There is no end in sight for Safe Travels, the pandemic-inspired traveler entry program, which is currently costing Hawaii more than $3.1 million a month.

Gov. David Ige once suggested the program would run until at least 70% of Hawaii’s population is vaccinated against COVID-19. Then he moved the goalposts as the delta variant brought COVID-19 spikes to Hawaii and other parts of the world.

The ball is still in the air.

Ige’s emergency proclamation extending Safe Travels expires Nov. 30. Health officials said Friday that 72.3% of the state’s population is now fully vaccinated, and 84.8% have received at least one dose.

Lt. Gov. Josh Green has suggested Safe Travels should continue until Dec. 31, then sunset if the state is functionally fully immune. Green defines that as the point where 85% to 88% of residents would be fully vaccinated and the other 12% to 15% would have caught the virus and recovered.

However, Hawaii’s policy of requiring vaccinations or a negative COVID-19 test to bypass quarantine rules for people entering the state will likely stay in place into next year, Green said. Ige is unlikely to end the program until the rest of the world has seen a great decrease in COVID-19, he added.

Jeffrey Hickman, state Department of Defense spokesman, said in an email to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that the agency has oversight for Safe Travels. Hickman said the state spent about $10 million to set up and operate Safe Travels from Dec. 31 through June. The state already has spent about $9 million of the $9.8 million budgeted for the July 1 to Sept. 30 period this year, he said.

Expenses include contracts for labor and information technology. Hickman said Safe Travels costs are covered through the Coronavirus State Fiscal Recovery Relief Funds, a sub-award to the Defense Department from the American Rescue Plan Act.

“There are currently no plans beyond the pandemic for the Safe Travels digital platform,” Hickman said.

However, Hawaii Tourism Authority Chief Brand Officer Kalani Kaanaana has proposed keeping Safe Travels alive longer as a tourism management tool. Kaanaana told the HTA board’s marketing committee Monday that HTA could use Safe Travels to communicate with visitors, especially during emergencies.

Even if visitors no longer needed tests or vaccines to enter Hawaii, he envisions that they could use Safe Travels to input the agricultural form they currently fill out on the plane. He said travelers also could sign “pono pledges” to be on good behavior and respect Hawaii’s culture, people and places.

Safe Travels also could supply HTA with travel data, said Kaanaana, who pitched the program as part of a Smart Destination Hawaii concept, which would cost $10 million over a three-year period.

He said that expense is over and above the $9.4 million sole-source contract HTA previously awarded to the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau for destination management or the soon-to-be-awarded contract for Hawaii tourism destination brand marketing and management services for major U.S. markets.

The idea is such a detour from current HTA operations that Kaanaana referred to it as a “moon shot.” He visualizes Smart Destination Hawaii as a “regenerative engine” — a one-stop source where visitors can get educational information and book Hawaii travel and activities.

Visitors to the site could visit a virtual Hawaiian Music and Dance Center, he said, or enjoy a reboot of Hawaii Calls, a radio program that was broadcast live from Waikiki Beach from 1935 through 1975. They could also shop through an e-commerce platform that supports local agriculture and locally made products.

Kaanaana said Smart Destination Hawaii could eventually replace HTA’s GoHawaii.com website, which previously cost HTA $2.5 million to overhaul.

HTA’s full board agreed Thursday that it needed more detailed information before approving Smart Destination Hawaii, but set aside $10 million to revisit the idea later.

The board approved Kaanaana’s related request to spend $1 million on rebranding Hawaii’s promotional and educational materials and logos so that they are “aligned with current market conditions and resident sentiment. “

However, the HTA board delayed approving at least two other proposals Kaanaana pitched, including $500,000 on a “buy local” program, and $700,000 to hire someone to provide destination management technology consulting to bring all of the ideas to fruition.

Kaanaana said all of these programs are examples of the agency’s reorganization from a primarily tourism marketing agency to a destination management agency. He said HTA’s earlier Destination Management Action Plan (DMAP) process showed that many in the community support HTA’s pivot.

Technological solutions

Joel Guy, Kauai DMAP steering committee member and executive director of the Hanalei Initiative/North Shore Shuttle, sees the value of investing in technological infrastructure to underpin reservations, real-time density data and other potential uses in the future.

Guy relies heavily on a technology platform to understand visitation patterns and schedule shuttle service to Kauai’s North Shore, which began after flooding devastated the region in April 2018. Guy said managing the shuttle service and parking under gohaena.com helps cut down on traffic in the culturally sensitive rural area.

The data collected during booking also helps with emergency response, he added.

Evacuating tourists from Kauai’s North Shore was difficult after the 2018 flooding, which was severe enough to close roads. It’s easier now, Guy said.

