hawaii tourism controversy

Hawaii's 'overtourism' becomes growing debate as West Maui reopens for visitors

The reopening sparked outrage among some residents.

West Maui began reopening Sunday to visitors just two months after a wildfire devastated the town of Lahaina .

The reopening did not come without outrage from some residents, many of whom signed a petition to delay the reopening as families continue to struggle to "find shelter, provide for their children's education, and cope with emotional trauma," according to the petition.

Homes have been flattened and are completely inhabitable. Businesses have been decimated. Some loved ones remain unaccounted for and residents have been grieving the loss of 97 people who died in the tragedy.

The petition has received more than 10,000 signatures.

The fact that tourism is resuming so soon around the outskirts of a town made unrecognizable by the wildfires has reignited an ongoing debate about Hawaii's reliance on tourism.

"There is just not a lot of activities like there usually is for these people to do, so a lot of people are wondering, why do they want to come here?" said Jordan Ruidas, a community organizer and resident.

Tourism is the No. 1 driver of that state's economy, according to Hawaii Tourism Authority , and businesses across the island have been impacted by the lack of visitors since the Aug. 8 wildfires.

But some residents link tourism and its historical links to colonialism with many of the issues plaguing the Islands, including lack of access to clean water, the housing crisis, and pollution and destruction of Hawaiian lands.

"It's a great business for Hawaii, but the difficult thing for us here is that there is not a street, a community, a county. There's nowhere that you can hide from tourism in Hawaii," said Susie Pu, a hotel manager on Maui.

She continued, "The most important thing is that we find a balance between the Hawaiian culture and tourism. Hawaiian people need to be benefiting from tourism equally. And I do not see that."

MORE: Maui wildfire missed signals stoke outrage as officials point fingers

Hawaii before tourism.

Hawaii didn't always rely on tourism as its main source of income.

According to research from the University of Hawaii , Hawaiian society was self-sustaining and run in cooperative, extended ohana -- or family -- that each manned subdivisions of land.

Native Hawaiians were recorded to have been living "well above subsistence levels, with extensive time available for cultural activities, sports, and games" before their long period of isolation from outsiders came to an end, the University of Hawaii found.

Contact with the outside world in the 1770s changed Hawaii drastically. Deaths caused a massive wave of fatalities, leading to a 90% decline in the Native Hawaiian population, according to research from the National Academy of Medicine.

The Hawaiian Kingdom and monarchy were formed during this period of change, adopting Western political strategies to settle disputes between competing Hawaiian states. The Islands also became integrated into the global market, losing its past self-sustaining system.

This drastic social, economic, and political change was marked by a shift to sugar production when a treaty with the U.S. exempted sugar firms on the island from high tariffs.

"The story of sugar is really, really important because in a lot of ways it was the wealthy and powerful corporations that promoted sugar to the kingdom that really were responsible for seeking markets in the United States," Jonathan Kay Kamakawiwoʻole Osorio, the dean of the Hawaiʻinuiākea School of Hawaiian Knowledge, said.

"That's all a part of the story of not just the rise, but the fall of the [Hawaiian] kingdom," said Osorio.

As production expanded, American corporations producing sugar on the Islands sought to keep prices high and labor costs lower, hiring cheaper immigrant labor and lobbying for an immigration policy that would allow them to do so, historians say.

"While sugar did actually generate a great deal of income, most of that income really acted to sort of replace Native Hawaiians in the country," said Osorio.

Efforts to expand sugar production and house waves of imported labor pushed Native Hawaiians from their land, home, and island.

Throughout this time, laborers were organizing against low wages and poor benefits, and "the sugar companies began to lose a little bit of control. Everybody can sort of see that in the future, sugar is not going to be as profitable as it once was," according to Osorio.

However, World War II and the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 put labor rights efforts to a halt.

It wasn't until the late 1940s that workers began to make real concessions -- getting better benefits and salaries.

"Sugar companies really basically are looking at an industry that's not nearly as conducive to profits as it once was. Plus, in the post-war world, there's also new competition from places like the Philippines," Osorio added.

By the 1970s, more and more plantations were shutting down and they were moving toward using their lands for a tourist economy.

"Tourism would not exist at the scale that it exists today if it weren't for the takeover," Osorio said.

Vulnerability in tourism reliance

Following the wildfires on the West side, occupancy at the oceanfront condo resort Hana Kai Maui on the other side of the island was impacted almost immediately.

"We have always operated at a really high occupancy, almost like 95% year round. The day of the fires or the day after the fires, it was just such a downward slide," Pu said.

"We lost hundreds of 1000s of dollars in reservations over about a one-week period. And we're only a 17-unit business so it was a lot. We're recovering," she added.

Noah Drazkowski, who was born and raised in West Maui and owns a local business, told ABC News in a previous interview that he's been grieving alongside his community while looking for ways to keep his local business afloat.

