The Hawaii Tourism Authority board, which has increasingly come under pressure from the community and state lawmakers to manage tourism, voted Thursday to support a reorganization that creates a Destination Stewardship Branch, elevates the agency’s finance and planning departments, and expands personnel.

HTA Chief Administrative Officer Daniel Naho‘opi‘i proposed a transition plan to the HTA board that aims in the next three months to establish a Destination Stewardship Branch, which will be headed by Kalani Ka‘ana‘ana in a newly created role of chief destination stewardship officer. Ka‘ana‘ana will continue serving as chief brand officer until a new one is found.

Naho‘opi‘i also asked the HTA board to approve adding three positions to the finance department, which is headed by HTA Vice President of Finance Isaac Choy, as well as a new planning position.

Naho‘opi‘i recommended that Caroline Anderson, HTA director of planning, take on an expanded planning and evaluation role equivalent on HTA’s organizational chart to other senior executives, including Ka‘ana‘ana, Choy and the next CBO.

Naho‘opi‘i said the five new positions do not require new funding as they were already anticipated in a request made to the state Department of Budget and Finance. He said more funds also could be drawn from a U.S. Economic Development Administration state tourism grant.

Naho‘opi‘i said HTA is undergoing a governance study. Over the next three months, he said, HTA will reassess staff roles to align to HTA’s new structure. He said HTA also is considering bringing contracted services in-house — such as destination managers, island offices and sales — to better manage outcomes.

He said HTA over the next six months plans to research, discuss and propose draft legislation to change statutes to support changes in function and organization and to submit an administrative budget that reflects the reorganization.

Naho‘opi‘i said HTA was originally built as a marketing organization but is moving toward destination stewardship. He compared HTA’s newest reorganization to the Polynesian Voyaging Society’s Moananuiakea Voyage, which at various points changes out crew to account for specialities.

“At this point here at HTA as well, we had a crew and a structure that worked with the marketing and economic development, and now we have additional roles in destination management, so we need to look at how our crew can shift and change and our structure so that we can support the Malama Hawaii, which is the broader vision of destination management itself, including marketing and branding,” he said.

Some HTA board members expressed reservations about the plan’s timing and the optics; but ultimately, all voters supported the changes. Mahina Paishon- Duarte, who was elected HTA vice chair Thursday, was an enthusiastic supporter.

“This past legislative session, I heard clearly that our legislators charged us with the responsibility to put greater emphasis on destination management. I also heard that from our community members clearly. I’ve also heard this (resonate) across this board and from our staff,” Paishon-Duarte said. “And so when I listen to Vice President Choy that we have the budget in place and when I hear from Dan Naho‘opi‘i that we have the resources and a plan and we have the willingness to do this, I think the time is now.”

There have been a lot of changes in leadership and focus for HTA in a short time. These latest changes piggyback off HTA’s July 2021 reorganization, which was presided over by outgoing HTA President and CEO John De Fries, who will leave Sept. 15 after deciding not to agree to a renewal of his contract.

De Fries, who was HTA’s 10th top leader and the first Native Hawaiian in the role since the state Legislature created it 25 years ago, began his tenure Sept. 16, 2020, amid pandemic-related tourism cuts and a budget collapse. As tourism began recovering, De Fries quickly faced pressure from state lawmakers to prioritize destination management over tourism marketing.

De Fries’ reorganization eliminated jobs for veteran hospitality executive Pattie Herman, who had been serving as HTA vice president of marketing and product development, and longtime television anchor Marisa Yamane, who had been serving as director of communications and public relations.

At the same time, Ka‘ana­‘ana was promoted to chief brand officer, a newly created position, and Anderson was promoted to director of planning. The reorganization also created a new position called public affairs officer, which Ilihia Gionson later filled.

These past changes came as HTA was dealing with House Bill 862, which made functional changes to HTA and eliminated transient accommodations tax distribution to the agency as well as individual counties.

HTA this year became caught up in a crisis of confidence that threatened its very existence. House Bill 1375, introduced by state Rep. Sean Quinlan (D, Waialua-Kahuku-Waiahole) along with other House members, could have repealed the HTA in favor of establishing an Office of Tourism and Destination Management within the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism. When the bill, which contained HTA’s budget, was deferred, the agency was left without permanent funding.

HTA’s leadership path remains unclear, too. DBEDT Director James Kunane Tokioka, who was placed on the HTA board as an ex- officio voting member by Gov. Josh Green, has pushed for a pause in filling the top job. The HTA board has not taken action on filling the president and CEO job. However, Naho‘opi‘i and the board Thursday said a search for a new chief brand officer would commence promptly. In the meantime, Ka‘ana‘ana will fill both jobs.

Keith Vieira, principal at KV &Associates, Hospitality Consulting LLC, said he hopes that HTA understands that softness has crept into the market, creating an urgent need to promptly fill the chief brand officer position.

“Reorganization and looking at doing different things is never bad, but they need to be reactive to the market and our comp set, which is going after Hawaii business. We hear that all the time because they know that there’s some confusion of who is running what,” Vieira said. “We need to make sure that we are being aggressive in the market; otherwise, we are going to continue to loose this market rebound.”

Jerry Gibson, Hawaii Hotel Alliance president, said HTA must stay mindful of current market conditions, which show that heading into the third quarter, Hawaii hotels are seeing a softness that goes beyond seasonality.

“We still haven’t fully recovered our international markets, so we are still heavily dependent on U.S. travelers, mostly from California. This was one of the worst July and Augusts on record,” Gibson said. “We drove around Oahu on Sunday, and there wasn’t even any traffic on the North Shore.

“We have to take care of our home, but we do need to market and we can’t lose sight of that,” he said.”We have so many new programs with housing and homelessness that need a strong tax base. We need to keep our No. 1 industry healthy.”