 Welcome back to Think Tech. I'm Jay Fidel. This is Community Matters, and we have a special guest today, Mufi Hanuman. Hi, Mufi. Thank you for joining the show. Hello, Jay. Always great to connect with you. The same here. So, you know, we selected an interesting title for this discussion. I'll tell you what it is. It's how in the world can we restart Hawaii's tourism industry here on Community Matters. And you're the perfect guy to talk about that. You're in the middle with HLTA. You've seen it come, and you need to see it go. I'm talking about COVID. So, I guess the first question is, from where you sit, you know, how has the tourism industry doing or not right now? Well, we are in an interesting situation. You know, Jay, we spend a lot of time when things are normal, trying to make sure that when we're competing on that world stage, that we are basically emphasizing all the things that makes us a very special place to live, work, and play, and visit. It's our weather. It's our people. It's our culture. It's our environment. And so, now we've had to, because of COVID-19, it's kind of put a screeching halt to all that, and to tell people, stay home now, aloha later. And that has been a rallying cry for all of us. And I know it sounds kind of, wow, you're actually not asking tourists to come here? Well, I think first and foremost, the interest and the priority is the people of this state. You know, that has to weigh far and above any other aspect of, you know, yes, we're taking big financial losses. Yes, people are out of work. But if we don't reassure ourselves, the people in Habity 808, that we will be doing all we can to ensure safety, security, health, that we are one of the safest and healthiest places to live, then all these efforts will be for naught. And so, we are really doing our part to try to make sure that those hotels that are open for a variety of reasons are operating, making sure that their places of work and their environment is clean, sanitized, taking all the necessary steps, also compliant with the quarantine law. And then those that are not operating, certainly they're trying to find creative ways to engage their furloughed employees, whether it's feeding them. As I found out this morning, one of our wonderful general managers out in Kauai, the Sheraton Kauai Resort, every Friday he basically asked his furloughed employees to come with their families and they'll feed them dinner. So those are the kind of things that we're trying to do in reaching out to the community. We at HLTA have done this Heroes Hotel for Heroes program, thanks to the strong support of Chris Tatum and Hawaii Tourism Authority, where our first responders, members of our healthcare professional community are given a data and a night to decompress away from their families, so that they can have peace of mind, their families can have peace of mind. We recently launched a campaign on a video called Stay Home Now, Aloha Later. Lots of celebrities participating in it, local entertainment, to get that message out and thanks to KHON that made it possible to basically tell people this is not the time to visit Hawaii. And by the way, why don't you buy a ribbon that will entail you to some discount when you come here and just contribute so that we can help our furloughed employees. So very different change of culture but nonetheless still dedicated to the fact that we're committed to our home here in Hawaii and we might have made it a safe and healthy place. Yeah, just a question that comes to mind is what are you going to do this year about the visitor industry walk? That's very important for a lot of people. So query, can you have that? Can you make them, you know, stand apart from each other? Does that qualify as a lockdown or what? Yes, well we're going to have to see what the rules are, but right now we've rescheduled it during the perfect month and that's the month of Thanksgiving. So we hope to be able to have that walk on all six islands come November beginning on the 7th to 14th, the 21st, but we'll have to see what the whole new world order is going to be in terms of social distancing, maybe modify that walk, maybe do a virtual walk, what have you, but we still want to help the non-profit groups who we've helped over the years who need our assistance in addition to what they receive from their own fundraising efforts or from government. Okay, that is important. I'm glad you're leaving it open as an option. Who knows, it'd be great if we can do it, and right now nobody can tell, nobody can tell, nobody here and certainly, certainly nobody in Washington can tell. So the question is to unpack a little on what it takes to do the kinds of things you were talking about in terms of preserving the hotel properties, in terms of preserving the staff of these hotels. For example, I heard this morning on our show with Lanai that Polano Lanai is keeping everybody in the payroll, whether they work or not. That's a European style and the thought is they don't want to see them go off the side during the duration and they want to have them available when it's time to bring them back into the hotels. Is that happening generally speaking or is that just one example? Well, I think what in general, I think with the bottom line of all the employers is to maintain their health benefits. So if we cannot gainfully employ them now, if we can't give them the hours that they're used to, obviously we're looking to what government can assist with, with the CARES Act in Washington D.C. and also what we can do here