The Audible Audit
The Office of the Auditor provides reports to the Legislature and the public about state agency performance. Our audits help to provide transparency about government programs and hold government accountable by assessing how effectively state agencies are delivering services and using public money.
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For the full report for detailed and authoritative information about the audit go to: auditor.hawaii.gov.
The Audible Audit
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
Welcome to the Audible Audit,
Host:an AI generated podcast
Host:summarizing the Hawaii Office of the Auditors performance audit report of the Hawaii Tourism Authority. While AI may slightly mispronounced some words, the content has been reviewed by the Office of the Auditor and is consistent with the information in the report. The podcast offers another means to learn about the audit and is intended for public informational and educational purposes only. Listeners are encouraged to consult the full report for detailed and authoritative information about the audit.
Speaker 1:Ever wondered how a place like Hawaii you know a top destination tries to balance welcoming visitors with protecting the quality of life for the people who actually live there.
Speaker 2:It's a huge challenge.
Speaker 1:Yup. So today, we're taking a deep dive into a State audit. It looked at the Hawaii Tourism Authority, the HTA, and specifically their big strategy for destination management. They use these things called destination management action plans or DMAPs.
Speaker 2:And this audit, it really zeroed in on, well, did HTA actually meet the goals it set for itself and were these DMAPs doing the job. Were they effective at managing tourism's impact.
Speaker 1:Okay let's unpack this then. HTA's big plan the 2025 one, it declared this major rebalancing aiming for destination management. Which, I mean, it sounds good right? Attract responsible visitors, deal with overcrowding. But when the audit actually dug into it, was this real the new? Or effective.
Speaker 2:Well that's the first big thing the audit found, this new strategy, not so new. Yeah, similar goals had apparently been floating around since like 2005. Two decades. And get this, overall spending didn't really change much either.
Speaker 1:Huh... So same goals, same spending level basically
Speaker 2:Pretty much. And something else crucial happened. HTA itself changed. It used to be semi autonomous, funded directly by the transit accommodation tax.
Speaker 1:that's the hotel tax.
Speaker 2:Right, exactly. The tax visitors pay on lodging but in 2021 it became just a standard government agency.
Speaker 1:Okay, so what does that mean practically?
Speaker 2:It meant they lost that direct dedicated funding stream. It changed their operational independence their ability to you know pivot quickly. A pretty fundamental shift.
Speaker 1:Right, a big structural change. And against that backdrop, these DMAPs were rolled out, they were supposed to rebuild redefine and reset Hawaii tourism. Did, did they live up to that?
Speaker 2:Uh, not according to the audit, It found the whole DMAP effort was well, rushed. And poorly planned.
Speaker 1:Rushed how?
Speaker 2:HTA basically outsourced key strategic decisions, they handed them off to contractors, to these island steering committees. But with minimal oversight from HTA itself.
Speaker 1:So they kind of delegated the core work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it wasn't just inefficient and meant the plans that came out of it, often had actions that were frankly impractical. They weren't really connected to the problems on the ground they were meant to fix.
Speaker 1:What I found really telling in the audit was this whole issue around hotspots?
Speaker 2:Ah yes, the hotspot
Speaker 1:97 specific places across the islands, supposedly where visitors and residents clash. You know overcrowding, resources getting degraded...
Speaker 2:Right, but here's the thing. Very few of the DMAP actions actually targeted these hot spots effectively. It's kind of baffling.
Speaker 1:Can you give an example?
Speaker 2:Sure, okay. On Oahu, Diamond Head State monument. It was listed as a hotspot because of capacity issues.
Speaker 1:okay, But doesn't Diamond Head already have a reservation system?
Speaker 2:Exactly, it does. So the audit basically asks if it's being managed for capacity with reservations, why is it still considered a hotspot needing a DMAP action for capacity. It doesn't quite add up.
Speaker 1:Makes you wonder.
Speaker 2:And then on Hawaii island you have, Alii Drive, in Kailua-Kona. It was flagged for traffic.
Speaker 1:Okay, traffic congestion. Seems plausible.
Speaker 2:But the audit found it was about the presence of homeless individuals. So, the DMAP action was targeting the wrong problem entirely.
Speaker 1:Wow... So a fundamental disconnect between the label and the actual issue.
Speaker 2:Precisely. And this points to uh maybe the most critical flaw the audit found.
Speaker 1:Which was?
Speaker 2:HTA never required the communities or the committees to actually specify why a place was a hotspot. What was the specific problem.
Speaker 1:They didn't ask why
Speaker 2:nope Their own Director in planning admitted it. The quote in the audit is"We didn't ask that, we should have been asking that."
Speaker 1:That's quite an admission. If you don't define the problem correctly,
Speaker 2:your solution probably isn't gonna work it's a fundamental blindspot. And you see the impact in resident sentiment.
Speaker 1:How so?
Speaker 2:Well the audit points out between 2010 and 2019 visitor numbers soared. But the percentage of residents who felt tourism brought more benefits than problems, that dropped, significantly. From seventy eight per cent down to fifty eight percent
Speaker 1:oof
Speaker 2:That's a big drop. It is. and HTA's own more recent data shows resident satisfaction indicators are still down since 2019. The bottom line, according to the audit, HTA can't really demonstrate its effectiveness because it lacks meaningful ways to measure success and clear accountability.
Speaker 1:So the audit really paints a picture of a disconnect. Ambitious plans big goals
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But without the clear execution, the detailed understanding, or the results to back it up.
Speaker 2:Exactly. which kind of leaves us, and you listening, with a really important question i think.
Speaker 1:What's that?
Speaker 2:How can any agency, really effectively manage complex challenges, especially ones tied so closely to a communities well being, when it doesn't have specific, clearly defined goals, when it's not consistently tracking progress, and maybe most importantly, when it doesn't fully grasp the root causes of the problems is trying to fix.
Host:Thanks for listening. You can find this and other reports at auditor.hawaii.gov