Tourism Talk
Tourism Authority needs to show people it's listening

By Michele Kayal
Advertiser Staff Writer

If 600 people show up for a forum, and nothing they say makes it into the plan they're commenting on, did they comment?

The philosopher's dilemma is also the Hawaii Tourism Authority's, but it's one the board has the chance to recast. As it prepares to update the groundbreaking strategic plan it crafted two years ago, the authority has a new opportunity to let its constituents know that they do indeed make a sound.

More than 600 people attended community meetings held around the state in 1999 as the authority sought "to collect and integrate public input" into a "draft" of its plan, Ke Kumu. In hours of testimony, many people supported the plan, but many others had differences. Some asked for more focus groups with Native Hawaiian and environmental interests, for clarification on ideas about changing land-use laws, and that the new tourism policy — the first of its kind! — better acknowledge the specialness of Hawai'i's people, and find a way to educate tourism employees about Hawai'i's host culture.

Total number of comments folded into the final document? Zero.

Maybe that explains why three weeks of public meetings, scheduled to end last night on Lana'i, have drawn only about a third as many people as the first time around. Or maybe it's because the public is totally satisfied with the job the authority is doing. Or maybe it's because no one really cares. It's hard to know what the people who don't show up are thinking.

Board administrator Robert Fishman says the draft document was adopted unchanged after the 1999 meetings because "nobody testified against the language," so the language did not need to be changed. He notes that the draft itself was crafted using copious public feedback gleaned from direct-mail surveys, focus groups, polls and other data collected by independent contractors. The 130-page report of the meetings, and the several hundred-page transcript, were reviewed by the authority, Fishman said. Based on the report, Fishman said, the authority decided the hearings validated the document.

"It would be unfair and inaccurate to surmise that the HTA was not listening," Fishman said. "They just didn't agree."

It shouldn't be lost that the authority has done some really good things for the community. One of its most successful initiatives has been its product development grants, about $1 million a year given to local groups and entrepreneurs for new ideas, festivals, and exciting projects that refresh Hawai'i's overall tourism product while rewarding the ingenuity of its residents. It has asked for a $1.2 million carrying capacity study to explore tourism's environmental impact on Hawai'i. Thanks to the tourism authority, local folks can now hold their weddings and family reunions at the Convention Center that they paid for. And recently, the authority put up $24,000 to update its previous telephone survey of local feelings about tourism.

Even still, people like to know they've been heard. It's hard to imagine there was nothing in that report on the meetings worth including in Ke Kumu. But even if there wasn't, couldn't the authority have let the public know it had made a sound?

Community members who expended the effort to turn out on their free time and to offer their views to the people who control $61 million in tax revenue deserve no less.

As the board approaches a November target for the new draft of Ke Kumu, it has a chance to make it up to them.