"The majority of our income is from tourists, tourism, and I wish that we could say that we can survive on only the local community support," said Drazkowski.

Some business owners are torn about the future of tourism in Maui.

In 2022 alone, Hawaii saw nearly 10 million visitors, according to the state Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism. In 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the Islands saw roughly 2.7 million.

Now, approximately 70% of every dollar is generated directly or indirectly by the visitor industry, according to the Maui Economic Development Board.

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted how life in Hawaii could be without "overtourism," Osorio said.

"We started really seeing what happens to beaches and what happens to the ocean and what happens to mountain trails, hiking trails when they are free of so many people," said Osorio. "The quality of life in so many ways improves not [just for the people] but for other species that have depended on this environment for a long time."

Pu added: "We want tourists in Hawaii, but we also want to be able to live peacefully here and we want our forests to remain intact."

The impacts of tourism

Being a popular tourist destination comes with its challenges.

The Aloha State is experiencing one of the worst housing crises in America, with some of the highest housing costs in the nation and the fourth-highest rate of homelessness per capita in the country, according to the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

MORE: Hawaiian Electric CEO short on answers during House hearing on Maui wildfires

The U.S. has acknowledged its historical responsibility for causing this housing crisis among Native Hawaiians through its 1921 Hawaiian Homes Commission Act, a reparations policy that set aside land for Native communities after the violent displacement and removal of Native Hawaiians.

Parts of Maui have also been under a water conservation notice in recent years, as an intense drought and dry conditions limit the region's access to water. With hotels and resorts taking up their share of the water, some locals wish that water would be directed toward residents, especially following the deadly wildfire in which firefighters in Lahaina claimed that their hoses ran dry.

Politicians have been under pressure from some residents to look for a way to diversify the economy and for land to be given back to the Native Hawaiian population. As tourism comes back toward the disaster area, the conversation around tourism is unlikely to settle down.

"Our desire is to provide for ourselves so that we can properly feed ourselves, so that we can actually have places to live, so that we can protect the lands from misuse," said Osorio.

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I'm a native Hawaiian. Locals are tired of tourists treating the island like a theme park – here's what to know before you visit.

• Keani Rawlins-Fernandez grew up in Hawaii and has seen tourism increase over the years.
• Now a local council member, Rawlins-Fernandez says locals can feel overrun by tourists.
• She said her advice for tourists is to be respectful and not entitled. 

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Keani Rawlins-Fernandez, a vice chair of the Maui County Council, about how tourism has affected her life in Hawaii. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

The tropical islands of Hawaii have long been a dream destination for tourists, drawn by the pristine beaches, vibrant culture, and an "aloha" free spirit. But for me it's home.

Many economic, social, and financial issues arise with unrestricted tourism, and I don't know how Hawaii will continue to cope with these numbers.

I grew up in Molokai, the only island of Hawaii where the economy is not reliant on tourism . Here, agriculture and farming are our main industries.

As a policymaker, I use my platform to fight against unrestricted tourism, counteract our current housing crisis, and campaign to protect our ocean and reef health.

It's my responsibility to advocate for my local community

When I was growing up, big corporations fell in love with the white-sand beaches, canoes, and divers and transformed our land into a shoreline of resorts like Waikiki in Oahu. They attempted to do this in Molokai, but the community fought it.

I went to law school to become a policymaker because it was my kuleana — responsibility — to advocate for my community the same way my elders did.

I was inspired by the work of Uncle Walter Ritte, a Native Hawaiian activist and educator who protested the military bombing practices on Kaho'olawe and won its eventual return to Native Hawaiian control from the US military.

I hold the County Council seat for the Molokai residency area and am part of the Efficiency Solutions and Circular Systems Committee, where I can discuss high-level budgets and allocation of resources to solve economic inequality that has been around for generations.

Tourism has displaced Native Hawaiians by driving up costs

The number of tourists in Hawaii is overwhelming the local population and threatening the islands' cultural heritage.

Related stories

Native Hawaiians, already displaced from their lands during colonization, are experiencing a housing crisis. When houses become available, they are bought by tourists instead of locals .

People are buying our land as investment properties, so our Kanaka 'Ōiwi — locals — are forced to move further out , and they can't maintain their local traditions or routines. Basically, they need to start over and make a new place their home.

The cost of living has skyrocketed as demand drives up real-estate prices. Residents of islands like Maui and Oahu, where tourism is at peak levels, rely on resorts and hotels for jobs to support their livelihood.

During COVID, there was no tourism, and their jobs were the first to go. My island in Molokai fared better because the model is to cater to local businesses and local patrons instead.

We can't commute easily because tourists are getting their sunset pictures

A large part of Hawaii's economy is reliant on tourism, but in popular tourist areas, overtourism is placing huge strains on the infrastructure and environment — especially when the number of visitors exceeds the resident population.

