Where are Hawaii’s Tourism leaders when 1.5 million lives depend on them?

The travel and tourism industry in the State of Hawaii was smashed against a brick wall in March when Coronavirus broke out.

Gradually since March 30,000 daily air arrivals went down to 1,000 and visitors have to observe a strict 14-day quarantine rule. A Hawaii vacation would mean 14 day inside a hotel room.

Hawaii went into a lockdown and the curve was flattened, making Hawaii the US State with the lowest COVID-19 numbers. Governor Ige and Honolulu Mayor Caldwell managed to keep everyone calm and motivated to follow the rules. The curve was flattened and the State gradually opened up restaurants, gyms, and even bars.

What everyone overlooked?
There was one exception to the quarantine law. The U.S. military was still coming in without having to observe quarantine rules and hundreds of their friends and relatives joined them every single day to enjoy a quarantine free vacation in Waikiki or elsewhere in Hawaii.

Infection numbers went up again , clusters popped up everywhere and now for the third time the opening of the tourism industry was put off for another month, currently until October 1. Beaches, parks are closed, and not wearing a mask may get you arrested.

Ala Moana Mall, Waikiki remains deserted and people are out of work. Some residents are looking for food in garbage cans – Hawaii is in trouble.

Travel and tourism are everyone’s business, regardless if you directly employed in this field or not.

The two top three leaders of the industry are Chris Tatum, CEO of the Hawaii Tourism Authority, John Monahan, CEO of the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau, and Mufi Hannemann, head of the Hawaii Lodging Tourism Association

What are these leaders doing?

Hawaii Tourism Authority
Since March this publication tried to reach anyone at HTA without success. Phones are not answered and lead to voicemail boxes that are full.
Emails are ignored, except to Marisa Yamane, Director of Communications & PR. Marisa usually responds within minutes but has no response, and cannot connect to anyone.

In June and in the middle of the COVID-19 crisis Chris Tatum after just 18 months on the $270,000 a year job decided to call it quits. He decided on early retirement. He announced this on June 3rd promoting an article by eTurboNews if HTA is finished.

From this moment on Chris Tatum went into silence and not much was heard about him and activities on how HTA is sailing through this hurricane.

HVCB: No one ever answers the phone. Cell phone numbers, emails – all ignored. No one knows if HVCB is actually still in business. One time Jay Talwar, an executive for HVCB answered his cell phone promising a return call. This return call never happened.

Hawaii Lodging: The agency has been responding to phone calls, but Mufi Hannemann or anyone in leadership went into silence as well. It appears Mufi was too busy to campaign for Honolulu Mayor letting the crisis be a crisis. He lost the election big time.

HTA BOARD MEMBERS
Mr. Micah Alameda Assistant General Manager Na Leo TV	Mr. L. Richard Fried Jr. Founding Member Cronin Fried Sekiya Kekina & Fairbanks Attorneys at Law	Ms. Sherry Menor-McNamara President & CEO Chamber of Commerce Hawaii
Mr. David Z. Arakawa Executive Director Land Use Research Foundation of Hawaii	Mr. Fred Atkins Managing Partner Kauai Kilohana Partners	Mr. George Kam Ambassador of Aloha
Mr. Benjamin Rafter CEO OLS Hotels & Resorts	Mr. Daniel Chun Director of Sales, Community & Public Relations – HawaiiAlaska Airlines	Ms. Kyoko Kimura Director-Owner Relations Aqua-Aston Hospitality
Mr. Kelly Sanders Vice President of Operations Highgate	Ms. Kuuipo Kumukahi Hawaiian Culture Manager Hyatt Regency Waikiki	Ms. Kimi Yuen Principal/Planner PBR Hawaii & Associates, Inc.

eTurboNews reached out to all board members. OLS Hotel did not have a phone number for their corporate office, many of the companies represented by HTA board members don’t list contact information. All other numbers had voicemails, no one responded.

There was one exception. Mr. Daniel Chun, the Director of Sales, Community & Public Relations – Hawaii for Alaska Airlines answered his phone and was willing to give some background

Daniel Chun seems to be the only one in leadership who actually cares.

Please listen to what Daniel had to say in this podcast: