The idea that a single employee contracted to provide visitor data for the Hawaii Tourism Authority could commit an error so large and for so long that the very health of the state’s largest industry was misstated for months on end defies credibility.

That’s what the HTA indicates happened, though, and, if accurate, the admission highlights a serious flaw in the agency’s internal processes and fiscal oversight that must be immediately corrected.

The HTA has issued a revised set of visitor statistics — euphemistically describing the new information as "revalidated data" when it actually represents a huge correction that reverses the negative trend previously reported for Hawaii’s tourism industry.

The sudden turnaround for a sector that had been reported as lagging last year’s records — but now is on course to reach new heights — has important implications for far more than the individual airlines, hotels, restaurants and other retailers who depend on the tourist trade and can rely on their own internal statistics to tell them how business is doing.

The HTA, by contrast, is a strategic agency with broad sway among lawmakers, policymakers, the business community and other fields. The statistics about the visitor industry it regularly issues must be based on accurate data, for they are the foundation for the agency’s global marketing plans designed to attract the best mix of visitors to Hawaii. Any long-range plan based on the old data must be re-evaluated now.

Moreover, HTA’s reports, analyses and projections about Hawaii’s predominant industry influence any number of decisions on an array of issues affecting taxation, employment, social services, law enforcement and other aspects of daily life.

Simply put, elected officials and others rely on data from the HTA as they develop policy positions. The effort to combat the effects of homelessness is one issue that comes immediately to mind. Some proponents of stronger enforcement against loitering, for example, likely cited flawed data to make the case for an initiative to support what was considered a flagging tourism industry. Turns out it’s not flagging after all. Does that make enforcement any less urgent? A proposed increase in the property tax for Honolulu hotels was opposed as ill-timed with tourism down. But tourism is actually up. Should taxes rise, too?

These are oversimplifications, to be sure. The point is that the HTA should not downplay this error as "revalidated" data. Rather, the agency must get to the bottom of exactly how this $100 million error occurred and why it was not caught earlier, publicly report its investigative findings and improve its internal processes to avoid a repeat. Absent that, future statistics issued by the HTA won’t be trusted.

According to the HTA, the problem stemmed from the actions of a single researcher working for a contractor on Maui, who did not collect legitimate survey data from departing visitors. That skewed the Maui results, which in turn tainted the state’s overall numbers. The contractor, the HTA and the state attorney general all are reviewing the matter — with gusto, we assume.

The agency reconstructed several months of visitor spending estimates and erased what had been months of declines in visitor spending. Now it looks like 2014 could be the third straight year for record arrivals and spending.

Let’s hope that it’s also a year of better management at the HTA, which has been flagged in the past for lax oversight of contractors. This powerful agency simply must run a tighter ship.