For the past five years, ʻOlena Alec has run Haleakalā National Park’s nonprofit arm with a staff of one: herself. Now, Alec has an intern. It’s a small but important change for an organization that supports the park at a critical time, when federal money for national parks has been unstable, Alec said.

Haleakalā Conservancy has a big job supporting National Park Service staff at the 30,000-acre park on Maui.

Now she has a staff of two, plus extra money to produce a video, flyers and brochures to get the organization’s word out. Also in the works: a geofencing project so visitors to the park can receive information through the organization’s social media posts.

“It’s really helpful to have someone else to share the work,” she said.

The $50,000 in funding for Haleakalā Conservancy comes from a destination management program established by the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement under a contract with the Hawaiʻi Tourism Authority. The program is one of the big changes HTA has implemented in recent years.

Other recent changes at HTA have not been as positive. 

The state agency in charge of supporting an industry that provides approximately 1 out of every 5 private, non-farm jobs in Hawaiʻi faces flux bordering on chaos. 

HTA, which receives $63 million annually from hotel room taxes, has lacked a permanent chief executive for nearly two years. It’s lost its long-time chief stewardship officer, who stepped down in March. Also in March, HTA’s board chair stepped down amid a spending scandal.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much tension and difficulty within HTA.”

Jerry Gibson, president, Hawaiʻi Hotel Alliance

The organization’s head of finance and acting chief administrative officer has been placed on unpaid leave for allegedly creating a hostile work environment for Native Hawaiian employees. He’s fired back with his own lawsuit saying he was removed for reporting procurement violations and widespread financial waste within HTA.

Meanwhile, the whole organization faces major structural changes thanks to a new law signed by Gov. Josh Green in May. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much tension and difficulty within HTA,” said Jerry Gibson, a veteran Hawaiʻi hotel general manager and president of the Hawaiʻi Hotel Alliance.

Hawaiʻi Sen. Glenn Wakai, a longtime critic of the HTA, says the organization needs a new leader and for politicians to get out of the way.

“You look at HTA, they’re supposed to have autonomy. They don’t,” said Wakai, who is vice chair of the Senate Economic Development and Tourism Committee. “You need to find the right people, put together the right team, and, as best as we can, take as much politics out of the decision-making process as possible.”

New Bill Establishes Tourism Czar

HTA’s instability started before the Covid-19 pandemic, when surging numbers of tourists were drawing public ire and lawmakers were heeding the complaints – over time stripping HTA’s independence and funding.

Since its founding in 1998, HTA had operated with extraordinary independence for a government agency. It was attached to the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism for administrative purposes only. It also had its own pipeline of hotel room tax money, funneled into its own special fund, meaning HTA didn’t have to justify its budget to lawmakers like other agencies.

Under the old system, hotel room taxes would flow through a special fund to the HTA, which would use the money to market Hawaiʻi to attract more tourists to fill hotel rooms and pay more room taxes.

Lawmakers began reining in the HTA through a series of bills starting in 2021. Instead of drawing from a special fund, HTA now has to go through the Legislature each year, like other agencies. A bill in 2024 moved the agency firmly under DBEDT and added destination management, not merely marketing, to HTA’s duties. 

The final blow came in May, when Green signed another bill eliminating whatever autonomy HTA still had. The HTA’s board now is merely advisory, and the HTA’s chief executive will report directly to Green.

HTA is still gaining an understanding about how to implement the changes, said Todd Apo, a former Honolulu City Council chairman who now chairs the HTA board.

In the meantime, Apo said, the authority will start the process of hiring a new chief executive, which the board still has the power to do.

“We’re looking to get the process going in the next month probably, and would love to see us make that selection sooner than later,” Apo said.

Native Hawaiian Organization Manages Destination

While HTA struggles with disarray, CNHA has emerged as the state’s main player managing tourism — mitigating tourism’s negative side effects on the community and environment and trying to make sure visitor spending supports small, sustainable businesses, now known as regenerative tourism. 

When CNHA started 25 years ago it was meant to be an umbrella for other Native Hawaiian organizations. It soon took on a concrete role as a federally funded community development financial institution, a lender of last resort for Native Hawaiians, particularly Department of Hawaiian Home Lands beneficiaries struggling to obtain traditional bank loans for homes on land held in trust by the department.

