House Standing Committee on Tourism

Thank you. Convening. Convening this morning's joint hearing of the House Committee on Tourism as well as the House Committee on Water and Land. We are. It's February 10th, 2026, Tuesday. We're on the 11th, 15th and agenda here in conference room 423.

In order to allow as many individuals to testify as possible, we'll be keeping to a two minute time limit. Following that, we will check if there's anyone else in the room wishing to testify. If you have submitted written testimony, we have received it. And if you would like to stand on it, that is very much preferred.

But if you want to add anything additional, please come up to the podium and speak clearly so our mics can hear you. As you've noticed, we do no longer have microphones in front of us or on the podium and it is up there and they capture everything.

So if you want to, you know, say something to a person behind you, make sure you do it in a very quiet way, otherwise you'll catch it. First up, we have House Bill 1947 relating to tourism.

It repeals the Hawaii Tourism Authority, establishes the Office of Tourism within the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism, and establishes the Division of Destination Management within the Department of Land and natural resources, effective January 1, 2027. First up to testify, we have the Attorney General with comments.

Good morning. Thank you. Chairs. Members, my name is John Cole with the Department of the Attorney General. I just wanted to touch on a few things in my written testimony, but we'll be happy to answer questions or help out later with anything that's in my testimony.

The Department opposes section 201E that starts on page 12 and goes on to page 13 that would allow the Advisory Board on Tourism or the Office of Tourism to appoint detain attorneys independent of the Attorney General's Department.

We ask that those provisions be removed from the Bill, feel the Attorney General is the best suited to provide legal advice and the agencies benefit from the wide range of experience and expertise in a cost effective and conflict free matter.

In addition, state agencies are regulated by a variety of laws not applicable in private practice, including the Procurement Code, Sunshine Law and uipa. And finally, because Deputy Attorneys General are separate and apart from the agencies they represent, they're insulated from political issues that might arise within agencies. So we ask that those sections be deleted from the Bill.

A couple of other things I did want to point out. In Section 201d, the staff in the new office, Office of Tourism, there's a Provision on page 12 that says pursuant to Chapter 76 hrs, which is the Civil Service Code. It exempts the staff from. From civil service.

But I wanted to note that if a change is not made to Section 7616, exceptions from civil service made outside of that and other chapters cannot last any longer than three years unless they're expressly. Unless expressly. The Legislature extends it beyond that time period.

And the last point I want to make is the Bill doesn't include provisions that are usually typical when transferring functions from one Department or agency to another, including transfer of employees, continuity of rules and policies, transfer of contracts, permits and other documents, and the transfer of records and equipment.

There are some standard provisions, and I did write up some provisions. Should this Bill move forward to address both DLNR and the new Office of Tourism. I'll be available for any questions. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up, we have Department of Taxation.

Committee Chairs, Members of the Committee, Clinton Pfeiffer, Department of Taxation. We'll stand on our comments.

Thank you. Next up, we have dnr. The comments.

Stand on our written comments and concerns for any questions.

Thank you. We have Hawaii Tourism Authority in opposition.

Aloha Chairs, Vice Chairs, Members of the Committee, my name is Caroline Anderson. I just wanted to point out a couple of things in our written testimony. We respectfully oppose HB 1947 for the following reasons.

First off this past Legislature session, Governor Green signed into law Act 132, which has led to improvements in the Hawai' I Tourism Authority's governance. It has strengthened our transparency, streamlined accountability, and supported clear decision making for our agency. Second, we want to do a holistic approach to destination management.

We believe that through what we're currently doing with the DMAPs that it belongs with the Hawaii Tourism Authority. We appreciate the partnership and value everything that DLNR has done in working with us with the DMAPs.

But we believe that through continued engagement with the community, the visitor industry and other counties and state agencies that a holistic approach to managing tourism is needed. And we can do that.

Thank you. Anyone from DBED here to testify? Okay, next up, we have. County of Koi Office of Economic Development in opposition. On Zoom.

