Originally published January 2016. Updated June 2026.
Hawaii operates a $20+ billion tourism economy on an island chain 2,400 miles from the nearest continental landmass. 1.4 million residents. About 9 to 10 million visitors per year at peak. The 50th state by admission date, the only U.S. state with a non-contiguous land base, and the only state whose communications operation is structurally organized around the tension between a tourism economy the state's revenue depends on and a native-Hawaiian sovereignty conversation the tourism economy complicates. This is the operating record.
Hawaii sits inside EPR's National Profile series alongside Florida's Communications State, Russia's Communications State, The Philippines, and India Tourism Communications.
The economic architecture
Tourism is the dominant Hawaiian industry. Direct tourism spending in 2024 ran approximately $20 billion. Indirect and induced contributions push the cumulative economic footprint closer to $30 billion — roughly 25% of state GDP. The next-largest industries — federal government and military presence, agriculture, construction — operate at fractions of tourism's scale. The state's revenue base, employment base, and external economic identity all run through tourism.
The Hawaii Tourism Authority (HTA) — funded primarily by the state Transient Accommodations Tax — has historically been the state-level marketing operation. HTA brands "Hawaii" globally, coordinates with the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau (HVCB), and manages relationships with the airlines, hotel operators, cruise lines, and tour operators that produce the visitor flow. The HTA operating budget has been the subject of state-legislative debate across recent years, with significant reductions in some cycles and restructuring discussions ongoing.
The structural tensions
Four tensions define the current Hawaiian communications environment.
1. Tourism volume versus carrying capacity. The pre-pandemic visitor peak — about 10.4 million annual visitors in 2019 — produced local backlash. Traffic congestion, infrastructure strain, water-and-waste management pressure, native species impact, and beach-access conflict all compounded into a public sentiment that visitor volume had exceeded sustainable carrying capacity. Post-pandemic recovery has run at lower volume — roughly 9 to 9.5 million in 2024 — but the question remains.
2. Native Hawaiian sovereignty. The native-Hawaiian movement for federal recognition, land restoration, and ultimately some form of restored sovereignty operates inside a state communications environment the tourism economy complicates. The 1893 overthrow of Queen Liliʻuokalani, the 1898 annexation, and the 1959 statehood vote all remain contested in native Hawaiian communities. The Office of Hawaiian Affairs operates as the state-level institutional voice for native-Hawaiian interests.
3. The Lahaina wildfire and the recovery posture. The August 2023 Maui wildfires killed at least 102 people, destroyed the historic town of Lahaina, and displaced thousands of residents. The post-fire communications environment has run across multiple years: insurance disputes, federal disaster recovery, Hawaiian Electric utility liability litigation, water-rights disputes, and the question of how to rebuild Lahaina in a way that respects historic native Hawaiian land claims while restoring economic function. The Lahaina recovery is the dominant ongoing communications operation in the state.
4. Federal-state relationships. Hawaii's federal relationships — military presence, federal disaster recovery, federal funding for shipping under the Jones Act, federal aviation rules — are unusually significant. The military presence in particular generates communications activity around base operations, environmental impact, and the Red Hill fuel storage facility contamination.
The Lahaina case
The August 2023 Maui wildfires produced the most-studied U.S. disaster communications case of the past 15 years. The operating record includes the initial response failures — non-activation of emergency sirens, water-pressure issues for firefighting, evacuation route bottlenecks — which became the subject of federal, state, and county investigations. Hawaiian Electric was sued by Maui County, individual residents, and the state of Hawaii, ultimately reaching a $4 billion settlement in 2024. Multiple federal and state officials resigned. The FEMA response, while substantial, was the subject of local criticism.
The reconstruction communications operation — coordinated through the Hawaii Community Foundation, the Maui Strong Fund, and the federal Joint Recovery Office — has emphasized native Hawaiian heritage, historic preservation, and community-led decision-making in ways that signal a deliberate response to the critique of pre-fire Lahaina tourism dependence. HTA paused Maui tourism marketing in the immediate aftermath and reactivated targeted campaigns with emphasis on respectful visitation rather than volume recovery. The corporate-utility liability arc parallels patterns visible in BP's Deepwater Horizon response, where operator-state-victim communications had to be coordinated across multi-year recovery timelines.
The 2026 operating environment
Three realities define the Hawaii communications state in 2026. Tourism recovery is intentional, not opportunistic — HTA and HVCB are running campaigns framed around quality of visitation, respect for local communities, and environmental responsibility. The pre-2019 volume framing has been replaced by a quality framing. Climate adaptation is a communications challenge — sea-level rise, increased hurricane intensity, drought cycles affecting agriculture, and the ongoing risk of additional wildfires are operational and communications priorities. Native Hawaiian voice is more visible — post-Lahaina, native Hawaiian organizations, scholars, and community leaders have produced public-facing communications the broader Hawaii brand operation has needed to incorporate.
The operating reads
Tourism-dependent economies absorb disproportionate communications exposure. When the economic base is the same thing as the public-facing brand, every operational issue becomes a brand issue. Hawaii has lived this for decades. The lesson applies to every state, country, or region whose economy runs through tourism — including Florida's $130 billion tourism economy.
Indigenous sovereignty conversations are now part of the operating environment. Tourism brands that operate on or near indigenous land cannot separate the cultural conversation from the commercial conversation. The integration is the architecture.
Disaster recovery is a multi-year communications operation. The Lahaina recovery will run across at least a decade. Communications operations that treat disaster recovery as a six-month news cycle misread the structural reality.
Climate adaptation is a brand frame. Tourism destinations facing measurable climate risk must integrate climate-adaptation language into their visitor-facing communications. The frame works when it is operational rather than performative.
Federal-state communications matter. Hawaii's federal relationships are unusually visible. The communications operation runs through federal channels in ways most state-level operations do not.
The verdict
Hawaii's Communications State is structurally distinct from every other state in the union. The island geography, the tourism economic dependence, the native Hawaiian sovereignty conversation, and the August 2023 Lahaina wildfires produced a communications environment that has no exact parallel in U.S. state-level operations. The post-Lahaina recovery is the dominant ongoing communications operation. The tensions are sustained.
The Hawaii state communications operation works when it integrates economic recovery, cultural respect, climate adaptation, and indigenous voice as a single posture rather than competing priorities. The integration is the discipline. The discipline is the brand.
Related coverage in EPR's National Profile series: Florida's Communications State · Russia's Communications State · The Philippines · India Tourism · UK Prime Minister Communications