locally. But I think at the end of the day, we really want to maintain their health benefits. So most of them are continuing, if not all of them are getting their health benefits, but after a while, that well dries up. And so this is where government has to step in. And I know that there's been numerous activities or initiatives that they've launched to make sure that they're fed, that they're ohana of employees, taken care of as much as they can. We're also trying to find work for them during this time to keep them engaged. And that has been possible because one of the provisions of the CARES Act, if you qualify for the PPP, you have to keep your workers working. So that's an opportunity to perhaps have some of them come and do some of the work that we have a need for. And because of a reduced workforce, obviously, having everybody kind of sharing that information and the like. But everybody's hurting. Even management also has to be furloughed. Their hours are reduced. And so we're very concerned about all of that. Keeping a close watch and how we can get help from the appropriate places. But recognizing at the end of the day, it's your responsibility to look after your family. But I can't say enough about what they're all doing individually to ensure that nobody is really suffering. And if they are, they are chipping in to see how we can help collectively. What about local five? Are they happy, unhappy? Are they engaged with you in trying to figure out some mutual understanding on this? Well, both local five and the ILWU, those are the two major hotel employee unions. Yep, they're going working overtime to make sure that their furloughed employees are in a good place, seeing what they can do. Especially now some of them are contributing ideas to how we can protect the workers. Not just in the short term, but in the long term. And that's important. Then also looking for us to help coordinate lobbying activities. When we see a particular measure that might be floating before a council, not so much as the state at this time, that could be harmful or it could be a benefit, they're reaching out and asking us to join and lobby with them and present testimony. So there's a good open door relationship with both major unions that are associated with our hotel workers. ILWU is primarily on the neighbor islands, few exceptions here. Local five is primarily here in O'ahu with a few exceptions on the neighbor islands. You know, you mentioned also about, you know, making sure everything was hygienic, making sure the staff such as it is in the hotels, they call it the cleaning staff because they're probably engaged for the most part in cleaning, I mean, cleaning COVID out. But what does that entail? You know, I have the vision of, you know, people who were in the maintenance staff, so the service, house service staffs, going around and making sure that all surfaces are clean, that there's no possibility that a virus could be left behind. Because I say why I think this, I think this in the end of the day, Hawaii is going to have a demonstrate to the world that it's clean, that when we open the gates again, we want the world to think that when they come back here, there's really no risk of infection by anybody in any hotel. So how do you achieve that? And what is the staff doing about, you know? Well, that's an excellent point, Jay. I'd say, by and large, even before COVID-19, we had a reputation for being a very safe and clean place to visit, to dwell, to partake, what have you. So that's sort of in our DNA. And we want to be able to maintain that reputation because going forward, that's what every traveler is going to look at. That's what we as travelers are going to look at if we want to travel outside of Hawaii. You know, how are they maintaining standards? How do I know that when I go into that country, I'm going to feel safe and secure? So a lot of effort has been placed on that, you know, quarantines have been very new, a new element here in the hospitality industry, amongst our residents, plain and simple. So making sure that as quarantine laws are enacted, really going the extra mile to make sure that whoever is being quarantined, or self-isolation, is not going to come in contact with our, in this case, hospitality workers. Making sure that all the things that were part of the normal order now, whether it's face masks, sanitizers, all those things are important. The same things that you say that we put out there about washing your hands or always wiping down the surface, that's being done. And also now, because we want to be able to one day welcome back people, certainly we're taking into account what can we do to assure that visitor who's coming here is going to feel healthy and safe. And most importantly, how do our workers, I want to make them and feel in a good place. So things like thermal screens, to me, might be the order of the day. Thermal screens at the airports, thermal screens at the hotels, to check someone's temperature. And then also coming up with protocols to say, what if someone who checks in or doing the stay turns up ill or sick? As you know, sometimes these virus take a few days to manifest itself. You know, how are we going to approach that? Do we have a separate wing set aside just for those type of customers? So these are the kinds of things that are taking place right now. Very pleased with the proactive efforts that the individual hotels or the brands are doing. What I want to do is kind of bring them all together and then we'll pick the best of the best