Mufi's Message - March 3, 2021

Safe Travels Program

Aloha,

Yesterday, the news broke that Kaua'i Mayor Derek Kawakami proposed Rule 25 which would allow the Garden Isle to officially rejoin the Safe Travels program effective April 10. In the past two days since the announcement, new bookings have already begun in earnest, clearly demonstrating the pent up demand that exists out on the travel market right now. Kudos to the HLTA members, especially those in our Kaua'i chapter, and our local Kaua'i business partners with whom we have been working together.

That being said, there is a great deal of work that must be completed and preparations that must be made in the next month for many properties as they look to re-open. Perhaps most important is the need for every lodging property to submit to the Hawai'i Tourism Authority a health and safety plan. To determine if your property has already done this, you can visit the Health & Safety Standards tab on our website or click here.

As a reminder, please also feel free to use HLTA's Health, Safety, & Security Standards if your safety plan needs fine tuning. You can download the PDF of our standards here. All plans must be emailed to [email protected].

Rest assured that Mayor Kawakami and his administration will continue to do all that they can to protect their community. He has rightfully prioritized the vaccination of hospitality workers, as he commented yesterday, and, to his credit, has proclaimed that the entire island should be vaccinated by April.

We must now wait for Gov. Ige to officially approve Mayor Kawakami's request, but I am confident that he will make a decision on the issue soon. In the meantime, it is important that we continue to be vigilant in heeding public health mandates and do all that we can to avoid another uptick in COVID-19 infections in the coming weeks.

Mahalo, 
Mufi