FL MORRIS / FMORRIS@STARBULLETIN.COM
David Carey, president and chief executive of Outrigger Enterprises Inc., said the emphasis for Hawaii tourism shouldn't be how many visitors are coming but rather how long they are staying, how much they spend and what they experience while they are in the islands.
HTA rethinking
funding strategies
The Hawaii Tourism Authority still has a lot of educating to do to convince a few legislators and a lot of residents of the importance of tourism to the Hawaii economy, members of an HTA committee said yesterday.
In the process, the five-year-old agency must rethink its strategies and priorities and possibly cut back on some of the things it funds, members said.
Advocacy of tourism's role has become a big issue, said David Carey, an original board member when the HTA was formed in 1998. There needs to be a "better education of policy makers on the global competitive landscape," said Carey, president and chief executive of Outrigger Enterprises Inc., operator of the Outrigger and Ohana hotels.
Hotels whole-heartedly supported an increase in the transient accommodations tax to fund the HTA, Carey told a meeting of the HTA's strategic planning committee at the Hawaii Convention Center. The Legislature subsequently put caps on HTA spending and came up with many provisos, ordering the agency to take on specific programs, he said.
While the HTA, run by an appointed board of industry, community and government representatives, is the sole agency responsible for tourism, it cannot be the solution to everyone's problems, Carey said.
In a rethinking of its overall strategy, required every three years by law, it might be important to list some of the things the HTA should not be doing and types of things it should not be funding, Carey and other committee members said.
The HTA "is not an unlimited source of funds for all purposes," Carey said.
Keith Vieira, referring without mentioning names to attacks on the HTA by state Sen. Donna Mercado Kim, agreed with Carey. Up until the legislative session of 2000, "there was a sense that everyone is in this together" but a senate committee (headed by Kim) "absolutely ripped" HTA executives, he said, adding there has been animosity ever since.
This year the state auditor came out with a critical report that was widely quoted as slamming the HTA but actually identified no big issues, said Vieira, vice president and director of Hawaii operations for Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. Both of those events indicate more has to be done to give government a better understanding of tourism's role, Vieira said.
The committee was reviewing the HTA's "Ke Kumu," its policy and goals document, as it prepares to make changes to go into effect in the 2005 fiscal year, starting July 1, 2004.
Yesterday's wide-ranging discussion, which came to no specific conclusions, was in preparation for a tourism forum of industry, government and community leaders to take place in December or January.
Several projects already are under way toward that end. A private consultant, Hospitality Advisors LLC, is due to come out in November with an analysis of Hawaii's tourism competitiveness. In December, the HTA is due to report on Hawaii's tourism "product," what the islands offer and how that compares with other places. A survey of Hawaii residents' attitudes toward tourism already has been done and was mostly positive, HTA officials said. By March of next year, the HTA is also supposed to come out with a study on sustainable tourism.
Meanwhile, the overall goals are changing. For example, Carey said, the emphasis for decades was simply on how many tourists Hawaii was attracting. That is not nearly as important as how long they stay, how much they spend and what they experience while they are in the islands, he said.
In July, arrivals were down from a year earlier but those who came stayed longer and there were more from the East Coast, which generates first-time visitors who are likely to spend more than seasoned Hawaii-travel veterans from the West Coast, he said.