practices, or one that we feel that, number one, will make government officials comfortable and confident in what we're doing. But most of all, make the people of Hawaii feel that, okay, if they get off the plane and they're healthy, I know when they check into a hotel, they're going to maintain those standards or when they visit restaurants, or when they go to the beaches and the parks. So really, what's important too is that the airline stepping up and doing what they need to do. We don't want sick people traveling to Hawaii. And conversely, we as people should not be traveling elsewhere if we're sick. Because we know in the examples that we have seen, it's not just visitors that are bringing the virus here. It's local people traveling to the mainland who have got it. So it works both ways, it cuts both ways. That being said, we're very grateful to see Hawaiian Airlines also start proactively to put together what they think is important for people to undergo before they come here. And then certainly, I think there's another opportunity for the state officials at the airport to also do some kind of, not a test if you will, but some kind of check to make sure that people now that are actually going to leave the airport and head into wherever they're going to be domiciled, that that's in place. Temperature at the least. Cooperation. And I think the fact that we can do this in a parallel path is going to be very important. Temperature at the least. I saw an ad, I want to say it was Amazon for one of those temperature readers, a little pistol reader that you see and it's 60 bucks. It's not expensive to do that. You can set up a screening station for nearly nothing in cash. But I wanted to ask you this, I wondered about this myself. So if we have, we've had the paper reported that we've had something like 3,700 tourists visit Hawaii in the past few weeks. I don't know what period that is. And they're all subject or most all subject to a two week quarantine. And I suppose they have to play that out in the hotels. So here's a person who would normally take a shorter vacation. Here's a person who's under lockdown for two weeks. Here's a person who wants to get out on a beach. He wants to do what tourists want to do. Hawaii, the beauty, the romance, Hawaii, and he's in his room. How in the world do we enforce that so that he's not sneaking out and doing exactly what tourists always want to do? How do we stop him from doing that? Well, that's why Jay, I think somebody's out of the conflict in mind to try to come and visit Hawaii now. They really should stay home now. And so folks have said, well, the cheap airfares are enticing or they rather quarantine here than quarantine in New York City or what have you. That being the case, we were the first state to issue a 14 day quarantine. The governor did that. So we cannot guarantee as much as we would like to guarantee that that person is not going to be kolohe and try to bend the rules. So as much as they're trying in the hotels to provide that security or that checkpoint, we have said to them now, now that it's been in place for a few weeks, the state has also strengthened its quarantine laws and how they are going to react. So the police department should be called right away. Anytime they just notice somebody stepping out of their room, they're not paying attention, they're trying to walk out of the hotel, call the police. We also note that the community is also doing that. You know, one of the things that if you know with the law enforcement officials through the year is finding people willing to testify or to say, I saw that they don't want to be that personal witness. Well, they're more willing to come out now because they're saying, wow, they're going to affect us if they're supposed to be quarantining. The state has also stepped up its efforts at the airport that I think is going to make it easier to enforce it because now they're really asking the hard questions, but more importantly, they're asking you to verify it. So if you come in and you say, I have a reservation and so and so, they're going to actually call in advance to see whether that is confirmed, whether that's legit. And if they say I'm going to stay at a residence because now vacation rental should not be operating at this time, they're actually going to say, oh, where are you staying at? What's the residence? What's the number? That person cannot leave to basically their destination unless that can be verified. So they're placed in another line and then they have two choices. If we find out, you know what, that's not truthful what you're saying, they could either turn around and go back or they're going to get have to deal with our law enforcement officials and possibly face a fine or maybe even put them in jail. Yeah, the fine, what I read about a fine $5,000, that's that's serious money. Maybe some would be willing to pay it, but it's still serious money. You know, I'm going to ask you also if you about, you know, other places, this may be happening here too, hotel properties have been repurposed or are under consideration for repurposing. And there were essentially three repurposing that I can remember. One is for COVID patients, you know, who need to be separated, say from family or their regular living arrangements. They've been tested positive. Secondly, sick people like you move hospital facilities into a hotel property when you don't have any room. I don't think we have the problem of shortage of facilities right now, but you know, in the second wave, we'll