With statewide visitor arrival counts rapidly rising — and likely to surge near pre-pandemic levels starting Thursday, when Hawaii’s travel restrictions are eased for fully vaccinated arrivals from the U.S. mainland — some recent calls for managed tourism carry a tinge of desperation.

That was the case on Tuesday when Maui Mayor Mike Victorino said he wanted a tourism “pause” or slowdown in the pace of visitor traffic, which has touched off congestion at airports and strained businesses still operating under pandemic capacity limits and other restrictions.

Victorino’s appeal to airline executives to voluntarily reduce airlift to Kahului Airport is understandable — but it’s not likely to, nor should it, result in deceleration as carriers aim to more fully rebound from tourism flatlining at the height of the pandemic. Last year, about 22,560 visitors flew to Hawaii during the entire month of July. By dramatic comparison, on Monday alone, the state’s airports screened some 26,630 visitors.

Despite today’s stunning flood of arrivals, Hawaii stands a reasonable shot at successfully coping with this summer’s tourism surge if it swiftly employs a collaborative-triage approach involving both public- and private- sector circles, starting at our airports. Local and state government personnel should be working in tandem now with airlines as well as ground transportation operators to ensure better protocols are in place to avoid excessively long lines.

Outside of the airports, many tourists will continue to find it hard to get the service they might have been accustomed to, due in part to difficulties some businesses are having in scaling up. For example, starting July 8, restaurants may increase capacity to 75%. But unless the state’s required distance between tables drops below 6 feet, many establishments will be unable to significantly grow capacity.

To mitigate visitor-resident “friction points,” the tourism industry and related interests should be in hot pursuit of short-term creative fixes, which could include simplified takeout dining for visitors, and establishing traffic patrols involving community volunteers at visitor attractions drawing the largest crowds. Patience, and the aloha spirit, will be needed over the next couple of months as pent-up demand feeds our economy.

In the long term, Hawaii must ramp up installation of the state’s “destination management” plan, which stresses sustainability built around pillars of natural resources and Hawaiian culture along with community and brand marketing.

Under a bill passed by Honolulu’s City Council, Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve moved toward better balance this week by more than doubling the entrance fee for tourists, to $25. All proceeds go toward maintenance, education and research. Also, the preserve now allows up to 1,600 visitors a day — a welcome break from a pre-pandemic average of 3,000 visitors.

On Kauai, a study is in the works to consider imposing fees on tourists’ vehicles in popular parks. Such action holds potential to serve as a mechanism to capture tourist revenue to help reduce the industry’s impact on infrastructure and natural resources.

As the Fourth of July weekend gets underway, cautious Hawaii is the only state that has yet to declare “fully reopened” status following 16 months of disruption and a nationwide death toll of more than 600,000. In trendsetting California and New York, the return to mostly business-as-usual routines kicked off last month when at least 70% of their adult populations had received at least one vaccine dose. But the coronavirus threat lingers on, and with the delta variant rising, Hawaii has wisely set the bar higher — 70% of all residents must be fully vaccinated before all travel restrictions and other constraints are lifted here.

Even so, restrictions have not dampened the demand for Hawaii travel. And that could soon bring us, in some groupings, arrival counts rivaling 2019’s record- breaking tallies. Now is the time to prepare — and brace for some bustling days ahead.