Top state tourism officials are pressing the “pause” button on permanent administrative changes for the Hawaii Tourism Authority, given the uncertain longevity of the agency itself. Basically this makes sense — the legislative discussions over the future of HTA will begin only about four months after John De Fries, the outgoing president and CEO, leaves office on Sept. 15.
Of course, “pause” must not equate with treading water: There’s important work to do, including seeing that the contracts for managing and promoting the state’s principal industry are implemented well.
And there’s a need to clarify the chain of command over tourism policy. It was the bobbling of these private deals with the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement and the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau — and possibly some discord over who was ultimately holding the HTA reins — that brought the authority to the crisis point in the first place.
That crisis erupted during the last session of the Legislature. State lawmakers, with some in the leadership, were distressed about the on-again, off-again issuance of the contracts, and wanted to see a major overhaul — clearing up the confusion by shuttering HTA as it now exists and replacing it with another mechanism for governing the state’s tourism policy.
The success of that scheme seems unlikely. The overhaul would likely accomplish no real fix and create more turbulence during a post-pandemic recovery period when tourism needs steady oversight. Legislators, as well as the administration of Gov. Josh Green, have a few months to reflect on and, ideally, rethink plans to abandon the concept of a
quasi-independent tourism agency.
Fortunately, none of the proposals made it through the goalposts by the session’s end. De Fries was not so lucky, taking a lot of criticism from lawmakers despite his work increasing HTA’s focus on sustainability through “destination management,” as the Legislature favored.
So James Tokioka, director of the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism (DBEDT), opted to “do a reset.” This involves placing Daniel Naho‘opi‘i, currently HTA chief administrative officer, in the top spot on an interim basis when De Fries departs. Also on the team would be HTA Chief Brand Officer Kalani Ka‘ana‘ana and HTA Vice President of Finance Isaac Choy.
Speaking on a Honolulu Star-Advertiser “Spotlight Hawaii” webcast, Tokioka said his department needs to “figure out what it’s going to take for the Legislature to trust the authority moving forward.”
Right: Reestablishing trust is going to take, at a minimum, competence in navigating toward destination management, with a rational working relationship among DBEDT and HTA’s board and administration.
But lawmakers have a responsibility, too, and that is to revisit HTA’s status and assess its performance with open minds.
HTA Board Chair George Kam said the board is going to discuss a possible third-party study of optimal governance structures for the agency. That would be useful, but it already seems evident that a healthy measure of independence for the authority should be part of the plan.
When deciding against seeking his contract renewal, De Fries has said he recognized HTA is moving into a new phase as a “system that is intimately interwoven with elected officials.” That may have been the politic thing for him to say.
But the truth is that HTA was established by the Legislature as a quasi-independent agency because that status would give it the ability to respond more readily to demands of the market, and of the public. Nothing has changed in the 25 years since its founding to alter that reality.
