A visitors information center designed especially to serve Japanese tourists to Hawaii has been formally opened on the grounds of the Hawaii Temple in Laie. It is a section of the presently existing Hawaii Temple Visitors Center.
Presiding over the recent dedication service was Elder Gordon B. Hinckley of the Council of the Twelve.
Also speaking at the dedication was Adney Y. Komatsu, regional and mission representative for the Japan Central and Japan West Missions.
The center, with its Japanese-speaking guides, many of them students at the nearby Church College of Hawaii, and Japanese language movies and displays, will host an estimated 41,000 visitors during the balance of 1973. More than 320,000 people visited the grounds in 1972. Of these, more than 30,000 were from Japan.
More than 30,000 Japanese-speaking tourists are expected to visit the newly dedicated Japanese section of the Hawaii Temple Visitors Center this year. Here visitors view a portrait of President Heber J. Grant, who led the first missionaries to Japan in 1902.