“We had 350 people out there the other day and the road flooded. We had every name and every number for every person that got out there. We wouldn’t go home until we made sure everybody was safe,” he said. “We definitely agree that looking at technological solutions is the future. We appreciate HTA looking at technological solutions to solve this challenge of keeping visitors safe.”

But HTA’s latest ideas are costly, and they also are raising concerns the agency is duplicating what other state entities are already doing or should be doing.

For instance, a few HTA board members pointed out that the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism already have or are working on buy local programs, and the Department of Land and Natural Resources already has reservation systems for some of its parks and popular sites.

Kaanaana also needs to run the Safe Travels idea past stakeholders including the governor’s office, the Department of Health and state Department of Defense. And, he said, the state Legislature would likely need to pass a law requiring visitors to use Safe Travels once the pandemic emergency period ends.

Visitors accepting, so far

Since Oct. 15, 2020, more than 8.6 million travelers — residents and visitors — have used Save Travels. Once users complete the online application, they receive a QR code to show if they have a test result, vaccination or other exemption to bypass the mandatory travel quarantine.

Screeners at Hawaii airports use an iPad to read the QR code and are able to quickly review passenger information for clearance or secondary screening. Some airlines also are pre-screening at mainland and international airports.

Visitors have generally grown accepting of Safe Travels, according to an online survey of visitors from the mainland U.S. that was conducted by Anthology Research for the HTA between Oct. 14 and Oct. 20, as part of the contract for the Visitor Satisfaction and Activity Study.

An overwhelming majority of visitors, or 81%, who participated in the survey stated they didn’t have any issues with the Safe Travels website or process.

As many as 98% of the visitors surveyed told the HTA that before arriving in Hawaii they were aware that government mandates were in place, such as mask wearing in certain situations, social distancing and avoiding large gatherings.

Some 70% of respondents said they will visit Hawaii again regardless of the pre-visit requirements.

Still, HTA would be hard-pressed to find many visitor industry partners who favor extending Safe Travels or creating a one-stop shop that allows tourists to book travel, activities and attractions.

Keith Vieira, principal of KV & Associates Hospitality Consulting, said Safe Travels is inconvenient and “off brand” for Hawaii tourism.

“We talk about Hawaii being a warm and welcoming place, but then we say, ‘Oh, you have to tell us all this personal information,’” Vieira said. “During the pandemic, it was understood that you have to follow rules. But keeping it beyond that is just plain wrong, and it’s being done for the wrong reasons.”

Vieira said the program continues to have potentially frustrating technological limitations. The language is bureaucratic and it’s hard for users to move seamlessly from one input area to the next.

It’s even more inconvenient for travelers who don’t have access to a smartphone or a computer or who live or stay in rural areas without much connectivity. And, it’s rough when the technology breaks down.

“I just came back from a trip to Los Angeles last week. I waited for 45 minutes in (the United Airlines line) to get my (pre-clearance) bracelet, and then the machine broke. I got to Hawaii and I had to wait in line another two hours,” Vieira said. “It has to stop. It’s discriminatory. No other place in the U.S. is doing it.”

Hawaii’s brand

Jerry Gibson, Hawaii Hotel Association president, said he favors letting Safe Travels sunset by the end of the year.

“I wouldn’t like to see it go beyond the end of the year unless we really felt it very necessary for a new cause,” he said. “I think that its purpose was well-served and it was a good program, but I don’t really think that they need to continue it.”

If HTA needs more visitor data, Gibson recommends finding a less “intrusive way.”

Lynette Eastman, general manager of the Surfjack Hotel & Swim Club, worries that extending Safe Travels without good reason would decrease visitor demand for Hawaii. She also questions if the state could enforce it after the pandemic in a way that did not damage Hawaii’s tourism brand.

“People can book air without going through Safe Travels. What happens when they get here and they didn’t fill out the paperwork?” she said. “I don’t think we should put our responsibilities upon out-of-state entities to enforce our agenda.”

Eastman said people should be able to travel freely to Hawaii again.

“If they can’t, they will just go to other places and other countries,” she said. “If Safe Travels continues beyond the pandemic, we will lose business, and it surely will interfere with our recovery, not to mention our reputation as a state.”

Gibson, Eastman and Vieira also expressed concern about HTA potentially getting into the booking business.

According to Gibson, many visitor industry members were upset in 2016 when HTA partnered with Expedia Media Solutions on a facial-recognition technology program that tracked interest in marketing materials and allowed users to have an opportunity to book personalized Hawaii vacation packages.

“The main complaint was a concern about fairness. (HTA) didn’t keep it up that long,” he said.

This time around, Gibson cautioned, “there are so many wholesalers and so many people in international groups that are vying for business and helping with business. You don’t want to upset some of the tentacles that are basically working with us in Hawaii.”

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.