Aloha Chair Tam, Chair Hashem. Vice Chairs and Members of the committees. My name is Nalani Brun. I'm the Director of the Office of Economic Development for the County of Kauai, and I'm here to respectfully oppose House Bill 1947. I've submitted written testimony for the record, which I won't read today.

Instead, I just want to put a little punch on a few key Points. First of all, I've been working in the visitor industry related, working on visitor industry related issues since before the Hawaii Tourism Authority even existed.

I was one of the voices along with counties and community leaders calling out the need for coordinating public body like HTA in the first place. And the reason was simple then and it's still true now. Tourism issues don't live in one agency. They touch land and water, infrastructure, housing, transportation, public safety.

They affect communities, culture and our natural resources. I don't see this issue from just one angle on a daily basis. I live in all of these worlds, government, community stewardship and the visitor industry. And I can tell you coordination really matters.

DBET is already struggling to cover a wide range of economic development priorities, especially the very hard work of economic diversification which is so important to all of us. And DLNR already carries enormous Kuleana in protecting our natural and cultural resources. Mostly I just want to say that I want to encourage you to have one coordinating entity.

It's really what we fought for for a long, long time. Mahalo for the opportunity to testify.

Thank you. That is all the individuals that we have signed up to testify. Chair wants to note that outside of that we do have one individual in support, another individual. That's the Activities and Attraction Association of Boy and opposition. And that is all that we have received. Is there anyone wishing to testify in person? Go ahead.

Please state your name and your position on the show.

Thank you, Chair and distinguished Members of the Committee. My name for the record, Durazo Homa, Executive Director from APEC Hawaii. I'm the author of the newly published book Kind of Blueprint. This is being kind of making Hawaiian a place.

As you know, there was a house built 1391 saying that we want to establish a Hawaii European Union Trade Commission. This way we can make Hawaii the free state. But I'm here for indeed too in terms of Hawaii tourism. I know there's a lot of problems internally within the Hawaii Tourism Authority and Tibet in terms of leadership.

But I just want to see if they do some kind of measures. We want to make sure the Hawaii Tourism Authority and DBEDT understands what we're trying to do.

Are you in opposition or in support?

I support the measure in terms of not repealing but with reservations that if we're going to maintain Hawaii Tourism Authority, we've got to make sure that DBEDT has that control within that entity and in terms of policy so they can report to you guys directly as well. Hawaii Tourism authorities should be doing that measure.

But I'm here today to so make sure that your policymakers understand what the ramifications is. We have to think out of the box now with this current situation with geopolitics that's going, we're in the middle of the Pacific.

I know we have to work with our partners, friends and allies internationally as well, with mainland, with California as well as Seattle, with APEC national center there. And there's a lot of movements going on right now. But Hawaii needs to show that we're the one that's going to initiate this kind of leadership.

So that, so I just wanted to share my thoughts with you people and I did have a reservation on that. If we're going to dissolve Hawaii Tourism Authority, that's a big thing because we want to promote business tourism in Hawaii as well.

And thank you very much for giving me an opportunity to testify and I'll be more than happy to answer any questions.

Is there anyone else wishing to testify in person? Okay, Members, any questions?

Thank you, Chair. HTA, please. Thank you for your testimony. My question is based on this bill that is making significant changes to HTA. Based on your experience being part of HTA and all of the coordination, how do you think this, this bill, if it's accepted, how will the changes affect what, what is happening now?

Thanks for the question. So at the Hawaii Tourism Authority, we look upon doing a holistic approach to managing tourism. And so with that taking destination management out of authority and putting it in dlnr, it requires additional coordination amongst the tourism. Well, it wouldn't even be the tourism Authority anymore, it would be the Office of Tourism.

And I think that breaks apart the direction that we're trying to head towards. And that is again, a holistic approach to not only brand marketing, but also developing visitor experiences and addressing and mitigating tourism impacts. And we do that through coordinated efforts with state, county agencies as well as community and other businesses.

Follow up question, Chair, Go ahead. So I would imagine that the long standing relationships and discussions that have been ongoing, how would that be affected?

