DECEMBER 2017
Maui Visitors and Convention Bureau invites Hana Highway Regulation to serve as a keynote speaker in its Safety Seminar series for hospitality staff at West and South Maui resorts. MVCB lists HHR as “Hana Drive Group” in the speaker list.
SEPTEMBER 2018
Hana Highway Regulation requests Maui Visitor and Convention Bureau to assist with development of a Road to Hana visitor safety brochure and accompanying visitor safety video. In-person meeting confirmed for 9/25/17 8:30am at MVCB offices Kahului.
APRIL 2019
The County of Maui designates a $200k line item from the County of Maui FY20 Budget; OED Grants and Disbursements for Visitor Industry, the funds are earmarked specifically for “East Maui Visitor Management”. Hana Highway Regulation applies for the grant naming Big Sur Community Association as a fiscal sponsor who has the financial capacity to bankroll our project in line with the reimbursement terms of the OED grant.
OCTOBER 2019
OED replies with an inability to work with a California based nonprofit to serve as fiscal sponsor on behalf of Hana Highway Regulation’s grant application for visitor management project.
NOVEMBER 2019
Hana Highway Regulation requests support from Maui Visitors and Convention Bureau to serve as fiscal sponsor for a Road to Hana Safety and Sustainable Tourism Assessment in place of Big Sur Community Association, to make use of $200k line item from the County of Maui FY20 Budget, OED Grants and Disbursements for Visitor Industry. MVCB declined due to lack of funding to front costs in relation to reimbursement dynamic of grant and lack of staff. review these emails by clicking below..
AUGUST 2021
Meagan Degaia is placed in the role of Destination Manager for Maui Nui to help fulfill the Destination Management Action Plan. Link here to the Maui News story announcing this staffing provision. Tasks of her job position are outlined as engaging local community members in amplifying regenerative tourism activities as well as managing the “hot spots” on their respectively islands at monthly community meetings to be held on Maui, Molokai and Lanai. Caroline Anderson, Hawaii Tourism Authority’s director of planning, notes within the press release that DeGaia will “serve an integral role as a part of our accelerated tourism management efforts.”
SEPTEMBER 2021
Hana Highway Regulations renders consultation for Meagan Degaia in her capacity as Destination Manager for Maui Nui. HHR advocates for fiscal support from MVCB / HTA for tourism management initiatives in East Maui. HHR provides guidance on how MVCB / HTA could most efficiently accommodate the request.
“I concur that a third party outside of east Maui facilitating this management would be the worst possible scenario.” - Meagan Degaia, Destination Manager Maui Nui (9-9-21)
9-10-21 EMAIL FROM HHR to MVCB, advising how MVCB could best utilize the $500k designated for visitor management that was allocated with the County of Maui FY22 Budget. see the email exchange below..
9-10-21 EMAIL REPLY FROM MVCB TO HHR, noting that credit will be given to HHR’s in the form of citation.
NOVEMBER 2021
Meagan Degaia in her capacity as Destination Manager for Maui Nui provides the following link to an outcome of HTA’s MALAMA HAWAII program, a video piece featuring a nonprofit in East Maui in which Meagan Degaia was a board member of. The video includes testimony by one visitor however multiple of the individuals depicted in the video piece are Maui residents giving a fractured impression that the MALAMA HAWAII program is visitor oriented. HHR notes that the MALAMA HAWAII program does not mitigate tourism impacts occurring in East Maui, instead it provides visitors with an opportunity to “learn more about Hawaiian culture” which sadly does not address illegal parking, trespassing on private property and rampant unlicensed commercial activity playing out on our highway.
FEBRUARY 2022
Meagan Degaia in her capacity as Destination Manager for Maui Nui reaches out to Hand Highway Regulation by email asking for our data on unlicensed commercial operators. See the email containing her questions below..
MARCH 2022
Email exchanges between HHR and MVCB that depict HHR’s advising about the inefficiency of hosting an East Maui Community Collaborative as HHR had already hosted a tour of resident input meetings between 2016-2020 where we gathered and compiled community testimony to help expedite the process of resolution. see below..
No reply to this email has been received to date.