talk about that, that could happen. And the third possibility is the homeless who are so, so much more exposed in the time of, in the time of COVID. Are any hotels doing that or is there any incentive for them to do that? Would that work if necessary? Or are they are they rather prefer not to do that? Oh, let me answer the question too, is there's some things that we are doing on our own to repurpose? For example, with respect to for the hotel for heroes program, because when they come in, they're not guests in terms of being able to check in and be able to kind of go out to the lobby or traipse around, they are told specifically that if you're going to take us up on a free room at one of the hotels, you have to self isolate. And therefore that means you can't say, you know, I wanted to step up for a bite, you have to order room service, or in the case of Domino's Pizza and Mike Rumpel's making pizzas available once a week to our heroes. So that's one thing. The other part of it, as you indicated, you know, government can mandate that on us. And so if they feel the need to do that, obviously, there will be opportunities to have hotels set aside for those purposes. I know from the hospital point of view, the convention center has been made available. If that's what they need to do. I know that the Blaisdell Center Arena is all not the arena, the exhibition hall has been an area where they could do that also. So because of the emergency powers that the governor has and Hyema, they could basically designate that. And if they do, obviously, a hotel will have to comply. There has been conversations from some hotels that I've talked to who said that they're willing to do that, whether it's COVID-19, or whether it's housing the homeless, or even domestic violence, if that happens. But once again, for those things to happen, you can't expect the hotel to pay for those expenses. No, no. Somebody's got to step up. Yeah. Government, local governments being able to foot the bill. And then if folks that are staying there will lend itself to the fact that sometimes things happen there where furniture is broken or things and so forth. And then the state will have to come and pay for that. And most importantly, the cleanliness and sanitation aspect of that will also have to be picked up by government. I think that's only fair. Yeah. Go back to an earlier point. We're in a period of change. And this is old dynamic. And everybody says that when we come out of the pipeline on this, things will be different. And of course, it was the issue about when exactly how do we come out of the pipeline. You mentioned before that health is first, public health is first. And then rebuilding the economy is second. I certainly agree. I think most right thinking people will agree with that. But assuming that we are satisfied that public health is under control, that's a very subjective, less than scientific decisions, public policy decisions. Assuming that moment, how do you open the gates movie? How do you reopen the tourist economy? This is a central question. How in the world can we restart Hawaii's tourism industry? If I say to you, I'm the governor, and I want to start it now, now's the time. What do you do? What does the industry do to restart? Well, I think we'll have to do our own internal evaluation of, it's one thing to open the hotels, but if the airlines are not operating in the manner, which we feel is sufficiently to satisfy us, that whoever we are accepting the hotels are going to be tested or screened or what have you, then it's going to be very uncomfortable for us to do so. I don't think the governor would issue such an edict if he didn't have some kind of guarantees on that. Having said that, I think we're going to have to understand that this is going to be a gradual process. We cannot expect for all the workers to be employed, again, 100%. Just like I think hotel occupancy will start at maybe 20%, and it'll go 30% and 40%. We're not going to see what were the numbers that we were seeing in February for quite some time. So the question is that when we start to reopen, my guess is that government will probably try to do it incrementally. We'll start to lift some restrictions. Maybe some counties are more ready to go forward than others, but that's a decision for the big five to make. That's the four mayors and the governor. Having said that, I hope there will be consultation with the industry, not just with the hotels, but the attractions, the restaurants, the retail merchants, all the key stakeholders, the transportation companies, so that we can all be ready together, as opposed to one part of the industry being ready, and then they come here, okay? Airlines have done a good job to bring you here. We're doing a good job in hotels, but yet the attractions are not ready to receive them because they'll say, hey, I thought you said aloha later. I got here, and this is still not open, or this is not ready to go, operate. So it's going to require a lot of coordination. So the one thing I would say to our government officials, having worn that hat before, as mayor, consult, cooperate, and collaborate with the community and the private sector and the unions because that's the only way we can make the transition seamless and doable. And we are looking to government for leadership in that area to provide for us because they're the ones that are implementing all the laws. So I know there's a lot of frustration out there because one day this order is issued, then it's rescinded, or then it's amended, what