Foundational Technical Assistance Workshop: Hilo
Description
This Foundational Technical Assistance (FTA) Workshop is designed for Hawaiʻi Island businesses, entrepreneurs, cultural practitioners, nonprofits, stewardship organizations, and community initiatives interested in better understanding and engaging with Hawaiʻi’s visitor industry.
This registration is for Day 2 of the two-day event. Day 2 will be hosted in Hilo, and Day 1 will be hosted in Kona. You can register for Day 2 at https://events.humanitix.com/fta-2026-kona.
Content of the workshop's two days complement one another, but participants may register for either day individually or attend both. Those who register for Day 1 will receive a discount code that can be used for Day 2 in Hilo.
Day 1 (Kona): Finding Your Place in Hawaiʻi’s Visitor Industry
Understanding Hawaiʻi’s Visitor Industry, Visitors & Opportunities
Learn how Hawaiʻi’s visitor industry works, where opportunities exist, who Hawaiʻi’s visitors are, and what influences their choices. Through practical activities and insights from industry professionals, you’ll identify the visitors who are the right fit for what you offer and strengthen how you reach and communicate with them.
Day 2 (Hilo): Creating Visitor Products, Experiences & Opportunities
Designing Things Visitors Want While Staying Rooted in Place, Community & Culture
Explore how to develop or strengthen visitor-facing products and experiences that advance your goals while remaining rooted in Hawaiʻi as a place, community, and culture. Work through practical considerations including product and experience design, pricing and viability, and visitor engagement.
FTA is part of HTA’s Technical Assistance & Capacity Building (TACB) programs, supporting the development of a more regenerative visitor industry by strengthening local businesses and nonprofits, fostering meaningful visitor experiences, and helping ensure tourism creates greater value for Hawaiʻi’s people, places, and culture.
Agenda
- 8:30 am - 9:00 am
Registration, Coffee & Talk Story
- 9:00 am - 9:30 am
Welcome & Orientation: What Are We Creating?
The day begins by focusing participants on what they currently (or potentially want to) offer visitors.
- 9:30 am - 10:40 am
Place, Community & Culture
We'll explore how place, community, and culture can shape products, experiences, and opportunities in meaningful ways. Rather than asking how to “add” culture or place later, you'll consider how your offerings can emerge from the places, people, stories, practices, and relationships that already surround you.
- 11:00 am - 12:15 pm
Operator and Maker Panel & Q&A
Experience operators, makers, and practitioners share about products, experiences, programs, and opportunities they have developed and the choices they made along the way.
- 12:15 pm - 1:15 pm
Lunch & Networking
- 1:15 pm - 3:20 pm
Designing the Visitor Offering
We'll examine what it is like for a visitor to interact with what you offer and identify opportunities to strengthen your overall product or experience. This may include purchasing and using a product, participating in an experience, visiting a place, attending a program, volunteering, or engaging with an organization in another way.
- 3:40 pm - 4:40 pm
Pricing & Viability
We'll explore how to price your offering in ways that reflect its value while supporting the business, organization, or work behind it.
- 4:40 pm - 5:00 pm
Reflections & Closing
Speaker Lineup
Brandon Fairchild, PhD., Ward Research & Solutions Pacific
Hānau to Ohio and home in Hawaiʻi, Brandon serves as Program Manager for the Foundational Technical Assistance (FTA) program. This role aligns with much of Brandon's work in tourism, which focuses on directing greater resources from Hawaiʻi's largest economic driver into the regeneration of ʻāina and kaiāulu by bridging the gap between industry and community. In addition to FTA, Brandon was the lead researcher and author of HTA's 2026-2028 Destination Management Action Plans, manages HTA's Community Tourism Collaborative (CTC) programs, and has conducted research in regenerative tourism for Kamehameha Schools. He lives in Salt Lake, Oʻahu with his husband and holds a PhD in Sociology from Temple University in Philadelphia. His dissertation research focused on community, healing, and resilience with Puʻuhonua ʻo Waiʻanae houseless village led by the late Aunty Twinkle Borge. He aliʻi ka ʻāina; he kauwā ke kanaka.
Lindsay Sanborn, Hawaiʻi Tourism Authority
Born and raised in Kāneʻohe, Oʻahu, Lindsay is a passionate and compassionate advocate for regenerative tourism and destination stewardship in Hawaiʻi. Through her work with the Hawaiʻi Tourism Authority, she oversees both the Technical Assistance & Capacity Building (TACB) and Workforce Development programs, helping strengthen the people, organizations, and partnerships that contribute to more resilient visitor economies across the pae ʻāina. Lindsay is also heavily involved with HTA's Community Partnership Programs, supporting grant and event support initiatives for community, industry, and government partners that reflect Hawaiʻi's unique places, cultures, and values. Known for her collaborative spirit and unwavering encouragement of others, Lindsay is deeply committed to helping individuals and organizations grow in ways that create lasting benefits for ʻāina, kamaʻāina, and visitors.
Rebecca J. ʻI. Soon, Ward Research & Solutions Pacific
With ancestral roots connecting back to Waiheʻe, Maui, Massachusetts, the Azores, East Asia, and throughout Europe, Becky was born and raised on Oʻahu. Across her prolific career in housing, homelessness, civil rights, immigration, health access, environmental protection, small business advocacy, and community-based planning, she focuses on systems change rooted firmly in improving community well-being. An attorney, entrepreneur, and aspiring mahiʻai now living in Hilo, she brings a deep ability to translate information, data, and ʻike across sectors, build bridges, and move complex ideas toward practical action in service of Native Hawaiian communities and more just, place-rooted futures for Hawaiʻi nei.
Speaker announcements coming soon.
FAQs
- I don’t live on Hawaiʻi Island. Are workshops available on my island?
FTA workshops will also be offered on:
Maui: October 30–31
Oʻahu: November 13–14
Kauaʻi: December 4-5
Check out the other events by clicking our host name.
- Can I attend virtually?
No. These are in-person workshops, and virtual participation is not available.
- Do I have to attend both days?
No. Each day is designed as a standalone workshop, so you may register for either day individually. However, we strongly encourage attending both if you can.
The workshops are designed to build on one another, with Day 1 helping you understand Hawaiʻi’s visitor industry, visitors, and opportunities, and Day 2 helping you apply that understanding to strengthen what you offer.
A discounted two-day registration is available.
- Are meals included with registration?
Yes. Registration includes a light continental breakfast and coffee (such as pastries) and lunch each day.
- What time should I arrive?
Please plan to arrive between 8:30 and 9:00 AM for check-in, coffee, and networking. The workshop will begin promptly at 9:00 AM.
Tickets for good, not greed Humanitix dedicates 100% of profits from booking fees to charity
