Tourism
Funding the Hawaii Tourism Authority: TAT vs General Fund…Or?
By James Mak A majority of the states in the U.S. have a government tourism office (also known as Destination Marketing Organization, DMO) that markets their state. The National Council of State Legislatures (NCSL) notes that the most common way for states to fund their tourism offices is by appropriation from their general fund. [1] […]
Read MoreShould the Counties Get a Share of the Transient Accommodation Tax?
By James Mak In the recently-concluded thirty-first legislature (2021), Hawaii state lawmakers passed HB 862 CD1 which would divert to the state government’s general fund (GF) $103 million from the state’s transient accommodation tax collections (TAT) that otherwise would have gone to the counties. In exchange, state lawmakers gave each of the four counties the […]
Read MorePre-Travel Testing and Hawaii’s Daily Trans-Pacific Visitors
By James Mak and Carl Bonham The front page headline on Honolulu Star-Advertiser’s October 16 issue read: SOLID REOPENING DAY. Indeed, it was. On October 15, 2020 8,224 trans-Pacific passengers flew into Hawaii compared to an average daily passenger count of only 1,923 passengers the week before. The spike in passenger arrivals is attributed to the start […]
Read MoreReopening Japanese Tourism in Hawaii: Is it Safe?
In this short policy brief, we aim to answer four questions. 1. Will Japanese tourists coming to Hawaii be COVID-19 free after taking a pre-departure PCR test? 2. Are some Japanese tourists likely to be infected in Hawaii and bring COVID-19 back to Japan? 3. Will the combination of a pre-departure test and a quarantine […]
Read MoreThe Future of Travel and Tourism After the COVID-19 Pandemic And Implications for Hawaiʻi
Shortly after the start of the coronavirus epidemic in the U.S., CNN Business ran a story with the provocative headline: “The travel industry is suffering its worst shock since 9/11 because of coronavirus.” As the virus raced across the country though, COVID-19’s impact on the travel industry has turned out to be far worse than […]
Read MoreUHERO State Forecast Update: Coronavirus Presents Danger to Hawaii Tourism
Hawaii’s economy has been on an expected slowing trend for the past several years. While visitor arrivals racked up another record year in 2019, real visitor spending fell last year as international spending languished. And now the coronavirus rears its ugly head. That represents a considerable—if as yet uncertain—risk to Hawaii’s economy in the year […]
Read MoreCharting a New Course For Hawai‘i Tourism
Despite a string of record visitor arrivals now totaling almost ten million annually, Hawai‘i tourism shows signs of trouble. Inflation-adjusted spending per visitor has trended downward. Diminishing economic contribution, eroding resident sentiment, and increasing congestion and stress on sites and attractions provide evidence that the current governance model is inadequate for effectively managing the increasingly […]
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