Mahalo for supporting Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Enjoy this free story!
Chris Tatum has been at the job as president and CEO of the Hawaii Tourism Authority for well over a year now, and it’s capped off a homecoming that started in 2001.
That’s when he and his wife and two children had moved back to the islands to take a position with Marriott Resorts Hawaii. The kids, he said, were happy to stay put here, although all the globe-trotting had its upside as well.
“My daughter learned Chinese when she was in elementary school,” Tatum said with a smile. “They got exposed to things that they never would have gotten exposed to.”
He joined the state agency in November, after retiring from Marriott Resorts Hawaii as the area general manager. Tatum was then in his fourth decade with the corporation, holding management positions across the mainland, Asia and Australia.
There’s been some adjustment to his new public-sector responsibility at HTA, he said. It’s helped him to have a business orientation when one of his first projects included addressing critiques of the agency raised by the state auditor and lawmakers.
And it helped, he said, to come at it from the perspective of a local resident. Now 60, Tatum moved with his family to Honolulu as a youth. He graduated from Radford High School before starting off as a housekeeping houseman at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, working summers while he was home from college.
The part that the industry has played here is something he understands well.
“Our role is we’re really a tourism management organization,” Tatum said. “Our role is to complement what the industry does, from positioning and branding.
“But I tell people, ‘You guys realize that we have a fair amount of funds to manage tourism. But it’s a very small part relative to what the industry spends on promoting the islands. Very small.”
Question: Any observations about the coronavirus, from the HTA perspective?
Answer: I was with Marriott for 37 years. I ran 16 different hotels throughout the world … and, you know the protocols at all the major hotels are pretty significant.
These are worldwide, developed protocols to make sure of what they’re doing, protecting their employees and protecting their visitors. … But they do need information.
And so what I feel our (HTA’s) biggest role is, is making sure they have the most updated, factual information, what’s the latest we know … including all of our global contractors. We have eight global contractors who represent us throughout the world … making sure they know what’s going on in Hawaii. And also that they let us know what’s going on in their countries .…
And information comes out so quickly! I mean, just overnight, the amount of more information on the coronavirus …
Q: Are you saying the HTA would be an intermediary for them on that score?
A: One of the things I want to do is make sure there was one source of information that things are going on. … We take all the stuff we get from the Department of Health or any other departments, we put it together, and we send it out. That’s our role. …
I can get them updated on what’s the booking pace, what’s happening. I don’t have forward-looking data, because the hotels have that. But I can share with them how many people arrived today, and if there’s a trend, we can see a trend. …
Q:I wanted to ask you for your take on vacation rentals.
A:It’s not that I’m opposed to vacation rentals. I oppose illegal vacation rentals. You know, if the community wanted them in their neighborhood and they agreed to it and they went through the process, God bless them.
But I live in Kailua. And at the end of the day, that’s not why I lived in Kailua.
So unfortunately, the general population looks at those vacation rentals as tourism. And it is … it’s a component of tourism worldwide now. But it’s not what we advocate.
Q: In the past, HTA has come under fire in audits that were critical of its oversight and spending. How have you addressed those concerns?
A: Like I would do with any organization I would join — even though we’re government I don’t look at it any different than were it up to me — the accountability needs to be there. …
We hired Keith (Regan, HTA chief administrative officer) … He brought the government experience. … He’s gone through every item, step by step by step. We reported out at every board meeting where we are at each of the items. And for the most part, all the things that were brought up have been addressed, and it’s all documented, all in our board minutes.
We have had zero executive sessions since I’ve been in this job. If there’s something the public shouldn’t know, then I probably shouldn’t be talking about it. There’s no secret. The only thing that I would go into executive session for is what might be an employee issue. …
It was always interesting: I saw these executive sessions. They were concerned because of competitive reasons. I said, ‘Trust me — Mexico is not looking at our board meetings to see what we’re doing. That’s not how it works.” I’ve been in this business a long time. It’s how you execute.
To me, we are a public-funded organization. The public should see everything that we have, everything that we do. And if they have questions, they can question it. But there’s just no way I’m going to do executive sessions again.
Q: You say branding is part of the HTA role. How would you characterize Hawaii’s brand?
A: That’s a good question. … I’ve gone to every meeting, and I said, “Tell me what you think the Hawaii brand is. … What do you think people come here for?” Well, it’s the weather. No question. It’s the natural beauty. No question, that’s a brand for us. It’s the world-class beaches. And it’s the culture. Those are the things that people really come here for.
The fifth one that we added this year is responsible tourism. The reason I say that is not just because it’s the right thing to do … Every time I go to a meeting I say, “Raise your hand if you’re in the industry,” and if they raise their hand, I say “I work with you.” “If you’re a resident, raise your hand … I work for you — I don’t work for the industry.”
If we could have a great life and everything without tourism, great. But we can’t. We need it because it’s our economic driver. But we have to do it the right way.
And this is a great job because we can actually help invest and do the right things in our home that I grew up in, and brand ourselves correctly. Because the next generation traveler wants locations and destinations that are responsible to the environment and their culture around them. There’s no question about it.
Q: That’s interesting. And how do you know that that’s what they appreciate?
A:One of the easy ones is I’ve got two millennial children. … And, that’s why these meetings that I go to are important.
I did a presentation for eight different classes at Campbell High School, and I said to them, “Ten years ago, what do you think the most important thing was for a person going to a hotel? It was the comfort of the beds. Five years ago, what was the most important?” And they jumped right on it: Wi-Fi. So, comfortable beds and Wi-Fi have now become the standard.
I said, “What do you think it is now?” It’s unbelievable: It’s responsible tourism.
Q: They want to be able to support a place that takes care of itself?
A:You cannot do a group contract from a company out of California unless you include in that contract what you’re doing to to protect the environment. So it’s inevitable. And it’s a great opportunity for us to be part of it. And the ironic thing about it is people don’t have a problem paying more, if it’s for the right thing.
And that’s why, even with DLNR (the state Department of Land and Natural Resources), I said, you know, there’s nothing wrong with charging people to go to these places. The consumer is all right with this. They charge a dollar to go on Diamond Head. So charge him $5. Charge them $10, but make it a good experience. Invest into that product. They don’t have a problem with it.
But you can’t charge him $5 and not do anything right.
77