At a time when Hawai'i's tourism industry faces serious challenges — higher airfares, fewer visitors, rising hotel vacancies, fewer airline seats to the Islands — the state's top tourism officials must now revisit an issue they no doubt thought they were finished with: Rex Johnson's e-mails.

Advertiser writer Rick Daysog reported yesterday that Johnson, the Hawai'i Tourism Authority's CEO, forwarded several racist and sexist e-mails to friends from a government computer.

Johnson didn't write the content and it's not clear he even read them; some were forwarded with the greeting "FYI" or "Aloha, Rex," with no other comment.

They were sent months before the HTA board — after deliberating for about three weeks — punished Johnson in August for using government equipment to forward pornography via e-mail to friends.

But the new revelations are serious enough that the board must ensure that Johnson's ability to do his job has not been fatally compromised. And Johnson himself must convince the public that he's not a racist or a sexist; his actions make it easy to assume otherwise.

The board has refused Gov. Linda Lingle's demand that Johnson be ousted if he doesn't voluntarily resign. It argued, correctly, that the HTA cannot be distracted from the job at hand: jump-starting the weakening tourism economy.

But the HTA's integrity has been damaged; it must take action to repair it and move forward, with or without Rex Johnson.