My wife and I recently returned from a trip to the Galapagos Islands. There is a reason such a trip is on so many “bucket lists.” Galapagos is one of the most pristine natural preserves in the world. In fact it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

While the Galapagos Islands are part of Ecuador, I was struck by the required fee of $120 per person to visit them from the mainland. It wasn’t the existence of the fee, nor the amount that raised my interest. Rather that it reminded me of the vast, lost opportunity Hawaii lets slip through its hands every day.

Last year, I wrote a commentary advocating park pass fees of $100-$120 per person for Hawaii visitors (“Charge tourists annual fees to use parks and beaches,” Star-Advertiser, Island Voices, March 8, 2021). Many states have these, some even higher. None of them have had any impact on the number of visitors. In fact, fees of this level don’t seem to impact any significant vacation destination, from Disneyland (tickets at about $120 per day) to the ski slopes (up to $180 per day for a lift pass).

Let’s face it, people come to Hawaii for the gorgeous natural beauty and stunning coastlines, nearly all of which are parks. So a park pass would effectively be a requirement for nearly every visitor.

Would people try to cheat? Of course they would. But many of the systems and technologies that were developed to fight COVID-19 could be repurposed or modified to help administer this kind of program. If properly implemented, the vast majority of visitors would just include it in their visit plans.

Last year, Hawaii saw more than 6 million visitors. That’s more than half-a-billion dollars of new revenue that simply blew right past these beautiful islands. It is hard to believe that Hawaii couldn’t use that vast sum to maintain its natural resources and help its residents. In the meantime, bureaucrats and politicians banter about suggestions to raise taxes on hotels, or rental cars, etc. It’s a complicated and foolish endeavor that just pushes visitors into illegal vacation rentals, lower-rent hotels and private car rentals. In the end, it’s like playing whack-a-mole with tax dollars.

With a modest fee of $120 per person, the Galapagos Islands have maintained their pristine, natural beauty — without reducing demand. Meanwhile, Hawaii gives away its most precious and valuable resources.

It looks like Hawaii may be on track for a record year of more than 10 million visitors in a few years. If so, that’s more than $1 billion ($2,000 per minute!) lost forever. Maybe we should take a hint and implement this simple and straightforward approach to capturing the value in Hawaii’s resources. As they say: “Time (and money) is a wastin’.”

Harol Koyama, a former Navy submariner, is CEO of an international hydrogen and fuel cell energy technology company.