Tourism has been an increasingly hot issue in Hawaii, and understandably so. Tourism dominates the economy and by its nature impacts communities and public spaces, creating a classic “love/hate” relationship.
The Hawaii Tourism Authority’s 2020-2025 Strategic Plan set out to address some of the negative impacts of tourism by focusing more on tourism management and less on tourism promotion. In the midst of softening tourism receipts, a recent editorial in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser suggests that HTA strike a “fruitful balance” between tourism promotion and destination management (“HTA must strike fruitful balance,” Our View, May 26). While balance is necessary, it is not up to HTA alone to achieve that balance. In fact, as we have consistently pointed out in a series of University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization (UHERO) papers, HTA is only one part of a complex tourism ecosystem.
Instead, effectively managing tourism’s complexity requires an integrated approach, engaging all the agencies and stakeholders that touch it: different levels of government, state agencies, communities, the private sector and workers. It requires a high-level governance model that embraces a whole-of- government approach to tourism management. Not just HTA.
When HTA was established, a broad range of tourism management mandates was laid at its feet. The problem has been that HTA does not have (and has never had) the broad authority nor the resources to fulfill these mandates. Lacking sufficient resources and authority, HTA has been blamed for tourism’s shortcomings when the shortcomings resulted from the failure of the state to develop a high-level, long-range, multi-agency policy for tourism. Tourism’s failures are due to a lack of a big vision, not the failure of a single agency.
Can HTA have an important role to play? Certainly.
What role should it play? With a staff skilled and knowledgeable in tourism, HTA is the logical agency to assess tourism opportunities and challenges and propose tourism policy. Not just policy for HTA, but tourism policy for the state. But those policies need to be reviewed and integrated into a more general state tourism plan. They should inform programs and budgets across agencies that seek to both expand economic benefits and minimize negative impacts of tourism. To be successful in both regards, policies need to simultaneously accommodate tourism and manage its impacts.
Implementing this new whole-of- government approach requires a high-level champion with the authority to engage the many diverse entities that touch tourism. Each agency or entity (including HTA) would have assigned, well-defined roles linked to a broad, long-term vision and well-articulated policies. To accomplish this, we envision a series of practical steps.
Appointment by the governor of a lead person such as the lieutenant governor (or someone with similar standing) to work with all the tourism stakeholders at all levels to develop high-level policies and a long-term vision for Hawaii tourism.
Through interagency, stakeholder and community collaboration, the lead would develop specific proposals based on well-defined policies that would then be assigned to specific agencies.
Responsible agencies (including HTA) would be tasked with developing implementation plans, timelines, and budgets that would roll up into a comprehensive legislative package and an annual state tourism action plan with key performance indicators.
The proposed legislative package would be included in the governor’s budget proposal for the state Legislature.
Progress would be regularly reported in a tourism dashboard providing input for continuous improvement.
We believe that this approach will provide an entirely new whole-of- government mindset for tourism and move toward an effective, long-range resolution of Hawaii’s love/hate relationship with its biggest industry.
Frank Haas is a partner at GUILD Consulting; James Mak is an UHERO research fellow and emeritus professor of economics; Paul Brewbaker is principal of the consulting firm TZ Economics.
