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In March, John De Fries, the CEO of the Hawaii Tourism Authority, appeared as a guest speaker to tourism students at the University of Hawaii at Hilo’s College of Business and Economics. De Fries was curious about how Hawaii’s youngest tourism stakeholders and future leaders thought about the industry.

He spoke of the need to malama Hawaii and the kuleana of protecting Hawaii’s host culture and the natural resources that support life in the islands – critical areas, foundational to Hawaii’s branding and identity as a tourism destination.

De Fries’ focus on core Hawaiian values resonated with UHH students whose institution has the highest proportion of Native Hawaiian students of the University of Hawaii campuses. UHH also ranked as the , according to the U.S. News & World Report.

De Fries shared fond memories of a thriving Waikiki with a healthy��reef ecosystem that was once important fishing grounds for Honolulu communities. But since the 1960s, and after decades of tourism, the landscape has changed. By 2019 and tourism accounted for 19.2% of all employment and 16.2% of the state’s gross domestic product.

The environmental and social impacts of tourism are many and are well documented. Overtourism, a recent global phenomenon characterized by increasing resident dissatisfaction with tourism due to overcrowding, has extended to Hawaii. Resident satisfaction with tourism��, suggesting��a need to prioritize tourism management.

The HTA was created in 1998 and its is to “strategically manage Hawaii tourism in a sustainable manner consistent with economic goals, cultural values, preservation of natural resources, community desires, and visitor industry needs.” The agency’s strategic plan has four pillars: natural resources, Hawaiian culture, community and branding.

A series of community-based tourism management plans for the various Hawaiian islands were recently published, following several years of community consultations. The plans propose actions that address the HTA’s mission at the county level. Though the agency has typically focused more on marketing than management activities, these efforts suggest a greater commitment to fulfilling its mission.

The need for the HTA to shift from a marketing focus to also prioritize tourism management, was highlighted in a titled, “Charting a New Course for Hawai‘i Tourism.”

The report provided recommendations for HTA changes including creating a department or ministry of tourism to reflect its importance as Hawaii’s economic base, developing a long-range tourism plan with multiple agencies and restructuring HTA “as a��‘super’ agency with authority to act on tourism issues across jurisdictions and boundaries.”

The last recommendation is important to consider in agritourism, where polices to regulate tourism on agricultural lands differ in each county.

Destination marketing and management roles are highly interrelated concepts in tourism but destination marketing is often considered a subset of destination management. involves “coordinated and integrated management of destination products … [and] effective destination management requires a strategic or long-term approach based on a platform of destination visioning and tourism planning.”

Furthermore, Destination Management Organizations, like HTA, are often tasked with coordinating the efforts of many tourism stakeholders to achieve destination objectives.

The amendments to , which is scheduled to be heard at a conference committee meeting on Tuesday, would remove most of HTA’s existing responsibilities as a DMO except for marketing. This would significantly reduce the HTA’s capacity and turn it into a weaker agency. Tourism management would be delegated to various government agencies, but it is unclear how this would occur when many existing government agencies lack management capacity.

These amendments are concerning in a pandemic context where rebuilding tourism is critical for recovery, not to mention the need to address the long-term impacts of tourism, particularly on climate change.��

Restructuring HTA may be necessary but instead of stripping the agency of its roles, responsibilities and��capacity, it is��a better option to address gaps in the industry by leveraging and building upon��HTA’s decades of experience as a tourism leader.

The�� COVID-19 pandemic has magnified the importance of tourism to Hawaii. Therefore, we should not rush important decisions on a complex industry. Instead, we should invest in developing��good, comprehensive plans and strategies through stakeholder consultations, research and planning for a more effective and regenerative tourism industry.

Let us move forward rather than backward. Restructure, rather than de-structure, Hawaii’s tourism industry and give HTA the opportunity to follow through with its renewed focus on regenerative tourism. We owe this to our youth. It is their future that’s at stake.��