For example, famous sights like Waikiki Beach and Diamond Head on Oahu draw crowds of tourists for sunrise or sunset views. This clogs up our highways during the hours when locals are trying to commute or drop their kids off at school.

The state Department of Transportation wants to create more parking spots or widen highways. Instead, people should consider group trolley systems like the ones in Zion National Park in Utah, which I recently visited, to manage tourists. This makes more sense than allowing tourists to rent their own car for the duration of their visit.

Locals feel like their home is a theme park — and it can be dangerous

Our locals feel like their homes are treated like a theme park and there's no more privacy.

We've heard stories of tourists trespassing on properties for photo opportunities. But they need to understand that unlike television or social-media posts, this is real life.

There aren't always safeguards and railings at places like our waterfalls or volcanoes. Tourists have passed away or become severely hurt. It puts our emergency responders at risk if tourists are trespassing in dangerous places.

Our beaches and reefs are being degraded for the sake of tourism

Excessive tourist activity is also taking a major toll on Hawaii's fragile island ecosystems.

For instance, the natural sand dunes in Hawaii enable a cyclical restoration of the white-sand beaches. However, the construction of resorts and hotel chains on the dunes disrupts this cycle, preventing the beaches from replenishing lost sand. With the dunes unable to supply fresh sand, the beaches steadily erode away.

I've seen temporary seawalls being built in front of condos and resorts which interrupt the natural cycle of sand migration. We see how degraded our coral reefs, essential for marine wildlife, are in the face of pollution, sunscreen toxins, and careless snorkelers.

We are islands, and we don't have that much land to bury trash in landfills, so excessive rubbish ends up in our waters and damages the ecosystem.

Tourism has perks, but it needs to be managed better

There are some positives to the steady increase in tourists, like those tourists who volunteer with the Red Cross. However, extractive tourism needs to stop. I also want our community to rely on other jobs, because tourism ebbs and flows.

My message to tourists is to visit responsibly, respect local culture, and minimize one's footprint. Support local businesses over chain restaurants, go on tours instead of taking your own or a rented vehicle, make sure you're staying at a legitimate Airbnb or VRBO, and come with respect and gratitude, not entitlement.

Watch: Video shows the devastation from Hawaii wildfires

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Friday, September 6, 2024 80° Today's Paper

Hawaii’s overtourism may get worse than ever

By Lebawit Lily Girma Bloomberg News

May 6, 2023

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CINDY ELLEN RUSSELL / [email protected]

Beachgoers gather on the shores of Waikiki in 2021.

JAMM AQUINO / [email protected]

A tour group crosses Kamehameha Highway toward Turtle Beach in Laniakea in 2021.

In early 2021, Hawaii’s tourism board kicked off a trailblazing plan to inject authentic Native Hawaiian culture into every facet of its visitor industry, using it to help protect its communities and fragile places while deepening the tourist experience. Now, just three years in, the “Malama Hawaii” or “Care for Hawaii” initiative to push sustainable tourism may be on its way out.

As a busy summer travel season impends, Hawaii’s legislators have allocated no funds for the state’s 25-year-old tourism office in the proposed state tourism budget bill for fiscal year 2023-2024, which will kick off on July 1. And late in April, lawmakers considered two bills to disband the Hawaii Tourism Authority and replace it with an agency that would focus less on marketing Hawaii to tourists and more on managing the destination’s resources.

The bill was deferred and HTA remains in place, but numerous knowledgeable people who spoke to Bloomberg predict that excluding the agency in the final budget would significantly curtail HTA’s efforts in managing tourism on the islands.

John De Fries, chief executive officer at the Hawaii Tourism Authority, said in a newsletter that without funding, the HTA’s work in destination management, visitor education and brand marketing work will be jeopardized. The HTA, he said, will be “making tough decisions in the coming days” about canceling existing contracts and “ongoing community work.”

Legislators said the tourism office can tap into $30 million in unused funds from the American Rescue Plan Act to continue managing tourism — equal to half the money that the HTA had requested for the upcoming fiscal year.

All this poses an existential threat to the cultural activities, festivals and community-led volunteer opportunities that have recently made Hawaii such a vibrant place to visit — as well as improved crowd control measures protecting the state’s most fragile places.

Tourism tensions

The friction between legislators and Hawaii’s tourism office is not new. It reached a boiling point in 2019, when Hawaii’s 1.5 million residents watched it become a case study in over- tourism amid 10.4 million annual arrivals. Among the side effects of that unregulated industry: garbage littering popular sights, beaches so crowded you’d have a hard time finding space for a towel, coral reefs suffering from bleaching, traffic snarls caused by selfie-snapping tourists, and sacred places being desecrated by graffiti and spray paint.

For many Hawaiians inside and outside the government, HTA was a victim of its own success marketing the state. And for that, HTA began giving itself a major overhaul.

