Legislative Update: No Funding For Hawai‘i Tourism Authority In Proposed State Budget Bill

Legislative Update: No Funding For Hawai‘i Tourism Authority In Proposed State Budget Bill

Aloha kākou,

The future of the Hawai‘i Tourism Authority (HTA) and whether it will continue to operate continues to play out in the waning days of the legislative session.

No funding for HTA – zero – was included in the proposed state budget bill (HB300) that was agreed to in a conference committee meeting concluded late last night between the State Senate and House of Representatives.

The budget bill does provide $64 million in funding to fix the leaky roof at the Hawai‘i Convention Center. We are grateful that these critical, overdue repairs can now take place.

In contrast, there is currently no legislative funding in place for HTA going forward to support our wide range of essential programs that are vital to our community, preservation of Hawaiian culture and natural resource protection.

This includes HTA’s continued implementation of the Destination Management Action Plans, support for community events and festivals statewide, Hawaiian cultural programs, popular sports events, and Hawai‘i’s branding messaging which educates visitors and guides our visitor industry.

Two bills, HB1375 and SB1522, would dismantle HTA and fold it within the State Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism. These bills would create all sorts of challenges as to if and how this new agency will support community programs and provide effective destination management of tourism – all of which HTA is already providing. Both bills are still alive.

An informative article about HTA’s situation was published in Monday’s Honolulu Star-Advertiser under the headline: Hawai‘i Tourism Authority Faces Critical Week

This article provides an excellent summary of what HTA is facing and includes some insightful commentary, including this from Colin Moore, associate professor at the University of Hawai‘i Economic Research Organization:

“The Legislature clearly wanted to make a big change this year. Both of these bills seemed like the kind that are introduced to kind of force a conversation, but now they are at the end and I think neither one of them has been vetted the way it ought to have been and there’s a whole lot of confusion.”

If you haven’t seen it, the article is worth a read and can be accessed here.

Mahalo nui to our partner organizations, community members, and visitor industry partners for the outpouring of support expressed over the past weeks. We look forward to continuing to work for the good of Hawai‘i.

Mahalo,

Hawai‘i Tourism Authority