960s when TV made it well known with those Elvis Pressley commercials and Wayne Newton also was with the commercials then.  Since 1959, Japan has brought about 7,000,000 million people to Hawai'i.

Today the hotel is run by general manager Kelly Sanders and which also oversees the Kai's restaurant that was newly opened there several years ago.  Waikiki was a destination spot in the 1960s, but with Moana Surfrider as the first build hotel in 1962 at the same location it is today.  In 1964 Hawaii had a relatively smaller population, just about 500,000 people residing in Hawai'i.  O'ahu had about 300,000 residents.   In 2011 Hawai'i had 1,374,810 people living on the islands.  Hawai'i became a state in 1959, March 18, Dwight Eisenhower signs Hawai'i as a union into the United States Of America.