A leadership of largely white executives was replaced with one almost entirely comprising Native Hawaiians; the agency’s goals were refocused on making tourism more sustainable for everyone.

The “Malama Hawaii” campaign took off. It spread responsible tourism messaging to visitors before and during their trips and created sustainable experiences to help visitors be more mindful of the fragility of Hawaii’s beautiful and sacred places. It also helped disperse foot traffic to reduce the harmful impacts of mass tourism.

The changes helped attract more affluent, higher- spending travelers, which explains why in 2023 the state is projected to bring in a record $1 billion in hotel bed taxes. Those guests, in turn, were happy to contribute to educational community-led activities such as beach cleanups in Kauai, tours of a chocolate farm on Oahu and joining cultural walks in Waikiki.

For some Hawaiian legislators that progress was too slow. The government has since reined in the tourism office’s spending powers, cut off its direct line of funding from hotel taxes and began requiring state approval to award contracts and pass annual budgets.

“The Legislature didn’t think (the change) was going fast enough,” says Frank Haas, president of Marketing Management Inc. and a consultant for the HTA’s 2020-25 strategic plan for sustainable tourism development.

Mondy Jamshidi-Kent, a professor of travel management at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, says some legislators have been committed for at least five years to disbanding the HTA, having made up their minds before De Fries could get to work.

“I’m disappointed to have learned that they don’t incorporate the last three years of statistically measured improvement,” she says, arguing that the current discussions are driven more by emotion than data. ”This is a disturbing threat to our democratic process.”

Jamshidi-Kent speculates that this “new way of tourism,” which centers Hawaiian culture in business operations and adds layers of true accountability, may have been perceived as threatening by certain members of the government. “It doesn’t make sense why the Legislature is trying to fix something that’s working.”

Seeds of sustainability

In a short period, HTA had made measurable progress. More than 25% of mainland visitors to Hawaii surveyed during the fourth quarter of 2022 reported seeing messaging before and during their trip about “caring for and respecting Hawaii’s culture, people, and environment.”

On the sustainability front, a growing number of state parks now require reservations; the 4,000-acre ‘Iao Valley State Monument on Maui just became the fourth state park using an advance booking system for out-of-state visitors, as of May 1. The number of community- run volunteer experiences for tourists via HTA-funded pilot programs led by the Native Hawaiian Hospitality Association, in collaboration with nonprofit organization Travel2change, more than doubled, from 30 to about 70, in recent years.

All this helped improve sentiment among residents about tourism, explains Malia Sanders, executive director of NaHAA. A quarterly survey taken in the fall showed that almost half of 1,949 Hawaii residents surveyed statewide said they believed tourism was being better managed than previously; there was little change, however, in the number saying their own island is being run for tourists at the expense of residents.

What comes next

Those calling for the closure of HTA favor building a different kind of tourism office that would focus exclusively on sustainable management of tourism, not marketing to tourists. It would take time to establish, and it will come with costs.

At risk are programs and experiences that are as valuable to travelers as to locals: HTA-sponsored events like the Hawaii Book and Music Festival on Oahu, which celebrates Hawaiian heritage and cultures through storytelling and song; the Hawaii Food & Wine Festival; the Maui Ukulele Festival; and the Big Island Chocolate Festival. These festivals help put Hawaiian artists and culture in the spotlight, giving visitors a richer experience and locals meaningful revenue streams.

Unless Gov. Josh Green vetoes the proposed state budget, many of these programs would probably suffer cuts in the next three to six months.

“To take all that away is terrifying,” says Sanders of the Native Hawaiian Hospitality Association. Also at risk would be the reservations systems and crowd control measures that are currently mitigating over- tourism in Hawaii’s most fragile and beautiful corners.

One solution would involve rethinking the HTA’s place in the government, giving it authority to work collaboratively with such other agencies as the Department of Land and Natural Resources, says tourism marketing veteran Haas. Goodwill to support such a radical restructuring may be lacking.

Outreach should be a part of any future agency’s mission, argues Sanders. Without it, she asks, “How do we attract the right kind of visitor that is willing to be educated while they are here — willing to contribute and be a part of social change?”

Jamshidi-Kent agrees. Marketing, she explains, makes the difference between telling visitors, “Hey, come to Hawaii, lay on the beach, have a mai tai,” to saying, “Hey, we would love you to come, but remember this is our home. You have to take care of this place.”

