Tourism board reshaped
By Kevin Dayton
Advertiser Capitol Bureau Chief
Gov. Ben Cayetano said yesterday he is overhauling the Hawai'i Tourism Authority to try to make it more responsive to the needs of the overall visitor industry and less attentive to the demands of hotels.
The authority receives $61 million a year from the state to promote Hawai'i as a tourism destination, and Cayetano told a panel of Advertiser editors yesterday that the focus in spending that money has been driven largely by the interests of the hotel industry.
"What has dominated the HTA over its short life has been this mentality, spawn-ed mostly by the hotel people, that whatever is good for the hotels is good for tourism, and that's not necessarily the case because there are larger goals that we have for tourism," Cayetano said.
To change that, Cayetano said he is replacing four outgoing HTA members with appointees who he hopes will redirect marketing efforts. He also plans to leave a fifth seat vacant rather than appoint an employee of Outrigger Enterprises Inc. to the 11-member board.
A spokeswoman for Cayetano said he will also appoint two other HTA members who are not hotel executives in a shakeup that leaves two hotel executives on the board.
They are W. David P. Carey III, president and chief executive officer of Outrigger Enterprises Inc., and Keith Vieira, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide's senior vice president and director of operations for Hawai'i and French Polynesia.
Carey, who has been on the board since HTA was established in 1998, said he disagreed that the authority has focused too much on the interests of hotels.
"Frankly, when the hotels are empty, nobody else has a chance," he said. "To a certain extent, when the hotels do well, the community does well."
In any event, the focus of the authority has been on visitor expenditures, a measure of success that affects retail and other areas of the industry, he said.
Carey said his own focus has been on "strategic" marketing efforts that benefit everyone, and noted that Outrigger itself has varied interests. For example, Outrigger is one of the largest retailers in the city, with 300,000 feet of space, he said.
But Cayetano said he believes that the hotel industry "is really reaching and they have managed to develop friends in the Legislature — put it that way."
To illustrate his point, Cayetano cited the current appointments. By law, the governor appoints four members of the HTA from lists submitted by the House speaker and Senate president.
Cayetano said House Speaker Calvin Say sent him only one name, that of Carey. The governor said that when he advised Say of a legal requirement for the House speaker to submit three names, Say added the names of two other Outrigger employees.
"I'm not going to appoint anyone," because it would "set a bad precedent" to allow the speaker or Senate president to, in effect, make the appointments for the governor, Cayetano said.
"Why would anybody go to that kind of trouble? Because the HTA is a very important seat, very important to the industry," he said. "It tells you how the industry has really gotten into the political system."
Carey said he hopes Say selected him for his capability, adding that if the hoteliers dominated the HTA board "maybe it is personality-related, but I don't think it's an industry-related issue."
"You do have some dominant personalities, but frankly the board goes along and votes for it," he said. "People have consciences. They can vote no."
Cayetano said his new appointees will be Lawrence Johnson, former Pacific Century Financial Corp. chief executive officer; Sharon Weiner, DFS Pacific group vice president for business development; former Big Island Mayor Stephen Yamashiro; and former state Sen. Mike McCartney, who is also a former Cayetano Cabinet member.
A spokeswoman for Cayetano said the governor's two other appointees will be Nadine K. Nakamura, a Kaua'i planning consultant who is also vice chairwoman of the Housing and Community Development Corp. of Hawai'i, and Alice Guild, former executive director of the Friends of 'Iolani Palace.
"What I hope these folks will bring to the HTA is first a belief that the monies that come from the (hotel room) tax belongs to the people, not the industry," Cayetano said.
Carey's term ends June 30, but if Cayetano does not appoint a replacement, Carey will continue until the next governor selects a successor.
The new appointees will replace HTA members Roy Tokujo; Shari W. Chang; Gilbert M. Kimura; Peter Schall; Millicent M.Y.H. Kim; and Gary J. Baldwin.
Reach Kevin Dayton at kdayton@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8070.
