Hawaii’s visitor industry urges the governor to ease travel restrictions under the latest CDC guidelines

HONOLULU (KHON2) — Following the Centers for Disease Control’s announcement, there was a quick and resounding response from Hawaii’s visitor industry, urging the governor to open travel.

Hawaiian Airlines even says it will help the state get travel going again.

The visitor industry says it’s time Hawaii moved forward and allowed fully vaccinated people to travel freely in and out of the state.

“The CDC has spoken, and we’d like to see an encouraging move in it so that we can eventually safely kickstart the economy and get more people back to work,” said Mufi Hannemann, Hawaii Lodging and Tourism Association president and CEO.

Hawaiian Airlines boss says being able to check travelers’ vaccination records is the next big step.

“Verification has been one of the things that we have had to deal with and the state has had to deal with in relation to testing in the Safe Travels Program, and in a way it will be no different here,” said Peter Ingra, President and CEO of Hawaiian Airlines.

Ingram says the company is ready and willing to help in any way it can to make this happen. Verification can be done either at the point of departure or upon arrival.

“I think what we’d like to do is just have a discussion about what the process should look like and how it should be designed and where a document review would take place to make it as efficient as possible,” he said.

He adds that showing a vaccination card should be considered.

“We think we should be open to a variety of avenues now. If we tried that tomorrow, that would really be the only practical way we have,” said Ingram.

He says the company is ready to ramp up flights and staff if needed. Hotels are also prepared, says Hannemann. He says easing travel restrictions matters with hotel occupancy close to 50% and the state should at least consider easing inter-island travel.

“Let’s start by getting the counties and the state to agree that the first beneficiaries of all this are the inter-island travelers, and that would greatly benefit local people,” Hannemann said.