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The Case for Caps: Overtourism in Hawaii

In January 2022, the Hawaii Tourism Authority (HTA) marked the first time Native Hawaiians— kanaka maoli —comprised a majority of its 12-member board of directors. As tourism represents the largest industry in Hawaii, around 21 percent of the state’s economy, this situation provided an opportunity for much greater influence and input from kanaka maoli on the policies that effectively determine the fate of their islands. In particular, the Board was exploring changes in fees, reservations, and education policy. At the heart of these changes, the Board discussed the fundamental issue of their mission : Their primary focus shifted from “marketing and brand management” to “destination management.” Through their Destination Management Action Plans (DMAPs), they aim to “rebuild, redefine and reset tourism’s direction,” with a “ focus [on] stabilization, recovery, and rebuilding. ” Unfortunately, these goals still fail to address the fundamental problem of tourism in Hawaii: The islands, their environment, and infrastructure cannot support the sheer number of tourists visiting the islands. To address this, the State of Hawaii must cap the number of visitors it allows into the islands.

Within the United States, Hawaii is one of the most popular tourist destinations. Despite its relatively modest population, Honolulu is the seventh most-visited city in the United States, with a record 2.75 million tourists in 2019. At the time, around 216,000 jobs were directly involved in or depended on the tourism industry. The surplus of tourists in 2019 allowed the State of Hawaii to raise over two billion dollars in taxes, but these benefits aren’t without their consequences.

While tourism is the largest sector of the state’s economy, it is also the root cause of many of Hawaii’s fundamental problems. Tourists, who outnumber locals seven to one, severely strain the infrastructure designed for Hawaii’s small population. Perhaps the lack of water best illustrates this phenomenon. Currently, tourism accounts for 44.7 percent of total water consumption. While local residents suffer from droughts and face restrictions on watering their lawns or washing their cars, the tourism industry enjoys seemingly unfettered access to Hawaii’s water supply. The tourism industry also consumes a significant amount of energy. Researchers from the University of Hawaii at Mānoa found that at one point, hotels and their guests consumed around 60 percent of Hawaii’s fuel and electricity. Even facing the challenges to the tourism sector during the coronavirus pandemic, in 2020, hotels alone were responsible for 8.7 percent of electricity consumption on the island of Oahu. Tourists are also responsible for propagating an already dire affordable housing crisis. For decades, tourists have participated in illegal short-term vacation rentals, eager to capitalize on the islands’ popularity. Expensive rentals on Airbnb and VRBO, and rising prices of homes, condos and apartments make housing practically unaffordable for local communities. Even with surplus taxation from the tourism sector, most of the money from tourism unfortunately leaves the islands in the hands of shareholders of the Hilton, Marriott, and other multinational hospitality companies.

These issues led resident sentiment to turn on tourism in recent years. During Hawaii’s strict Covid-19 policies, some residents claimed that they “got their islands back” on account of the lack of tourists. But when the islands reopened, many called for continued controls on tourism. In July 2021, the Mayor of Maui, for example, asked airlines to pause their post-lockdown frenzy of flights. An additional 2022 survey found that 67 percent of Hawaii residents believed that their island was “being run for tourists at the expense of local people,” and 66 percent supported halting approval of new hotels, condos, and timeshares. This shift in attitude served as an inspiration for the HTA’s new destination management vision. 

One of HTA’s new destination management policies is educating tourists on the concepts of traveling pono (exploring with care) and mālama (to take care of). This change, however, arguably does nothing substantial to curb tourism’s greater effects. A recent effort by Hawaiian Airlines, for example, displayed a five minute video on being a “good tourist,” full of seemingly obvious reminders such as not approaching endangered species. But recent air incidents (such as Southwest Flight 1380, where passengers didn’t know how to use oxygen masks properly) illustrate that many people likely do not pay attention to the in-flight safety briefings. Most importantly, these “crash courses” fail to consider that even educated tourists are still tourists. 

Education isn’t the only nonanswer being propagated in discussions surrounding tourism  in Hawaii. One popular policy pushed by activists and politicians is the instatement of a tourist “green fee,” a $50 per visitor fee that would fund environmental conservation. This policy has already been implemented in other destinations in the Pacific, but their success is questionable. In the Micronesian nation of Palau, for example, a $100 “Pristine Paradise Environmental Fee” added to the cost of flights had little observable effect on the trend of tourism in Palau. In Hawaii, a territory that receives an average of 195 percent more (or an average of 7.45 million more) tourists a year than Palau, a green fee would certainly bring in revenue –about $400 million based on 2019 numbers–but would not do much to address the sheer number of tourists the islands see every year. 

Ultimately, the problem lies in the proximity that the mainland United States has to the island, facilitating the massive influx of tourists. Even amid a pandemic, visits to Hawaii skyrocketed when tourism reopened . Faced with a lack of hotel rooms and rental cars, tourists even resorted to renting out U-Hauls and camping on the beach, while local residents were ordered to decrease their water usage to provide for the resorts. No matter the barriers, economic or otherwise, tourists will flock to Hawaii. Ultimately, the solution to Hawaii’s tourism problem is for the government to step in and limit the amount of tourists allowed to travel to the islands. 

