How will the Native Hawaiian Hospitality Association (NaHHA) work with the Hawai‘i Tourism Authority (HTA) and community groups to bring tourists a more authentic, regenerative experience?

NaHHA has had two major areas of work since it was founded in 1997: to bring Hawaiian cultural awareness and authenticity to businesses through workforce training and consultation, and to bring leadership capacity to Hawaiian businesses through entrepreneur development and advocacy.

This year, we added a third major area in support of regenerative tourism. We are working to activate the goals of HTA’s Destination Management Action Plans (DMAPs), its Strategic Plan, the Aloha+ Challenge, UN Sustainable Development Goals, and the principles of the ‘Äina Aloha Economic Futures initiative.

One project currently in progress is a partnership with travel2change, an organization that connects mindful travelers with activities that enrich both traveler and host (travel2change.org/apply). The Hawai‘i Visitors & Convention Bureau is promoting this kind of activity with their Mälama Hawai‘i campaign, and we are working with travel2change to build the capacity of our community nonprofits and stewardship groups to host these visitor-volunteers.

Imagine a group of visitors joining a workday at a community-stewarded forest preserve, working side by side with kama‘äina to pull invasive species and replace them with native plants — all the while learning about Hawai‘i’s precious environment, and hopefully, growing the visitor’s sense of responsibility for their own home. An authentic experience that is regenerative for both visitor and host.

Should there be fewer tourists coming to Hawai‘i?

That’s a very broad question that deserves a closer look. There are places in Hawai‘i that have the infrastructure to host 2019 levels of visitors and perhaps even more. But what we need to remember is that even if a resort area can handle a larger number of tourists, they are not islands unto themselves. Some places may be fine at a certain level, but other places in Hawai‘i may not be. We have lots to figure out about managing where tourists should and should not go — from managing reservations for parks to meaningfully regulating short-term vacation rentals — and how to communicate that to our visitors so that they are more mindful of what we expect of them while they are here. There will need to be changes in public policy to support this.

Should Native Hawaiians have more control over how the tourism industry presents (and sells) their culture and traditions?

NaHHA was founded by Dr. George Kanahele and Sen. Kenneth Brown on the premise that a tourism industry that does best by Hawaiians and Hawai‘i, is a tourism industry led by Hawaiians, and on a foundation of Hawaiian cultural values.

They would be proud today to see the president and CEO, and the board chair, of the Hawai‘i Tourism Authority — Native Hawaiians with decades of experience in the industry — organizing the industry around the value of mälama.

They also would recognize that we have a long way to go: that Hawaiians at high executive levels in the industry are still few and far between. That there are still far more opportunities for visitor spending to escape the islands than to stay here. That so much of the infrastructure of Hawai‘i tourism is controlled by offshore capital groups and large, multinational brands. We certainly have much more to do.

There are aspects of Hawaiian culture that are meant to be shared and others that Hawaiians may consider to be just for us. Maintaining balance sometimes means we have to set limits on what is and is not accessible for visitors to do. In leading NaHHA, I am constantly seeking this balance.

How is Kuhikuhi.com working for the Native Hawaiian businesses and cultural practitioners who are partnering with the online directory?

NaHHA has long worked to connect kama‘äina businesses with the visitor industry as a way to capture more visitor dollars and keep them in Hawai‘i. When we realized the opportunity to work together with the Native Hawaiian Chambers of Commerce to build an online directory that could keep dollars circulating in Hawai‘i’s economy while supporting Native Hawaiian-owned businesses, we knew this was a key resource to uplift our communities.

Adding in support by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and the Kamehameha Schools certainly helps NaHHA to leverage more opportunities to share Kuhikuhi.com as a resource.

Kuhikuhi.com is still growing. We’ll be doing more marketing in the coming year to build awareness that there are Hawaiian-owned entities in every sector, and how impactful supporting small, kama‘aina businesses can be.

What are the biggest obstacles to the success of the O‘ahu Destination Management Action Plans?

Pandemic impacts aside, tourism is doing exactly what it was designed to do — bring more and more visitors. The system was designed by stakeholders who benefit from more visitors. The biggest obstacle to achieving the goals of the DMAPs on Oahu and all the islands is the idea that tourism’s success is not linked to the community’s well-being and success. The community powers the industry — directly through working on the front lines, indirectly through the grace of allowing visitors into our spaces. The DMAPs articulate each community’s vision in a way that is actionable, and it is my sincere hope that we can all get behind those visions. The generations to come are counting on us.

THE BIO FILE

>> Title: Executive director, Native Hawaiian Hospitality Association (NaHHA)

>> Previous experience: Management at Hilton Hawaiian Village & Hilton Waikoloa Village; 10 years at NaHHA in projects, programs and fiscal management

>> Personal background: Kama‘äina of Makakilo and Kapolei, Kamehameha Schools, University of Hawai‘i

>> One more thing: Mälama (to care for) is the guiding principle behind regenerative tourism. Guided by our founders, mälama and many other values of the Hawaiian culture are actionable expressions of how we should behave. So the next time that you use mälama and other words of the Hawaiian culture, I encourage you to think strongly about what you’re saying and then put those words into action.