Hawaii Tourism Authority continues to battle for survival as tourism challenges proceed

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Hawaii visitor numbers in March rose for the first time in a year, but the state’s tourism recovery is still a long way off.

The Hawaii Tourism Authority reported Thursday that 439,785 visitors traveled to Hawaii in the past month – a 1.1% increase from 434,856 in March 2020 when pandemic fears and containment measures began to lower demand for travel.

Visitor spend in March increased 3% year over year to $ 745.9 million.

Despite the gains, March arrivals and spending were less than half what it was in March 2019, a pre-pandemic period when 939,064 visitors came to Hawaii and spent $ 1.51 billion.

The results have put heavy pressure on the Hawaii Tourism Authority to improve Hawaii’s tourism-dependent economy. At the same time, the HTA is fighting for its own survival at a time when the leadership of its board of directors is changing.

On Tuesday, legislators approved HB 862, which will now go to Governor David Ige. for testing. If Ige signs the bill, it will cut the HTA’s budget by almost a quarter for fiscal 2022 and make future funding uncertain.

It also removes the county’s share of the $ 103 million temporary housing tax, but allows counties to increase their own TAT by up to 3 percentage points for a period of up to 10 years.

Tourism Legislative Chairs Rep. Richard Onishi (D, South Hilo-Keaau-Honuapo) and Senator Glenn Wakai (D, Kalihi-Salt Lake-Aliamanu) called during the HTA board meeting on Thursday to ask discuss the proposed cuts while advising HTA that it needs to find a new way forward.

John De Fries, President and CEO of HTA, informed the board that they have not yet received the worksheets with the details for HB 862 and HB 200, the legislature’s household bills. However, he said, “There is enough detail in (HB 862) to understand the challenges.”

De Fries said Ige had sent the board a message “during the meeting” expressing deep concern about HB 862 and his intention to have an executive meeting to discuss the matter.

George Kam, who was elected HTA’s new CEO at Thursday’s meeting, said Ige’s intention to veto was June 21.

In the meantime, Kam told the board: “We will do our due diligence and homework for a strategy and the next step on how to approach HB 200 and HB 862 in the future.”

A large part of the agency’s strategy appears to be to improve communication with lawmakers and members of the community.

“The general message and message we are getting is that we are not advocating what matters,” said Kam, the successor to longtime HTA chair Rick Fried, a local attorney who served the agency during his seven years Vigorously supported tenure.

The election of the chairman took place despite three new board members joining HTA on Thursday: restaurateur Dylan Ching, Wassermann Keith “Keone” Downing and Sigmund “Sig” Zane. (See On the Move below.)

Some HTA board members had suggested postponing the vote to give the new board members time to update. Others, however, including HTA board member David Arakawa, pleaded for a hurry.

“We have 45 days. Play on, ”said Arakawa, who was elected vice chairman of the HTA after Kam’s selection. “A lot of the things we talked about are controversial when certain things happen.”

Funding has been a major concern for HTA since May 2020 when Ige stopped TAT distributions. In fiscal 2020, HTA only received the first four months of its TAT ​​distribution and reduced its household budget from $ 86 million to $ 48 million in September and to $ 41 million in November.

Ige had notified the board earlier this year that it intended to restore the TAT. However, the problem has been compounded by legislation and the tourism downturn in general.

Hawaii’s visitor industry hit rock bottom from March 26, 2020, when the state introduced a mandatory 14-day travel quarantine, through October 15, when Safe Travels gave Hawaii travelers the opportunity to take a COVID-19 test and bypass the quarantine .

Hawaii’s visitor industry has slowly returned from its pandemic lows, but not all markets are recovering equally.

Oahu, which has a greater reliance on international travelers, saw arrivals rise 13.2% in March, to drop to 206,942. March arrivals to Kauai, which didn’t return to Safe Travels Hawaii until April 5, declined more than 73% to 15,133.

Nearly 98% of the visitors to Hawaii’s March were from the US, which was one of the reasons that arrivals from Maui increased nearly 36% to 170,750 while arrivals from Hawaii increased nearly 6% to 82,687.

Maui visitor spend increased nearly 49% to $ 330,100. The island of Hawaii visitor spend increased to $ 129,600, an increase of around 14%. However, Oahu visitor spending declined more than 13% to $ 260,000, and Kauai spending declined nearly 67% to $ 26,300.