The most straightforward way for the government to limit tourists would be supplementing the proposed “green fee” with a “green cap” on tourists, a policy that has already been implemented  in Bhutan . The HTA and private organizations are already pursuing some similar policies on a smaller scale by enforcing a reservations policy for beaches and state parks in the islands, limiting the number of visitors to popular sites like Diamond Head. According to the CEO of HTA John De Fries, limiting visits to state parks reduces the daily tourist strain on these locations, “ protecting its natural environment and cultural sites.” A similar statewide implementation would reduce the strain on the existing infrastructure. Limiting visitors to Hawaii, however, does raise a cause for concern. As the largest single sector of Hawaii’s economy, a downsizing of tourism would have consequences for the state’s 242,000 employees in tourism, and could send a ripple effect through its connected industries.

Hawaii’s current relationship with tourism is unsustainable for the islands and their residents. But despite the well-intentioned efforts, policies, and proposals of the Tourism Authority and activist groups, these fail to address the root of the problem: tourists put immense pressure on Hawaii’s modest infrastructure–whether it be roads, water, or energy–and educating them or making them pay a fee does not change this. Ultimately, Hawaii must be seen through the words of Maui Mayor Michael Victorino: “a community first and a vacation destination second.” The State of Hawaii must put heavier emphasis on its community, even at the detriment of tourism. Until then, maybe rethink your vacation.

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Here’s Why It’s So Hard To Reshape Hawaii’s Tourism Industry

As recently as early 2020, before COVID-19 wrecked the state’s economy, Hawaii was grappling with a problem much different from today’s economic challenges. The question then was what to do about ever-growing hordes of tourists.

The 250,000 visitors in Hawaii each day equaled nearly a fifth of the state’s population. And residents’ attitudes toward them were plummeting, as visitors took over beaches, hiking trails and homes in neighborhoods that had become meccas for vacation rentals.

Then the virus struck. Tourism shut down under orders from Gov. David Ige. And resident sentiment toward the industry only worsened.

By late 2020, 57% of residents who responded to  a Hawaii Tourism Authority survey in September and October completely or strongly agreed that Hawaii was too dependent on tourism, up from 37% in 2019. Almost a third completely or strongly disagreed that their “island is run for tourists at expense of local people.”

Hawaii Sen. Glenn Wakai echoed others calling for change recently when he expressed frustration about the Hawaii Tourism Authority’s inability to get much traction remaking tourism in the islands during the shutdown.

“We wasted a year,” said Wakai, who heads the Senate Energy, Economic Development and Tourism Committee. “They only have vague generalities. They did nothing to reimagine tourism.”

The tourism authority’s president and chief executive, John DeFries, said the agency has made strides in planning to reshape tourism. He pointed, for example, to a series of destination management plans the agency has crafted , with public input, for Maui, Kauai and the Big Island. A report for Oahu is expected to be finished this summer, he said.

Regardless of what eventually comes from HTA’s work, one thing is hard to dispute — if reshaping tourism is a challenge, doing so during a pandemic is especially hard. One reason policymakers don’t want to make changes that may jeopardize the industry’s recovery: Hawaii needs jobs.

“If you don’t want visitors to come back, it’s the same as not wanting your neighbor to have a job,” said Carl Bonham, executive director of the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization.

Even if it were possible to reimagine tourism, Bonham said, now isn’t the time.

“The whole idea that you could somehow or other, over the course of less than a year, live with an economy with 20 or 30% fewer visitors and have the same number of jobs was never realistic,” Bonham said. “In the short term, and that could be two or three years, it’s all about tourism in terms of getting people back to work.”

Agreements With Vacation Platforms Gather Dust

But even where jobs aren’t an issue, change hasn’t happened.

In some cases, dealing with the pandemic has simply consumed the attention of government officials and business executives to a point that other initiatives have languished. A stalled effort to crack down on unpermitted vacation rentals is a case in point.

Few tourism reforms should have been easier to implement during the pandemic, especially for Honolulu. The issue has support from a rare coalition that includes hotel executives, labor unions, housing advocates and neighborhood groups united against the vacation rentals.

However, property owners and investors see vacation rentals as a way for average folks and small investors to make money from Hawaii’s tourism industry and want more to be legalized.

Critics say illegal vacation rentals bring unwanted tourists into residential neighborhoods, take away housing for residents, and undermine governmental attempts to limit the number of tourists through land-use restrictions. Even tourism executives who benefitted from the recent explosion of tourists from about 8 million annually to more than 10 million in 2019 have said the boom was made possible by the proliferation of illegal vacation rentals .

In November, after years of sometimes acrimonious debate, Honolulu forged agreements with the major vacation rental platforms, Airbnb and VRBO owner Expedia. The agreements require property owners to include property locations on property listings , which would allow officials to determine whether a property was operating legally.

But Honolulu’s city government still hasn’t adopted administrative rules and other steps needed to put the agreement into effect, said Curtis Lum, a spokesman for Honolulu’s Department of Planning and Permitting.

