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The Hawaii Tourism Authority has received requests for debriefings — the first step in a possible procurement protest — on the awards that it made this week to manage the brands and market Hawaii to the United States and Canada.
HTA did not receive a request for a debriefing on a $27.1 million multiyear award made to the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement on Monday. That contract could start June 20 and is expected to run for an initial 2-1/2-year term with an option for two one-year extensions. HTA’s first stewardship services award will include post-arrival visitor education; administrative support for HTA community programs; technical assistance and capacity building for community organizations and businesses; and technology-enabled solutions to manage tourism hot spots.
However, HTA is fielding a debriefing request for a U.S. branding and marketing award made Monday to the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau for $38.4 million for an initial 2-1/2-year term with an option for one two-year extension. HVCB currently holds the U.S. tourism contract and is the only contractor to ever have held the contract for the state’s largest visitor source market, where in 2022 visitors spent $16.2 billion in Hawaii, an average of $231 per visitor per day. HVCB’s new contract had been expected to start June 22; however, it’s unclear how the request for a debriefing might weigh on the timetable.
HTA also has received a request for a debriefing on the award it made Monday to VoX International, which already had been working as Hawai‘i Tourism Canada. VoX’s new contract, which had been slated to begin June 22, is worth $2.4 million for the first 2-1/2 years, with an option for a two-year extension. Canada is one of Hawaii’s most mature international markets. In 2022, visitors from Canada to Hawaii spent $928.2 million, an average of $188 per visitor per day.
The state procurement process allows for a period of protest for these three awards that expires June 14. HTA Chief Brand Officer Kalani Ka‘ana‘ana said now that a debriefing has been requested, HTA has seven business days to comply, and an offeror would have five business days after that to file a protest. Ka‘ana‘ana said debriefings are commonly requested as part of the procurement process, as they allow offerors insight into why their proposals were not selected. Debriefings do not necessarily lead to protests, he said.
It’s unclear how the coming debriefings, which are subject to specific state procedures, will play out. Unrest over the U.S. procurement has been ongoing since 2021 when difficulties for the procurement for the U.S. tourism contract pitted HVCB and CNHA against each other, creating discord that carried over into the community and the highest levels of government and threatened HTA’s future.
HTA’s prior solicitation attempts for the U.S. tourism contract drew strong criticism from the state Legislature, where House Bill 1375, which sought to repeal or reform the agency, lived until House and Senate conferees failed on the last day to reach consensus.
HTA originally selected HVCB for a multimillion-dollar U.S. tourism award on Dec. 2, 2021. Former Department of Business Economic Development and Tourism Director Mike McCartney, acting as HTA’s head of purchasing agency, rescinded the contract award in 2021 following an unresolved protest from CNHA.
When HTA embarked in 2022 on a second round in the request-for-proposals process, HVCB lost to CNHA and filed its own protest. McCartney attempted to broker a deal between HVCB and CNHA, but that option was not approved by officials from the state Procurement Office or the Department of the Attorney General. Ultimately, McCartney rescinded CNHA’s award on his last day on the job, Dec. 5, citing the “best interest of the state” — the same reason he gave for HVCB’s earlier rescission.
HTA also faced strong criticism from some lawmakers and community members, who wanted a quicker pivot to destination management. To some extent the HTA board of directors’ Dec. 22 decision to broaden procurement was an outgrowth of this pushback. The board voted to seek a contractor for the U.S. market, while also approving a request for proposals to seek support services for destination stewardship across all markets.
CNHA President and CEO Kuhio Lewis said in a statement Monday upon the awarding of this historic HTA award:
“Today marks the start of a new beginning. While it has been a long journey, we are ready to hit the ground running and focus on the future of Hawai‘i, and its people,” Lewis said. “Our kuleana is to bring together decades of expertise rooted in a shared vision for transformation in tourism while ensuring that our traditions and culture are perpetuated, and our community and aina are at the center of all decisions.”
Lewis said Kilohana, CNHA’s tourism division, looks forward to working with HTA, industry officials and the community.
Jerry Gibson, president of the Hawaii Hotel Alliance, said, “On the HVCB, CNHA contracts, we were pretty happy to hear the results. Things are going forward, and speaking with both HVCB and CNHA, everybody is excited and ready to get going.”
Gibson said he learned Thursday that there had been a procurement inquiry.
“I’m not sure what that’s about, but we certainly hope that the process doesn’t hold up any forward motion from the destination management action plan process or the marketing process,” he said. “I’m not sure it will delay it. It may be just simple questions, and they have every right to ask them, but we just hope it doesn’t hold up the process.”
Gibson said he and others are concerned about continued uncertainty, especially given that the pace of summer travel is coming in soft, compared with last summer.
Mufi Hannemann, president and CEO of the Hawaii Lodging & Tourism Association, said he’s hopeful that HTA will move quickly to start CNHA’s uncontested contract for destination stewardship.
“We need to send a message out there that they are making progress, or folks will think that everything is in disarray and we don’t have our act together,” Hannemann said. “Summer (tourism) is coming in weaker, and all of these delays haven’t helped, along with the uncertainty of where we are with our marketing. We have to get this thing evolved sooner rather than later.”
Keith Vieira, principal of KV & Associates, Hospitality Consulting, said the challenge with any possible marketing and branding delays, especially for Hawaii’s top U.S. tourism source market, is that previous setbacks made for a lukewarm effort to reach travelers over the past three years.
“In that time Hawaii’s travel wholesalers and Hawaii lost market share to other destinations,” Vieira said.
He added that when booking pace is down, travel sellers market reactively with the goal of putting heads on beds rather than engaging in proactive marketing, which looks to grow tourism through higher visitor spending rather than greater visitor arrivals.
“We should be marketing for the future. We shouldn’t be marketing for next week,” Vieira said.
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What happens during a procurement debriefing?
According to the State Procurement Office, procedures for a debriefing allow for the following:
>> Evaluation of significant weaknesses or deficiencies in the offerors proposal, if applicable.
>> Evaluation of significant weaknesses or deficiencies in the offerors proposal, if applicable.
>> The overall evaluated cost or price (including unit prices) and technical rating, if applicable, of the successful offeror and the debriefed offeror.
>> The overall ranking of all proposals (abstract or summary of results), when any such ranking was developed during the procurement process.
>> A summary of the rationale for award.
>> Reasonable responses to relevant questions on whether the procurement method (RFP or professional services) procedures, applicable laws and rules were followed.
Debriefings should not:
>> Include point-by-point comparisons of the requesting (debrief) offeror proposal with those of other offerors.
>> Reveal any information prohibited from disclosure by law (HRS chapter 92F, Uniform Information Practices Act), including trade secrets, or privileged or confidential commercial or manufacturing information.
Source: State Procurement Office Procedures for Debriefing HAR §3-122-60 (RFP) and §3-122-70 (Professional Services)
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