Hawaii Tourism gets new exec

Serving as the Hawaii Tourism Authority Director of Research from 2006 to 2017, Daniel Nāhoʻopiʻi has returned to the government agency as the new chief administrative officer.

During the time previously served, he led the organization’s statewide Tourism Strategic Plan process, oversaw the research department, managed the production and interpretation of data related to Hawai‘i’s visitor industry, and worked with various government officials, legislators, community members, and industry stakeholders.

The Hawai‘i Tourism Authority (HTA) has announced that Daniel Nāhoʻopiʻi has returned to the organization’s leadership team as chief administrative officer, effective January 17.

In his new role, Nāhoʻopiʻi is responsible for the administrative, fiscal, procurement, and human resources operations of HTA, as well as the management of the Hawaiʻi Convention Center. Nāhoʻopiʻi succeeds Keith Regan who departed HTA in August 2022.

“Daniel has an intricate understanding of HTA and Hawai‘i’s visitor industry, and brings a wealth of experience in tourism management, planning, business operations, and performance evaluation,” said John De Fries, HTA’s president and CEO. “He is well-respected among community and business leaders statewide and will hit the ground running.”

“We are grateful to our Vice President of Finance Marc Togashi who served as acting chief administrative officer in addition to fulfilling his regular duties for the past five months as we conducted the executive search process,” said De Fries.

Most recently, Nāhoʻopiʻi was executive vice president of SMS Research & Marketing Services where he led the company’s Tourism Intelligence Division to launch a tourism research system for the government of Fiji and publish a study to empower Native American tourism organizations. His background also includes planning and management in the education, environment and utilities sectors.

Nāhoʻopiʻi was born and raised in Honolulu. A graduate of Kamehameha Schools, he earned a certificate from the First Nations’ Futures Institute at Stanford University, a Master of Business Administration from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa and Bachelor of Science degrees in engineering from Northwestern University.