During the pandemic, CNHA’s administrative capacity mushroomed as it took on the task of helping Catholic Charities Hawaiʻi administer a rent relief program for residents put out of work when governments imposed strict rules on businesses and effectively shut down the tourism industry.

As the pandemic ended, CNHA stepped up to bid on HTA’s tourism marketing contract for North America, which had for decades been held by the Hawaiʻi Visitors and Convention Bureau. After fierce competition by both parties, HTA ended up dividing the contract, putting the bureau in charge of marketing and CNHA in charge of destination management.

This is playing out on the ground in support for community organizations like Haleakalā Conservancy. 

Also benefitting are small businesses like Iko Balanga and Holly Crane’s company, Anelakai Adventures, which conducts daytime tours and nighttime manta ray outings on the Big Island in double-hulled Hawaiian canoes. With canoes driven by people instead of engines, the couple bills the company as “the most eco-friendly tour available.”

“We’ve struggled with the idea of tourism.”

Holly Crane, co-owner, Anelakai Adventures

The business has been operating for 15 years, but CNHA’s program, Balanga says, gave them more formal training in areas like marketing. 

 “We’ve always been eco-friendly, noninvasive, sustainable and regenerative,” he said. But the program “really opened our eyes.”

Financial support gave them money to buy traditional Hawaiian fishing tools to use on daytime tours which they otherwise couldn’t have afforded, Crane said.

“We’ve struggled with the idea of tourism,” Crane added. “There’s been such a pushback against it. And Iko for a while was like, ‘I’m in the wrong industry.’ But the fact is, tourism will always be there and that’s OK. It’s just about finding a way to do it respectfully and, like Iko said, in a pono way.”

Hotel Industry: Marketing Is Critical

Whether the HTA maintains this approach for the long term remains to be seen. In the past, HTA received about $80 million annually. That’s been cut to $63 million. Of that, Hawaiʻi Visitors and Convention Bureau gets about $38.6 million while CNHA gets $18.7 million under current two-year contracts.

There’s pressure from big players to steer more money to traditional marketing. Gibson, the president of the hotel alliance, said Hawaiʻi is losing ground to competitors like Florida, Mexico and the Caribbean. 

“We are so far behind that we could get to a point of no return,” he said. “We really need to be maniacal about where we need to go in terms of marketing.”

He also wants more destination management to include more focus on regulating short-term rentals in neighborhoods outside of resort areas.

“Tourism everywhere is not a good idea,” he said.

Aaron Salā, who took over as the visitors bureau’s president and chief executive in September, said destination management has always been woven into the organization’s marketing. HVCB, he said, is putting together a strategic plan expected to be finished in July to “understand how we see ourselves as stewards of brand, as stewards of community, as stewards of the industry, in responsibility really to Hawai‘i.”

A central idea is to enhance tourism’s broad public benefits while lessening negative impacts borne by the community, culture and environment.

The bureau’s client, meanwhile, is in disarray. In addition to structural changes mandated by law, the authority lost three prominent Native Hawaiian leaders in the past year: interim president and chief executive Daniel Nāhoʻopiʻi; chief stewardship officer Kalana Ka‘anā‘anā, and spokesman T. Ilihia Gionson. 

Also in March, HTA’s then-board chairman Mufi Hannemann stepped down after a state audit triggered an investigation into whether nonprofits he runs inappropriately received free food and use of state facilities from the Hawaiʻi Convention Center, which HTA runs.

Finally, HTA’s vice president of finance and acting chief administrative officer, Isaac Choy, has been placed on unpaid leave. In a letter, HTA’s interim chief executive Caroline Anderson alleged Choy had made derogatory remarks toward Native Hawaiians and created a hostile work environment. 

Choy has filed a lawsuit alleging his removal was retaliation for his reporting procurement violations and other problems that he alleges are wasting millions of dollars.

There’s enough institutional knowledge among remaining HTA staff to keep the organization running, Salā said. But it’s essential, the hotel alliance’s Gibson said, that HTA gets back on track.

“It’s really at a point where we need to figure out where we need to go,” he said. “And we need to go to a different place.”

CORRECTION: A previous version of this story misidentified ʻOlena Alec‘s organization.

“Hawaiʻi’s Changing Economy” is supported by a grant from the Hawaiʻi Community Foundation as part of its work to build equity for all through the CHANGE Framework.