The Hawaii Tourism Authority remains committed to driving tourism’s economic benefits for our residents while addressing its impacts in our communities. Our mission is to represent the Hawaiian islands globally and stimulate meaningful demand for mindful travel. With your continued collaboration and support, we can ensure a vibrant industry sustaining an economy for all of Hawaii to thrive.
As the 2024 legislative session ends, we extend our deep gratitude to the Legislature for providing us a $63 million operating budget, preserving our staff positions and providing resources for repairs to the Hawai‘i Convention Center, including $64 million in bond funding to fix the rooftop. We are already working on the designs for those repairs.
With these resources, we will continue to work to stabilize travel demand in the wake of the Maui wildfires, as we did with our “Makaukau Maui” campaign, as well as recover our international markets. The more successful tourism is, the better we can support not only Maui’s recovery but communities statewide.
The operating budget provided to us will let us continue to invest in marketing that reaches our target travelers, a wise investment that brings good returns to the people of Hawaii. Every dollar we spent on direct-to-consumer messaging in the U.S. last year stimulated $407 in visitor spending and $35 in tax revenue. All told, visitors spent more than $20 billion in the state in 2023.
Beyond employment and business opportunities — the visitor industry supports over 200,000 jobs across the state — tax revenues from tourism provide important resources to government. In 2023 alone, $2.4 billion in state tax collections attributed to visitor spending across the islands funded a myriad of public priorities, from education, to housing, to infrastructure.
While the value of malama Hawaii (to care for our island home) remains at the core of our work, our message is evolving. In our new campaign — “The People. The Place. The Hawaiian Islands.” — we invite prospective visitors to get to know each of the islands through the eyes of kamaaina artisans, entrepreneurs, chefs and the like.
The Legislature this year also made our responsibility for island-driven destination management explicit in law and augmented our destination stewardship team. A law was also passed to make regenerative tourism principles part of our statewide planning process, and resources were provided to create a multipurpose digital platform in a mobile app.
In the past year, we joined hand-in-hand with community groups to launch initiatives that train and station stewards at hot spots identified by residents in the Destination Management Action Plans: Keaukaha, Punaluu and Kealakekua on Hawaii island, and along Hana Highway in East Maui.
The bottom line is that when we invite people to our state, we have a responsibility to emphasize destination management and visitor education. Balancing this objective with a renewed emphasis on international and business travel, sports tourism, and cultural and arts and culinary events will remain a priority. Finally, to address our labor shortage, look for some promising initiatives on workforce development.
Credit for a successful session goes to all of the hard-working members of our Legislature. In particular, we want to thank our champions: in the Senate, President Ron Kouchi, Ways and Means Chair Donovan Dela Cruz and Tourism Chair Lynn DeCoite; and in the House, Speaker Scott Saiki, Finance Chair Kyle Yamashita and Tourism Chair Sean Quinlan.
We must also credit the leadership of Gov. Josh Green, who stood steadfast in his commitment and support, and Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke.
Makaukau — ready and eager — best describes HTA and its desire to continue balancing tourism’s impacts with its many benefits to our residents. Mahalo for your support.
Mufi Hannemann is chair of the Hawaii Tourism Authority (HTA) board; Daniel Nahoʻopiʻi is interim president/CEO of HTA.
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