Sadly, New Hawaii Tourism New Video Fails to Alleviate Confusion

Have you seen the new video from Hawaii Tourism Authority and Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau? It’s meant to educate visitors on wearing masks, keeping six feet apart, and washing your hands. The video was announced officially late yesterday but released last week to airline, hotel, and activity partners. It is part of the Kuleana Campaign which means to take responsibility.

After watching the one-minute video, we could see how it might create yet more confusion with visitors, which has resulted in over 5,000 police warnings and citations issued this past week for failure to mask up.

In the first 38 seconds of the video, no one is wearing a mask which includes a chef preparing food in a restaurant and hula dancers in close proximity to one another. That only leaves about 20 seconds to get a message across. And that message to mask up doesn’t explain adequately how that now means basically they are required everywhere.

Watch the video and see if you agree. Would you understand that even when you are outside with your family you are to mask up? That might not come across when you see two maskless men in the video who are kneeling together on lava rock. There is also a hiker pictured from behind but we don’t see if he is wearing a mask. So does that mean a mask is required on trails? How about on our beaches? The video shows a man walking maskless on the beach, while the Mayor of Honolulu was recently pictured handing masks out to visitors on beaches.

It comes down to this. How do you expect visitors to understand the policies on each island when you release this type of video?

Lastly, one of the first to comment was regular Laura R., who said “I share your thoughts exactly – it’s sad to see that a lot of taxpayers money was wasted during this time of economic need on a video that provides absolutely no information and shows image after image of people NOT wearing masks! Whoever authorized this video should be fired.”