The future of the Hawaii Tourism Authority (HTA) may be in jeopardy as the state’s legislators passed a bill that would cut dedicated funding.

According to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser , House Bill 862 was passed by officials in Hawaii last week and would eliminate the dedicated funding HTA receives. If the bill becomes law, the HTA’s fiscal year 2023 budget starts at zero and the agency would need to justify why it should receive general funds.

Hawaii Governor David Ige has until June 21 to veto the legislation, which he said would make it nearly impossible for the HTA to run multiyear efforts, like the Destination Management Action Plan program.

“I am disappointed at what happened with HTA. Losing dedicated funding is a big issue,” Ige told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. “The visitor industry is the No. 1 industry in this state; it creates 200,000 jobs plus, and we are not going to have economic recovery until the visitor industry recovers.”

Before the pandemic, the HTA was the foundation of a thriving tourism industry, which recorded 10.4 million visitor arrivals in 2019. The local government has been cutting funding to the agency for years, though, with the budget dropping to $79 million from $82 million in 2018 and now the proposed reduction to $60 million.

The COVID-19 outbreak also shook resident sentiment toward tourism, with some travelers not following health and safety protocols and the spread of illegal vacation rentals into neighborhoods causing issues with locals .

HTA CEO John De Fries said for “every dollar HTA spent, the agency returned $20 to the state” in 2019, but the main focus of the group now was regenerative tourism. De Fries said the rebound of the state’s economy is dependent on tourism.

“The governor, when he met with myself and the board, was very supportive and reemphasized the importance of HTA leading the visitor industry at a critical time in sustaining not only the relaunch of tourism, but the sustained relaunch of Hawaii’s economy lead by tourism,” De Fries told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

“At the same time, he expressed real concern about HB 862 and indicated that his team is still investigating what options they have,” De Fries continued. “It’s like trying to diffuse an explosive. It’s not easy.”