have you. So we're trying to be very, very patient, but recognizing that sooner or later, we got to start employing people. Sooner or later, we got to start operating again. I think this also should help, I'm hoping, those of the who felt that there's too many tourists coming to Hawaii, and that over-tourism was rampant. Well, if anything now, responsible, sustainable tourism has to be the order of the day. And I think there's also has to be a recognition that this economy, as much as those who are saying, let's go back to sustainable agriculture, or let's just do a local economy, it's not going to get very far, Jay. And you know that as well as I do. If people are employed in the hospitality industry, represent the greatest numbers, how do you really kick-start a local economy if they're not working? And if we can only bring back 20% of the workforce, but 30%, there's another 70% out there, there has to be a balance. So there has to be a parallel path between starting up the local economy, and then at some point also opening up our doors again. And you only start up the local economy if you feel that people here are not, are virus free, if you will, and that we're going to maintain standards and all the things that we need to do, keep the social distancing in place, keep the mask in place, you know, whatever, the sanitizers, obviously, all of those things. Yeah, you know, as interesting you mentioned that, because I was going to ask you about this, you know, that there are, there's always a drumbeat of people who say we have too much tourism. We should diversify the economy, because it's been going on for decades, right? Diversify the economy, get into something else, who knows what, say technology, agriculture, you name it. And they're also saying that my ears are telling me that when you come through a transformation, a crisis like this, things will be different. And they're saying, why don't we make the balance of the economy different after the crisis is over? Why don't we try to diversify in the process of recovering from the crisis? And that means a smaller percentage of the economy goes through the traditional tourism and a larger percentage goes through diversified industry, whatever that may be. What do you say to those people, Mufi? Are they right? Do they have a point? How can we assuage their concern? I think we should always be opening, open to new ideas and every crisis presents an opportunity. But even if we were to find a new industry or a new initiative for a while, it's going to take time to ramp that up. That's just the order of the day. And so what do you have in place now that will keep people employed? Once again, some people don't want to hear this, but it's the visitor industry and it's defense. So those are our two largest industries and of course construction. That being said, I think we'd be very open. I should say not just from a hotel perspective, but I think it's resident of Hawaii. But I have been involved or participant in every economic diversification initiative since I first started with Governor Ariyoshi back in the 80s. And many great ideas have come forward to diversify the economy and it still comes back to the tourism industry. We happen to be a world-class brand. We have leading experts here that know how to do tourism. So I would welcome new initiatives, new ideas, but even if we found something, it will take a while. And then here's the other thing, that industry has to overnight contribute what the hotel industry or what the visitor industry does to our economy. The seven of the nine top property taxpayers, for example, in the city county of Honolulu are hotels and resorts. Seven out of nine, six out of nine are hotels and resorts. Where do you replace that? Where do you replace the income that comes in from the transit accommodation stacks? With 600 million plus, only 85 million of that goes to marketing. Only 85 million, that almost 600 million plus, where the rest of that money goes is to the general fund, the biggest recipient in other aspects, assistance to the counties, paying for the convention center. So that is what has to be taken into account if we're going to do something like this. I wouldn't give up at all. I mean, I think we've always said science, space, and astronomy, I thought was a great place to go. But now, with Mauna Kea being stymied somewhat, that's a decision not to the private industry, but obviously being respectful of the Hawaiian cultural concerns, and then the governor has to make that decision at the state level. You know, Mufi, your role in the city council years ago, when you and I first met, and your role as mayor, and it prepared you so perfectly for HLTA. But I wonder, when you took the job with HLTA, it seemed like a natural progression. On the other hand, who in the world could have anticipated that this would happen? And did you be sitting here now talking to me about rebuilding the tourist economy? In one minute, what's your reaction to that? Well, you know, it's in my DNA to try to help, to try to improve, to bring all my experiences to bear. And having been a mayor, I had to deal with the economic recession back in 2008, 2009, and we came through of that very nicely. So every job that I've had prepares me for the next one. I'm just very grateful to have an opportunity to try to contribute. Thank you very much for coming on the show, Mufi. I hope to see you here again soon, either as guests or hosts, so we can, you know, further explore these issues. Thanks so much. Thank you, Mahalo.