Mufi's Message - April 26, 2021

House Bill 862

Aloha,

Late last week, House Bill 862 HD2, SD2, CD1 was passed out of conference committee and will be voted upon by both chambers of the Legislature tomorrow. This measure is highly detrimental to the industry and does the following, among other things:

• Reduces HTA's funding and would shift its source from the Transient Accommodations Tax to the State's General Fund
  • This would hinder HTA's ability to flexibly and adequately market the Hawaiian Islands as the agency would be forced to secure its budget from the Legislature each year.
• Strips the annual $103M TAT allocation to the counties
  • Also allows counties to establish their own surcharge with a cap of an additional 3% which would increase the TAT by over 30%.

As you can imagine, we have vigorously opposed this measure. Today, we issued a letter to each member of the Legislature that laid out our arguments and requested they consider voting "nay" on the bill. We are also pursuing other avenues to oppose HB 862 should it pass, and I will continue to provide updates about any developments on this issue.

O'ahu Chapter

On Thursday, HLTA's O'ahu Chapter held its first-ever golf tournament fundraiser to support O'ahu's Visitor Industry Charity Walk campaign. Held on a beautiful day at Pearl Country Club in 'Aiea, it was a fun event of golf, fellowship, good food and drink. It was wonderful as always to see so many familiar faces, and I was pleased to hear that so many of our players had a great time.

Mahalo to our wonderful event sponsors and all those who donated in support of the tournament. I also want to commend HLTA O'ahu Chapter Chair Simeon Miranda and event co-chair and board member Glenn Nakamura for pulling together a great outing on such short notice. The entire planning committee worked so hard, and their efforts really shined on tournament day!

Kona-Kohala Chamber

Mahalo to the Kona-Kohala Chamber of Commerce's Economic Development Committee chaired by Ross Wilson , for hosting me at their monthly meeting. It was great to talk story with President & CEO Wendy Laros and other committee members about the current state and the future of the local tourism industry. We also touched upon issues including the vaccine passports, overtourism, economic diversification, and much more.

The committee was a great audience, and I look forward to connecting with them again in the future!

Mahalo,
​Mufi