Honolulu also has postponed any action at least until August, he said, which means an expected surge in summer travelers will likely be able to come back into the residential neighborhoods.

Kekoa McClellan, Hawaii spokesman for the American Hotel and Lodging Association, acknowledged that during the early days of the pandemic, the industry shifted its attention away from the short-term rental issue to creating safety policies and procedures for hotels. In that context, he said, it’s understandable that Mayor Rick Blangiardi’s administration also pivoted to dealing with the pandemic and deferred implementing the Airbnb agreement.

“I think they’re committed to it,” he said. “But everybody has only so much bandwith.”

Blangiardi’s office did not respond to an interview request.

Still other efforts are hindered by a lack of common ground and implementation challenges. Consider a proposal to reserve some recreation areas for residents on weekends. The idea has the support of DeFries, Ige and Mike McCartney, director of the Hawaii Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism. All three discussed the idea last week on the Honolulu Star-Advertiser’s “Spotlight” program.

But implementing such a policy is another issue. Dan Dennison, a spokesman for the Department of Land and Natural Resources, said in an email that the agency has not begun developing such a policy.

Laura Thielen, a former DLNR chair who is now director of the Honolulu Department of Parks and Recreation, said it would be nearly impossible to keep people out of most recreation areas. For instance, she said, even trails with seemingly limited access at trailheads can often be reached from other approaches.

Exceptions could be places like the state’s Diamond Head Monument and Hanauma Bay, which is co-managed by the state and city and county.

But she said such a major change should go to the City Council and involve ample opportunities for public testimony. And it’s almost certain that tourism executives would come out against locals-only parks, beaches and trails, even for a day or two per week.

“I have concerns about that kind of policy: a locals-only policy,” said Mufi Hannemann, a former Honolulu mayor who is now president and chief executive of the Hawaii Lodging and Tourism Association.

If the reef in a place like Hanauma Bay needs a break from the crush of visitors, a solution would be to close it to everyone, he said. “Just to give a blanket, locals-only policy: I don’t think that sends the right message.”

Political Process Often Favors Inaction

The political process is also a major obstacle to overhauling tourism since it often favors the status quo. Even modest changes with powerful political support have trouble.

One of Hawaii’s most powerful lawmakers promoted  a bill that would have imposed a so-called “green fee” on travelers to offset the environmental impacts of tourism. While destinations like Palau and Bhutan charge such fees , Hawaii doesn’t.

Sen. Donovan Dela Cruz, chair of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, sought to change that. His proposed $20 per person fee – arguably modest compared to Palau’s $100 fee – would fund conservation jobs to manage Hawaii’s natural resources.

The measure sailed through the Senate but stalled in the House without a hearing , following  opposition from business and tourism organizations . The bill is technically still alive and could be picked up again during the 2022 legislative session.

Jack Kittinger, who runs the Hawaii office of the nonprofit Conservation International, has extensively studied ways to cover the cost of conservation efforts in Hawaii .

Kittinger said travelers have shown a willingness to pay for a COVID-19 test to come to Hawaii, as required by Hawaii’s Safe Travels program. This, he said, shows visitors would be willing to pay a smaller fee.

“You want a willingness-to-pay study?” he said. “You’ve got it. It exists.”

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On Maui, a desperate plea to tourists: Please return

Kirk Siegler

A few tourists stand under a rainbow as the clouds clear at Haleakalā on the island of Maui, Hawaii. Though much of the island is untouched, tourism is down drastically. Claire Harbage/NPR hide caption

A few tourists stand under a rainbow as the clouds clear at Haleakalā on the island of Maui, Hawaii. Though much of the island is untouched, tourism is down drastically.

PAIA, Hawaii — One recent afternoon on Mana'o Radio , broadcasting from Wailuku on Maui, the local disc jockey Forest had a pitch for listeners streaming his Blue Bus show from outside the Hawaiian islands.

"Another way you can support Maui, come here," he said. "The Maui economy relies on tourism, to stay away now will just make the problem worse."

Despite scenes of horrible tragedy in Lahaina on the news in, Forest continued, the rest of the island is open: 730 square miles of beauty isn't burned.

This plea has become a refrain across the island.

Immediately after the deadly wildfires, tourists were turned away. Trips were canceled. Flights were suspended. Some airline apps are still warning against nonessential travel to the island.

Downtown Paia on Monday, some tourist shops are closed and others have adjusted hours. Claire Harbage/NPR hide caption

Downtown Paia on Monday, some tourist shops are closed and others have adjusted hours.

But three weeks since the fires ignited, local businesses and state tourism officials are now making desperate pleas for tourists to return to "the other 75%" of the island that is unscathed.

"It kind of feels like COVID again, where nobody's making money and they're just trying to survive," says Sne Patel, who manages vacation rentals in the resort areas around Lahaina.

