For years, Hawaii residents, and avid Aloha State visitors who love the outdoors, have criticized the condition of the Islands' parks and trails. Now, as officials are set to approve a systemwide fee hike targeting out-of-state visitors, the network will get a cash infusion that will hopefully go toward increased maintenance, repairs and establishing crowd management controls at the most popular sites.
The new fee structure was brought to the Hawaii Board of Land and Natural Resources in February for initial approval, and was in the works well prior to the coronavirus pandemic. After a period for public comment, the board backed the changes following a virtual hearing on July 6. Now, with the board's support, the new fees could go into effect by this fall after an expected sign-off from Gov. David Ige.
Prior to the pandemic, department estimates predicted the changes will boost revenue for the Division of State Parks by $8.7 million annually, much of which will go to a $40 million backlog of deferred repairs and maintenance across the 54 sites the agency manages. Entrance and parking fees for nonresidents will rise, and there will be increases across the board for camping and cabin facilities.
"This is a long time coming for us," Curt Cottrell, administrator for division of state parks, said in presenting the new fee structure. "We're charging fees that were established 20 years ago."
Out of the $14 million annual operating budget for the parks division, 80% currently goes to salaries and lifeguard contracts. The agency did not respond to requests for an updated revenue estimate based on reduced visitation due to coronavirus, but the Hawaii Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism has predicted tourism to the Islands in 2021 will fall to 60% of 2019 levels, and will not fully recover for at least four years.
Meanwhile, in a 2014 survey, Hawaii residents listed the poor "quality and condition" of facilities as the second-biggest barrier to outdoor recreation in the state ("lack of time" was No. 1). The same survey also found strong support for additional trails and improved maintenance of existing ones. A 2015 Parks Department report noted that "maintaining adequate and stable funding for outdoor recreation has been challenging. This has affected the ability of the state and counties to deliver the volume and quality of service the public wants and expects them to provide." The same report noted "one traditional, but underutilized in Hawaii, funding source is the user fee."
Hawaii tourism has boomed since the Great Recession, rising from 6.8 million annual visitors in 2008, to 10.4 million in 2019, but the state's parks have seen little boost in revenue, and the agency has struggled to keep up.
"I really wish we'd done this several years ago," Cottrell told the board. "Once tourism popped, there was a lot of revenue being hemorrhaged over the past several years that could've been collected to enhance our operations."
Currently, eight state parks charge admission and parking fees, including Iao Valley State Monument on Maui, Akaka Falls State Park on Hawaii island and the Nuuanu Pali Wayside Park and Diamond Head State Monument on Oahu. While the new rules allow for the implementation of fees across the system, the less-trafficked parks will remain free.
Diamond Head currently charges a fee for both residents and visitors. Under the new system, residents can enter for free, while the fees for walking in will increase from $1 to $5 and parking from $5 to $10 for nonresidents. At Diamond Head, which sees 3,000 visitors on a typical day and up to 6,000 during peak times, 98% of the visitors are from out of state, and the revenue from the iconic crater on the eastern edge of Waikiki will subsidize work at the less popular parks. Additionally, tour buses and vans will also see the fees they pay to use parks and trails increase. All users of camping, cabin rentals, and day use of pavilions will pay more. For campsites, the charge will go from $12 to $20 per night for residents, and nonresidents would pay $30, up from $18.
After decades of stagnant prices, Hawaii state parks charge less than the national average, according to Contrell, and the hike will bring them more in line with other state park systems.
Over the years, Division of State Parks staffing has dropped from 200 to 134 positions, and the agency's allocation from the general fund has fallen from $8 million in 1992 to $4.5 million today, pushing the agency to use a greater proportion of special fund revenues, which were $2 million in 2018.
Further down the road, the increased revenue may also allow the State Parks Division to install reservation systems and daily access limits for the most visited parks to combat overuse, similar to a program installed at Haena State Park on Kauai in 2019.
"In some of these parks we will be trying to shrink down use to find a more reasonable balance between tourism and community value," Contrell said, adding Waianapanapa State Park in Hana on Maui as a candidate for a Haena-like system.
As tourism has increased, Contrell said, so has illegal activity at the state's parks, and some of the new revenue will go to security and rules enforcement.
"With 10 million visitors, we've had a proliferation of illegal commercial use and illegal out-of-bund use. This will help law enforcement to take care of the park units in terms of unauthorized uses."
With parks offering one of the few recreation opportunities during the pandemic, the Division of State Parks has struggled to police its facilities. Reports of unpermitted camping, large gatherings and other violations of social distancing ordinances are proliferating at Hawaii's parks. The state recently closed Kauai's Polihale State Park indefinitely after a spate of violations.
As the department readied the new fee structure, it looked forward to an injection of revenue, but now staff are bracing for the unpredictable, something the Division of State Parks acknowledged even as the pandemic was just starting to reach the Islands.
"Natural disasters have a big impact on our ability to generate revenue, as well," Cottrell told the board about the agency's projections. "Coronavirus is a new type of issue that may have some incalculable impacts as time goes by."