He said it must "encompasses environmental and cultural stewardship as well as brand marketing to ensure Hawaii maintains its globally competitive brand and can deliver on its destination promise in a way that is coordinated, authentic and market-appropriate. While the pandemic brought angst, residents also enjoyed the empty roads, beaches and hiking trails that accompanied the tourism pause. Tourism hasn't fully recovered but many residents are feeling greater effects now than during the previous peak. Their comments and the veto override are a sign that lawmakers recognize that some of their voters now hold such negative sentiments toward tourism that their views don't change whether tourism is up or down. But I think that HTA has to help us be more strategic in how we target the kinds of the tourists, the visitors that we want to target for Hawaii." Saiki later said, "I'm not sure that tourism needs to be marketed here anymore as we see now with the numbers increasing so rapidly. I think this creates a pathway for that to occur." We need to all be at the table working together. Hawaii's visitor industry and business community lobbied hard to sustain Ige's veto of HB 862, but their efforts fell one vote short in the Senate.Īsked about HTA's role, Kouchi said : "What we're hoping for is that we're going to see a better collaboration between HTA and the visitor industry, the Legislature as well as the general public before we get to the point where we have incredible pushback from residents and really hurt our brand by having people who are unhappy with the visitors' movement. That conversation preceded today's easing of restrictions for domestic travelers that are fully vaccinated for COVID-a move that is fueling concern that the state is unready to handle a greater swell of travelers.Ĭoncern about overtourism has been a resounding theme that culminated Tuesday with a rare legislative override of House Bill 862, which fundamentally changes HTA's funding and leaves its future uncertain. House Speaker Scott Saiki and Senate President Ron Kouchi made these remarks during Wednesday's Spotlight Hawaii online broadcast. 8-The leaders of the state House and Senate are saying that tourism marketing is no longer needed given the summer surge, and invited the Hawaii Tourism Authority to figure out what role it should play in managing tourism.
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