Thank you for the question. You're right. We have built momentum in working with communities, in working with, you know, other county, state agencies. And while we appreciate all that DLNR does, you know, their, their mandate is to preserve, protect the natural environment.

And we feel that we're better suited by tourism authority and being that catalyst to bring agencies together to address issues.

Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Can you say why are you better? Why do you think you're better suited to coordinate efforts? Because as it stands right now, you're an authority and you are its own entity.

Whereas if we were to move HTA into D, that would have a direct link to the governor's cabinet to be able to coordinate better with ClNR. Department of Transportation.

Thanks for the question. So under the, under Act 132, the President and CEO has a direct line to the Governor right now. Governor has delegated that to Director. So we report to them. We believe that what we have started so far, we do have direct relationships with the agencies needed to address and mitigate tourism impact.

So with not only DLNR but also DOT county agencies from, you know, you just heard from Nalani Bruin from the Economic Development office on Kauai. But we're partners with all of the economic development offices throughout each county as well as working with their Department of Parks, et cetera.

So we feel like we've built up the momentum, we've engaged community, that we're on the right track to continue to do the work in addressing mitigating tourism impacts with partners.

Any questions?

If you're already reporting to the DBEDT Director, why not incorporate into that Department? Thanks for the question. So right now that's what it is currently. But through the legislation, Act 132, the President CEO is supposed to report directly to the Governor.

So in the future, when the new President CEO comes on, hopefully that person will be reporting directly to Governor.

How long has the position of CEO and President been vacant?

Since I would say March of last year.

Not even like interim, just I don't. Want a permanent one. How long has a permanent position been vacant?

I'm trying to calculate it in my mind. So I believe it was in 2024, in the mid summer.

So in 2024 till now we've only had internal.

Yes, Rep. Ilagan, you had a question?

Thank you. Chair. I've always wondered the thoughts of your Department with HTA, with the conflict of your needs and destination management with steward being a steward of the land.

So I wanted to know with the needs of tourism and the need to be able to protect natural environment, everything else, where do you think the conflict may arise when you're doing both advocating for tourism and advocating for stewardship for the land?

Thanks for the question. So you know, we know that what makes Hawaii special is our natural environment. And in our 2020 strategic plan we have four pillars. Hawaiian culture, natural resources, community and brand marketing.

So you can see just alone in our strategic plan, you know, we recognize the importance of natural resources and the need to protect and preserve it. So in our programming at Hawaii Tourism Authority we did, we did invest in that, protecting the natural resources through our Kahuaina program. That's just an example.

And so we're trying to find that balance between the economic benefits of tourism and. And also the quality of life for our residents. We believe that through destination management, the holistic approach to it is. That's exactly what we're trying to do, is find where we can coexist both and that.

And to that point, I would like to thank Dillonar for their partnership. You know, through the many years that HTA has existed, we've always been with them, support.

So what you're telling me is that when you arise in a conflict, you will actually seek out to DLNR and get their opinion to make a decision. Then why can't DLNR just do that job instead of having to advise them or get advisement from them and then make the decision?

And the decision here is where you have an area where it's frequently visited by tourists, but you have to close it down to make sure you can preserve it. What are you going to choose?

Are you going to choose to close it down for preserving that area or keep it not closed and open because you need to increase that tourism spend and so forth?

Thank you for the question. So with that, you know, with HB 1947, it defines destination stewardship. And part of that definition is looking out for the economic. Sorry, I don't have it right in front of me. But basically economic development.

And for DLNR, that's not part of their mandate is to look out for the industry or economic development. Their main purpose is conservation and protection of natural resources.

When we think of destination stewardship in the sense of how it relates to tourism economic development, we believe that that belongs with the tourism authority and that yes, we will seek guidance from DLNR and we will. If it's their jurisdiction, of course we will always defer to them. But destination management is holistic.

It's not just focused on the natural resources. There's other components to it as well.

It sounds like you're going to lean more towards tourism. That's my opinion.

Can you give an example of destination management? What do you mean by you work closely with dlnr?

