tles are more interesting than the names.

According to Big Island Now, HVCB has appointed Jena Zarro as managing director of integrated communications, Mitsue Varley as director of international business development, and Matthew Clarkson as senior director of data intelligence. The bureau frames the hires as part of its transition into what it calls a “Destination Futures Enterprise” — a private, nonprofit, regenerative destination leadership organization that, in its own words, treats Hawaiʻi as a living system to be stewarded rather than a product to be sold.

What this means for DMOs

Most U.S. DMOs already say they want to evolve beyond ad spend and visitor counts. HVCB’s hires are useful as a benchmark because they make the structural commitment legible: they’re not just adding staff but also creating senior-level jobs for capabilities that traditionally got distributed across marketing, IT, and partnerships.

Hawaiʻi has been one of the most-studied destinations in the country precisely because the state spent years arguing publicly about how to measure the cost of tourism alongside its benefit. Putting a senior director in charge of how the bureau itself defines success is the operational version of that conversation.

Destinations International’s 2026-2027 content themes point in the same direction — funding, stewardship, and innovation no longer fit cleanly inside a marketing department.

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