Report No. 25-07, Audit of the Hawai‘i Tourism Authority

An AI generated and office reviewed report summary.

Report No. 25-07 

Audit of the Hawai‘i Tourism Authority

 In 2020, as it entered its third decade, the Hawai‘i Tourism concluded that it needed a change.  Its continuous drive to increase visitor numbers had taken a toll on Hawai‘i’s people and their natural environment. What was needed was a “re-balancing” of priorities, and for that reason, “destination management” would be the Authority’s focus and at the heart of the new strategic plan.

In its 2020 – 2025 Strategic Plan, HTA defined destination management as: “attracting and educating responsible visitors; advocating for solutions to overcrowded attractions, overtaxed infrastructure, and other tourism-related problems; and working with other responsible agencies to improve natural and cultural assets valued by both Hawai‘i residents and visitors.” 

As part of this emphasis on destination management, HTA developed three-year Destination Management Action Plans for six islands. Actions and sub-actions vary in the individual DMAPs, such as protecting and preserving culturally significant places and tourist “hotspots”; as well as increasing communication, engagement, and outreach efforts with the community among other initiatives.

In Report No. 25-07, Audit of the Hawai‘i Tourism Authority, we assessed HTA’s achievement of its 2016 and 2020 – 2025 strategic plans’ destination management goals. We also evaluated the effectiveness of the agency’s DMAPs. 

Learn how:

• HTA’s new emphasis on destination management is not materially different from its prior efforts; largely a reshuffling of past and continuing programs. 
• The effort doesn’t seem to have involved any increased financial commitment; overall spending on destination management efforts remained generally level.
• The Authority’s DMAP effort was largely ineffective, with most actions not addressing hotspots, predated the effort, or had already completed.
• Many DMAP actions were impractical or unrelated to destinations and their management. 

Thanks for listening. You can find this and other reports at: auditor.hawaii.gov