MAY 2022
MVCB and HTA host “capacity building farm tour” in East Maui to “build collaborative leadership and create stronger pathways to diversify agriculture & tourism in our state and for our communities. Gather multi-industry perspectives and share solutions to develop relevant models. Visit venues and experiences that promote, grow, and continue to shape sustainable agri-tourism (even during these challenging times). We will delve into the behind-the-scenes outlook at these locations and have an opportunity to provide feedback and give/gain input and insight.” HHR is asked to provide farm recommendations and does so.
JUNE 2022
Meagan Degaia of MVCB provides a presentation on how it is to spend $500k of tourism management grant funds it received from the County of Maui FY22 Budget. MVCB conveys the plan for a community capacity building workshop and release of an RFP for East Maui visitor management initiatives. MVCB’s presentation was largely based off of consultation provided by Hana Highway Regulation’s research and data, yet MVCB’s presentation indicated no citation or credit to HHR.
The email below was sent by Hana Highway Regulation to Maui Visitors and Convention Bureau the day after the 6-1-22 BFED Meeting embedded above.
Meagan of MVCB replies to my email from June 28th with the following answers highlighted in purple.
JULY 2022
Hana Highway Regulation provides a comprehensive draft pilot project for MVCB as it relates to visitor management initiatives in East Maui. HHR’s plan entails collaboration with multiple regionally relevant nonprofit organizations and is built on HHR’s six years of research and data to ensure implementation of a solution that has proven outcome of effectiveness.
AUGUST 2022
Maui Visitors Bureau, against recommendation by Hana Highway Regulation proceeds to form a East Maui Advisory Group to help consult MVCB on a path forward. Many members of this Advisory Group had already provided intricate testimony to HHR over the years communicating their frustrations, issues and solutions for their respective areas along the Hana Highway. MVCB was quintessentially repeating community input process that had already been completed by HHR that resulted in the community curated solution known as the Visitor Information Personnel Project. HHR considers the repetitiveness of MVCB’s process to be counterproductive to actually getting solutions implement in an efficient manner.
Hana Highway Regulation asks that the individuals listed above be added to the Advisory Group list as they hold the some of the most extensive insights on tourism impacts across the Hana Highway. MVCB replies saying there isn’t sufficient room for these individuals to participate in the Advisory Group despite the fact these suggested individuals hold unparalleled knowledge and experience with tourism impacts in East Maui. It is still unclear what methodologies MVCB used to compile the Advisory Group members.
SUMMARY
On 6-1-22 Maui Visitors and Convention Bureau had communicated via a County of Maui BFED meeting about how it was going to utilize the $500k of tourism management grant funds it received from the County of Maui FY22 Budget. Meagan from MVCB noted they were going to release a RFP for East Maui visitor management initiatives. MVCB has yet to release the RFP. More recently, in our East Maui Advisory Group meetings that MVCB convened in September of 2022, MVCB conveyed that the East Maui visitor management initiative is now going to be funded by HTA Destination Action Management Plan funds. I am unsure if this means that MVCB has shifted from its original plan, communicated at the 6-1-22 meeting, of using a portion of the $500k tourism management grant funds it received from the County to now relying on HTA DMAP funds to support the East Maui visitor management initiative.
The East Maui Advisory Group meetings have been inefficient due to MVCB's revolving adamancy that they provide the funds in question to KUPU to administer a trail stewardship program for East Maui, modeled after KUPU's Pololu valley initiative. Hana Highway Regulation has opposed this concept as the hot spots in East Maui are not County or State parks like Pololu valley and therefore trail stewards are not relevant for our issues that are occurring largely on private property. Many members in our Advisory Group opposed the KUPU proposal based on varying prior experiences that some of our nonprofit organizations in East Maui have had with KUPU on other projects.
Hana Highway Regulation has articulated within numerous presentations that East Maui is in need of solutions based in traffic mitigation. A majority (14 /17) of the East Maui Advisory Group members have been in support of Hana Highway Regulation's proposed pilot project and seemingly prefers our plan because it is curated from six years of research and data conducted by our own community, and for the fact it is ready for implementation.
A few (3 /17) members of our Advisory Group have composed a secondary alternative pilot project proposal to vie for the MVCB / HTA funding opportunity at hand. This secondary pilot project proposal is titled "Kahea a Piilani". Due to its inability to effectively address the tourism impacts that our community has been enduring, Hana Highway Regulation has prepared a critical analysis of that secondary pilot project proposal.