As Hawaii’s visitor industry makes its uneven comeback from the pandemic, a major element remains unresolved: a multimillion-dollar contract to market the islands to tourists.
A messy conflict involving the two primary bidders — the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau (HVCB) and the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement (CNHA) — remains unresolved. Josh Green, the incoming governor, needs to settle it without delay.
So far, the conflict has been mishandled in spectacular fashion.
First, the Hawaii Tourism Authority (HTA) awarded the state’s primary tourism marketing and destination management contract — worth $34 million over two years — to HVCB in December 2021. Then it was taken away, reworked, rebid and granted to CNHA last June.
At each step, the losing bidder challenged the process. The parties attempted mediation, each hoping to find a way to gain at least a piece of the lucrative procurement.
Then on Monday, at a state Senate hearing, a state official abruptly announced that the whole business would start over, with a third request for proposals for two separate contracts — one for brand management/marketing, the other for destination management.
That state official — Mike McCartney, director of the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism and head of HTA’s purchasing agency — was met with howls of protest, and rightly so. The proposal would delay, yet again, implementation of a crucial part of the state’s largest economic driver, at a time when the economy is just recovering and HTA is poised to fundamentally redefine how it manages the visitor experience.
There’s also a legal cloud. CNHA claims that rescinding its contract would be unlawful, a legitimate argument. Furthermore, both HVCB and CNHA already have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to win the procurement; their winning proposals, now public, could give new bidders an unfair advantage.
Nearly lost in this squabble is the purpose of the contract. The HTA has correctly gauged that we need to protect the assets that draw tourists to our shores: the natural beauty of the islands and the famed aloha spirit of its residents. Both have been worn down under the strain of record numbers of visitors.
It’s time to return to mediation, with a common goal: a “regenerative tourism model” that both bidders have said they support, one that enhances Hawaii’s natural resources and benefits our residents as well as the industry.
