HONOLULU — Envisioning revolutionary changes for Hawaii’s tourism industry, Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau CEO Aaron Sala said at the Travel Weekly Hawaii Leadership Forum on April 15, “Tourism as we have known it is over.”
Sala was hired last September, coming to the HVCB as a business entrepreneur and educator.
As president and CEO of Gravitas Pasifika, he led a boutique firm dedicated to advancing Native Hawaiian talent.
Sala’s hire is in line with Hawaii tourism’s movement toward prioritizing the well-being of Native Hawaiians (including tourism workers), environmental protection and cultural preservation, while de-emphasizing growth in visitor numbers.
“The traditional model is not just outdated, it is extractive, colonial, dangerously romantic,” he said.
“It asked communities to perform authenticity while their futures were auctioned off for occupancy.
It celebrated arrivals while silencing the voices of those displaced by rising rents and eroding shorelines.
And yet this traditional approach remains the one too many are still polishing, buffing the rust off a machine that was never built to serve all of us in the first place.”
Sala said that he did not come to the HVCB to maintain the status quo, but rather to end it.
He described this as a transformational time for Hawaii and the HVCB, and he looks forward to building more partnerships and collaborations.
“Whether we recognize it or not, our campaigns, our inventories, our itineraries, they all play a role in larger geopolitical narratives, narratives of dependency, narratives of dominance, narratives of dispossession,” he said.
“Let us not pretend that we are doing enough or that we are doing it fast enough.
Too many of us are still acting like [the tourism numbers we had in] 1995, or 2019 even, might come back if we just market it better.
But neither of those worlds is real, neither of those worlds is returning.”
A call for a ‘new tourism compact’
Sala said he wanted to share this message as a call to action, so that others in the industry can work together with the HVCB to reconstruct its strategy and models.
He refers to the HVCB as “becoming a destination futures enterprise, a force for cultural stewardship, economic innovation and geopolitical fluency.”
“In addition to the work that we are doing to reimagine ourselves internally as a visitors and convention bureau, through strategic efforts of our team, we challenge all of you to join us in the co-creation, perhaps, of a new tourism compact,” he said.
“That compact is meant to be a global framework rooted in regenerative principles, cultural integrity and systemic equity.
We want to do this together.
Partner with us on innovation pilots, if you have an idea, if you’re a wholesaler, if you’re a hotelier, if you work in airlines and you have an idea that makes sense to partner with us, bring that idea to us.”
Sala’s words sparked discussion during the wholesaler/tour operator panel, which gave positive and optimistic feedback about the HVCB’s shift.
“I love the fact that they’re asserting their leadership and basically wanting to communicate the proper message and controlling the narrative of what Hawaii is.
I think a lot of things they’re doing is fantastic, and we’re happily supporting it,” said David Hu, president and CEO of Pleasant Holidays.
Ray Snisky, group president of ALG Vacations, said that it’s a different approach “that’s badly needed,” and he is confident that it can be done when stakeholders work together.
“I have a tremendous amount of optimism,” he said.
Snisky said the next step is “forming an execution plan and doing that together.”
Changes at the Hawaii Tourism Authority
A recent leadership shake-up at the Hawaii Tourism Authority resulted in a new interim president and CEO, Caroline Anderson, and a new board chair, Todd Apo.
Together, they shared a vision.
“My goal, in my current role, however long it may last, is to continue to build teamwork within our agency and focus on making sure that the important work that we have in front of us all gets done together,” Anderson said.
Apo acknowledged “there’s been a lot of noise with HTA,” but that it hasn’t stopped the work that the HVCB or the Council of Native Hawaiian Advancement are doing.
He also emphasized the importance of the HTA, reiterating its core purpose.
“It’s destination management, which I really see as making tourism work for Hawaii,” he said.
“I think that’s what we’re all working on as we move forward in this industry.”
image source from：https://www.travelweekly.com/Hawaii-Travel/Travel-Weekly-Hawaii-Leadership-Forum-2025
