Editorial: Making tourism more enlightened

The boarded-up storefronts in Waikiki and in other once-lively communities tell the grim story — as do new stats, such as hotels stagnating at about 20% occupancy and visitor numbers plunging 80% from a year ago.

Still, there are hints of hope on the horizon: COVID-19 fears are easing somewhat, and the travelers are coming, at a slow but steadying stream. The task now is for the state to continue welcoming responsible visitors — and to take the punishing lessons from the pandemic and emerge stronger.

First, the difficult realities: A new report last week from the Hawaii Tourism Authority (HTA) showed hotel-room occupancy statewide at just 23.3% in January, a far cry from 83.5% a year earlier. It followed an occupancy rate of 23.8% in December, and 22.1% in November.

New HTA data also showed January visitor arrivals had dropped 80.1% compared with a year ago: that’s just 171,976 visitor arrivals compared with 862,574 the previous year.

“We are obviously very concerned that our industry continues to struggle,” said Hawaii Lodging &Tourism Association CEO Mufi Hannemann, in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser’s “Spotlight Hawaii” webcast on Wednesday. “It has a ripple effect on the rest of the businesses that feed on tourism.”

But amid the gloom, some welcome light last week: Oahu advanced to Tier 3 reopening on Thursday, enabling social gatherings of up to 10 people at restaurants (6-foot distancing between parties still applies), and no capacity limits for retail stores (6-foot distancing applies).

That easing of restrictions also should help boost the ailing tourism industry, which in turn will help Hawaii’s economy get back on surer footing. The reopening message is vital, adding to data-driven perception that Hawaii is a relatively COVID-safe visitor destination.

Further optimism came from Outrigger Hospitality Group CEO Jeff Wagoner, who in the webcast noted that recent travel-industry surveys say many people are willing to travel this year, and that Hawaii is the top destination on most surveys.

If and when it comes, though, the huge pent-up demand for travel to Hawaii could go up against new realities: evolving Safe Travels and pretesting protocols, certainly, but also, resistant attitudes from residents who have come to enjoy less congestion and easier access to public places.

Pre-pandemic, many here were already sounding alarm bells over the record numbers of tourists, topping 10.2 million in 2019. Reasonable concerns range from burden on infrastructure, to beaches and sites being overrun, to illegal vacation rentals in residential neighborhoods.

For the most part, the many hoops in the Safe Travels pretesting/quarantine policy have both kept Hawaii safe against COVID, and yielded visitors who generally are more responsible and respectful. Diligence is indeed needed to adhere to Hawaii’s strict, sometimes-confusing Safe Travels protocols.

Taking note of such travelers as well as hotel investments in renovations and malama (stewardship) visitor experiences, Hannemann noted that the forced pause is affording a “golden opportunity” to reshape and rebrand Hawaii’s tourism industry.

Such a rebranding will entail the start of setting up guardrails now, to direct the flow of tourists once the floodgates reopen, post-pandemic. It will necessitate, for example, firm rules and enforcement against illegal transient vacation rentals, and perhaps new nonresident fees to visit parks and hiking spots, to help preserve natural environments.

At the start of 2020, HTA unveiled a 6-year strategic plan to guide tourism, built around four pillars: Natural resources, Hawaiian culture, community and brand marketing.

The pandemic and economic fallout have forced a reset of the tourism industry; with the prolonged pause came introspection. Now, the reboot is imminent — and it will be a daunting yet necessary task to put HTA’s pillars into practice through enlightened policies.