Editorial: Enact visitor fee to maintain Hawaii’s attractions

Hawaii is known worldwide for its prizewinning natural attractions, from parks to coastal and mountain hiking trails, enjoyed by residents and visitors alike.

How are they maintained? In large part, they are not. Hawaii taxpayers do pay into state funds that include allocations for care of its natural resources and parks, but the wear and tear from growing tourist traffic has outpaced the ability to keep up.

That pace has accelerated. Social media has spread the word about many sites, popular for years with kamaaina but, until now, unfamiliar to many visitors. And while the 9.25 million arrivals in 2022 fell short of prepandemic levels, the visitor count from the U.S. has increased, offsetting much of the decline in Japanese tourists.

That’s a lot of stress on the environment, and at a point in the climate-change crisis when drought and invasive species have intensified the damage from heavy use.

It’s time, during this legislative session, to capture some of the tourism revenue and cover the costs of resource protection.

This imperative also aligns well with the state’s tourism industry policy emphasizing destination management. Visitors are being encouraged to embrace the responsibility of helping to care for the places they go for enjoyment; paying a fee for some of these attractions is one way to help.

What’s known as a “visitor green fee” — a charge assessed of tourists for their impact on state parks and trails — was a plank in the platform of the new head of state: Gov. Josh Green had proposed assessing a $50 fee for all nonresident arrivals.

This would be a font of revenue for the state. A 2021 Hawaii Tax Commission report estimated the annual yield quickly rising to well over $400 million. Other alternatives the report considered, including a 1% surcharge on the state’s hotel room tax, would bring in far less, in the range of $50 million to $67 million annually.

However, legislative leadership has rightly concluded that the blanket $50-per-nonresident approach would likely draw legal challenges.

There are countries that have implemented straightforward green fees for foreign travelers. However, federal law and provisions of the U.S. Constitution would at least complicate how Americans could be charged for traveling between states.

Green has said he’d be satisfied with an alternative approach, and lawmakers are pursuing bills that would add specific sites to those where visitors already are being charged entry fees — Diamond Head State Monument and Nuuanu Pali State Wayside are examples.

And the focus, correctly, is placed on tourists, given that Hawaii residents already have been taxed to support the state’s maintenance responsibilities.

While he was on the City Council, former Mayor Mufi Hannemann sponsored a bill to assess visitors an entry fee at Hanauma Bay. Residents of a state that protects public access to the shoreline — as Hawaii does — would not abide being charged to go to the beach, he said, and he’s right about that.

Hannemann, now president and CEO of the Hawaii Lodging & Tourism Association, is among the visitor industry leaders who have shown support for a green fee. But they’ve also raised a key concern lawmakers must consider: Revenue from this program should be directed to an account dedicated to upkeep of the sites, rather than be deposited in the state’s general fund.

In order to manage that, there should be a state-authorized commission, operating with oversight and independently of the visitor industry. Among the measures addressing this need, Senate Bill 1349 and House Bill 1051 would establish an unpaid “environmental legacy commission” to disburse grants of up to half the fees collected annually.

The details and rules of the fee system would have to be hammered out, and there are lots of moving parts. Who would be subject to the fee? Some measures would set the minimum age at 15. Which sites would be selected?

Also, how would visitors pay? Would there be pay-per-site options, annual permits covering multiple sites, or both?

Odds are overwhelming that this system would be a work in progress. It would probably be wise to phase in more locations over time, as the bugs are worked out.

All the same, it’s important to start the process now. Post-pandemic travel trends are still in flux, and Hawaii can’t afford to let its critical resource guardianship lag any longer.

This issue has been kicked around for too many years. An October 2019 report by Conservation International, Harold K.L. Castle Foundation and the Hawai‘i Leadership Forum noted that despite the immeasurable value of the state’s natural resources, a paltry 1% of its budget has been invested in care for these assets: “As a result, our vital ecosystems and the resources they harbor continue to decline, due to lack of adequate investment in proven and effective conservation approaches.”

Surely most visitors would like to do their part in stewardship — but first they must be called by Hawaii leaders to do so.