Native Hawaiian Hospitality Association (NaHHA)

The Native Hawaiian Hospitality Association (NaHHA) was founded in 1997 by George S. Kanahele, Kenneth Brown and other Native Hawaiian professionals to address concerns about how Native Hawaiians and Hawaiian culture were perceived and represented in tourism.

They determined that, in order to have greater success in improving tourism and honoring Hawaiian culture and its people, they would need support; in 1997, they formed NaHHA, a 501 (c)(3) private nonprofit.

NaHHA advocates for the development and advancement of Native Hawaiians in tourism as the best investment in future leaders and in the perpetuation of authentic culture in the industry.

Working to better connect the Hawaiian community and the tourism industry, NaHHA has formed alliances with various Hawaiian organizations and nonprofits, artists and cultural practitioners, and with tourism associations, hotels and private businesses.

These connections and alliances have gained NaHHA recognition as lead agency for the Hawaiian Culture Initiative of the Hawai‘i State Tourism Strategic Plan.

In keeping with their mission, NaHHA recently completed a two-year train-the-trainer program to develop Hawaiians to provide cultural training and consultation.

Ola Hawai‘i, "Hawai‘i Lives" is NaHHA‘s educational program for today‘s ho‘okipa (hospitality) industry, for managers and employees who seek to have a better understanding of the Hawaiian culture.

While the curriculum is designed around Hawaiian values, it honors the cultural diversity of Hawai‘i.

Native Hawaiian culture not only lends fundamental value to Hawaii as a visitor destination but is exploited as a marketing theme in the selling of Hawaiʻi raising expectations that Native Hawaiian experiences are readily and easily accessed.

The reality is that visitors and locals alike are hard-pressed to find native Hawaiian cultural experiences.

Information that will connect them to authentic Hawaiian cultural experiences is difficult to access because it is not included in the mainstream visitor information programs.

NaHHA also sponsors Native Hawaiian Tourism Conferences and dialog with the goal to enable partnerships and inspire actions that result in:

• a greater collaboration between Hawaiian businesses/community and the visitor industry
• increased integration of Hawaiian culture in hotels and other businesses;
• practices that mālama ʻāina - care for our natural environment
• creative tourism, empowered communities and successful businesses

In 2006, while I was at DLNR, I had the opportunity to participate as a speaker at the NaHHA Native Hawaiian Tourism Conference.  The conference theme was, "Celebrating Hawaii’s Heritage – Sustaining Our Island Legacy."

I clearly saw the opportunity for the State (and more particularly DLNR) to partner with NaHHA by focusing on cultural matters in the visitor industry venue.

The Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International (HSMAI) awarded a coveted Gold Adrian Award to the Native Hawaiian Hospitality Association's (NaHHA) Ola Hawai'i Manual.  (This is the largest and most prestigious travel marketing competition globally.)

Hawaiʻi's Visitor Industry

It is believed that Hawai‘i's first accommodations for transients were established sometime after 1810, when Don Francisco de Paula Marin “opened his home and table to visitors on a commercial basis .... (in) ‘guest houses’ (for) the ship captains who boarded with him while their vessels were in port.”

In Waikīkī, in 1837, an ad in the Sandwich Island Gazette newspaper extended an invitation to visit the new “Hotel at Waititi” (as Waikīkī was sometimes called) - the exact location of this first hotel was not given, however it remained in business for only a few years.

In the 1870s, another foreign resident, Allen Herbert, turned his home into a family resort.  Herbert’s enterprise broadened its appeal by welcoming ladies and children. In 1888, this became Waikīkī’s second hotel – The Park Beach Hotel.

In 1893, the first famous Waikiki hotel opened.  George Lycurgus, leased Herbert’s premises, renamed the hotel “Sans Souci” (“without care”) and turned it into an internationally known resort to which visitors like the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson were attracted (the beach, there, is still named for it.)

When Hawaiʻi became a US territory (June 14, 1900,) it was drawing adventuresome cruise ship travelers to the islands.  Hotels blossomed, including Waikiki’s oldest surviving hotel, the Moana Hotel, in 1901.

However, the tourists stopped coming - possibly because Honolulu was swept by bubonic plague in 1899 and 1900.  There were reports that Los Angeles was anticipating a bumper crop of tourists for the winter of 1902.  Competition had already begun.

Over the decades, promotional efforts grew and so did the number of tourists.

In 1917, the Hau Tree was purchased and expanded - the buyers renamed it the Halekulani ("House Befitting Heaven.")  The Royal Hawaiian Hotel opened on February 1, 1927.

During the 1920s, the Waikīkī landscape would be transformed when the construction of the Ala Wai Drainage Canal, begun in 1921 and completed in 1928, resulted in the draining and filling in of the remaining ponds and irrigated fields of Waikīkī.

In 1941, a record year, in which 31,846 visitors arrived, World War II brought an abrupt end to tourism in Hawaiʻi.  Three years later, the Chamber of Commerce began bringing it back to life with a Hawaiʻi Travel Bureau (now HVCB.)

An important priority was to get the ocean liner "Lurline" back in the passenger business after her wartime duty.  In the spring of 1948, with an enthusiastic welcome by some 150,000 people and an 80 vessel escort, she steamed into Honolulu Harbor to reclaim her title as "glamour girl of the Pacific."

Also In 1948, American President Lines resumed flying the Pacific and scheduled air service was inaugurated to Hawaiʻi.

1959 brought two significant actions that shaped the present day make-up of Hawai‘i, (1) Statehood and (2) jet-liner service between the mainland US and Honolulu (Pan American Airways Boeing 707.)

These two events helped guide and expand the fledgling visitor industry in the state into the number one industry that it is today.

Tourism exploded.  Steadily during the 1960s, 70s and 80s, the millions of tourists added up, and Hawai‘i was learning to cope with the problems of success.  The yearly visitor arrivals total peaked at over 7.6-million people in 2006. 

It was recently reported that recalibrated estimates of visitor arrivals suggest a new record of 7.8-million visitors will come to the islands this year.

Tourism is the activity most responsible for Hawaiʻi’s current economic growth and standard of living.

Although many emerging industries – such as technology, film, health & wellness, professional services, specialty products and others – show great promise for the future, Hawaiʻi's economy will likely depend on the activity generated by visitor activity for years to come.

Hawai‘i Tourism Authority (HTA) has been adjusting to deal with both the short-term challenges facing Hawai‘i’s tourism industry and the longer-term challenge of achieving a healthy and sustainable industry that provides maximum benefits to Hawai‘i’s community.

I was happy to have served for four years on the Hawaiʻi Tourism Authority.

Recent news on visitor arrivals and expenditures has been good.  The outlook for the tourism industry in Hawaii is optimistic. 

The image is a postcard showing a Pan American Airways Boeing 707 at Honolulu Airport.