One example is that we are a stakeholder in the destination management action planning. So for every island there's DMAPs created and DLNR has multiple seats at the table. And so we actually inform the prioritization of destinations, how they are managed. But that coordination on the DMAP that goes beyond our jurisdiction. Right.

So we're talking about destination management for not just DLNR's assets, but other assets like, for example, Hana highway is also a destination that needs to be managed. That's not under our jurisdiction. These are things that we're at the table discussing and prioritizing. So that's one example. And then.

Yeah, I mean, we have. So I'm on one of the DMAP committees for the island of Kauai as we manage many sites. Sorry, Alan Carpenter, acting Administrator for the Division of State Parks. We've been working. So I've been on the DMAP Committee for Kauai both in its previous iteration and the current. And it does.

There are several of us at the table and we focus on multiple destinations and many of our state parks are destinations. You go to the end of any road on Kauai, Koka, Waimea Canyon, Polihale, all the way to Haena. There we.

We've got plenty of destinations, but there are far many other ones that are not under our jurisdiction. And so we're simply a subset of what's being managed. And, you know, we've had some great successes, but I'm not sure we want to take on, you know, the Kapaa Crawl or anything like that. That's. That's not in our wheelhouse.

Thank you very much.

Can I ask about the audit from last year regarding enacts? What specific steps has HTA taken to address the findings of the audit and how is HTA going to move forward to address those concerns and have a successful DBEDT process and implementation?

Thanks for the question. So a lot of the audit's recommendations were built around having better key performance indicators, reporting and creating a system or a process where DMAP activities and the results can be tracked.

And so that's exactly what we've done with the current DMAPs, is making sure that, you know, we're defining what those measures of success looks like, not only, I'm sorry, not only in our DMAPs, but also in our strategic, our strategic plan.

And once our DMAPs are complete, we will be developing the process and how we're going to track, track implementation, track progress and report on the results. So we are set up to implement or already have been implementing the auditor's recommendations.

There was any other question. So now we're going to do short recess.

Reconvening this morning's hearing of the House Committee on Tourism and the House Committee and Water and Land for the purposes of here at Search Bill.

Today's date is February 32026. This is the 11:15am agenda here in. Conference Room 423.

First up, we have House Bill in 1947 relating to tourism repeals the Hawaii Tourism Authority, establishes the Office of Tourism within the Department of Prisons, Economic Development and Tourism, and establishes the Division of Destination Management within the Department of Land and natural resources. 1127 Chair's recommendation is that I would like to have this discussion move on forward.

But we're going to pass this with a lot of amendments and changes. First amendment is that we're going to. Remove part three, which is the part that transfers destination management over to DLNR and creates the Division of Destination Management.

Secondly, we're going to add destination stewardship to the mission of the Office of Tourism and define destination stewardship and the conforming amendments that trans. That is with HTA and destination Management to the. We're going to take take the AG's request which is to remove language allowing the Office of Tourism and the board Members to hire private attorneys.

We're going to also direct make the Director of DEEPED the Tourism Liaison. We're going to add back activities to the Office of Tourism such as destination management action plans for each counties. We're going to permit state and county areas agencies to assist the Office of Tourism and we're going to require annual reports.

We're going to make technical conforming amendments. We're going to defect the date and we're also going to put a savings clause into the Bill as well. Members, any questions? Comments?

Yes, thank you Chair for those amendments. They addressed a lot of my concerns. However, I still do have a few, so I'm going to be voting with reservations.

But I appreciate your changes. Okay then.

Vice Chair for the vote.

Voting on House Bill 1947. Chair's recommendation is to pass with amendments. [Roll Call] Chair, your recommendation is adopted.

Okay. Waterland, same recommendations. Any comments or concerns? Representative Shimizu.

I'd like to thank and congratulate the Tourism Chair for old creative thinking. HTA is definitely very important. His changes changed me from a no to with reservations. I will take up vetting in JHA that I sit on and continue the discussion. So thank you for this legislation which tries to put more accountability into our departments.

Okay, If not Vice Chair for the vote.

We're voting on HB 1947 recommendation to pass with amendments. [Roll Call]. Thank you adopted.

Thank you. This hearing is adjourned.