Tourism accounts for nearly the entire Maui economy

Last year, tourists spent more than $5.5 billion on Maui. The island typically gets upwards of 3 million visitors a year. State tourism officials don't have an exact number on how many tourists are beginning to trickle back in again — they only count those arriving on planes, many of whom are believed to be aid workers, journalists or homeowners returning to check their properties after the disaster.

But locals estimate the number is a couple thousand at the most. And many of the tourists who are here still feel a little conflicted.

Tourists jump into a pool of water next to a waterfall at Pua'a Ka'a State Wayside Park. Claire Harbage/NPR hide caption

Tourists jump into a pool of water next to a waterfall at Pua'a Ka'a State Wayside Park.

"We were kind of scared. We didn't know if it was looked down upon for coming here," says Kennedy Syrota, as she was eating an ice cream cone in the seaside town of Paia.

Visiting from Canada, she and a friend are touring the Hawaiian islands for a month after graduating college. They decided to come back to Maui after reading a post from the surf hostel where they had planned to stay. It urged tourists to return and help keep local small businesses afloat.

"We were a little hesitant and we still are," Syrota says. "But [after]talking to more people, we know that we wanted to be here and we hope that more people come, as well."

Lahaina isn't for sightseeing

Many longtime locals are also still feeling conflicted. At first, it was unimaginable that anyone would or should vacation around Lahaina. In order to get to all the resorts and golf courses on the west side of Maui, visitors would have to drive through the destruction where urban search and recovery teams are wrapping up their grim work.

"Stay out of Lahaina, this isn't a sightseeing place right now," says Bully Kotter, who lost everything he owns in the Aug. 8 fires. "This place is devastated and it's not very sensitive, thinking about all these people and all the trauma they've gone through."

A memorial stands on the side of the highway that runs through Lahaina. Claire Harbage/NPR hide caption

A memorial stands on the side of the highway that runs through Lahaina.

But Kotter's lived here for almost 60 years. He runs a surf school. The rest of his family works at resort hotels.

Most of them are closed indefinitely.

"I'm conflicted because people have got three months of savings," Kotter says. "What are they going to do? There's going to be a mass exodus of people leaving here."

Bully Kotter runs a surf school in the area. He and his wife, Ashley, lost their home in the fire. Claire Harbage/NPR hide caption

Bully Kotter runs a surf school in the area. He and his wife, Ashley, lost their home in the fire.

A shift from don't come to visit responsibly

A mass exodus is always a big concern after such a huge disaster. But the stakes here may be higher than most considering almost the entire island is dependent on tourism.

There was already a labor and housing shortage before the fires.

The Hawaii Tourism Authority estimates that West Maui is losing more than a million dollars a day since Aug. 8. Statewide, the organization puts that figure at close to $9 million.

A tourist walks up a trail through the trees in Pua'a Ka'a State Wayside Park. Claire Harbage/NPR hide caption

A tourist walks up a trail through the trees in Pua'a Ka'a State Wayside Park.

Sne Patel, the vacation rental manager in Lahaina, is doing all he can to keep businesses afloat. One property that he owns was also destroyed. But standing at his second story balcony, he looks out over much of his neighborhood that's untouched.

"Initially saying that all of Maui was closed ... I don't know if that was the right message," Patel says. "It's hard to bring those individuals back."

Especially, he says, when the images of the devastation are still on loop in TV news footage.

Patel leads the Lahaina Town Action Committee, an advocacy group comprised of 110 local businesses. Almost all of them are believed to have burned down.

He's organizing meetings this week with federal officials and relief agencies and hopes that this area along the coast north of town can be reopened by mid October. That's when the governor's initial disaster declaration runs out.

Tourists take a selfie at sunset on an empty beach in Paia on Monday. Claire Harbage/NPR hide caption

Tourists take a selfie at sunset on an empty beach in Paia on Monday.

"I think the messaging can shift in some capacity to come and visit responsibly," Patel says. "Don't stop where the impact site is, go directly to your resort, stay around the beaches that are right at your resort. "

But some of Patel's longtime guests are telling him that for now, anyway, they just don't want to come and celebrate big milestones or vacation. It's too difficult when their favorite place is suffering from so much tragedy.

• deadly wildfires

Hawaii Turns Over Tourism Marketing to Group Rooted in Local Culture

Dawit Habtemariam , Skift

July 11th, 2022 at 10:00 AM EDT

By choosing a community-centered nonprofit to help craft Hawaii's tourism marketing, the state's tourism authority made a bold statement, severing a century-old relationship with the conventions and visitors bureau. It's sparking controversy, but this is the uneasy path to redefining the future of tourism.

Dawit Habtemariam

The pandemic was cathartic for so many tourism-dependent destinations, for none perhaps more than Hawaii.

During the fall of 2020, nearly two-third of the state residents surveyed said they did not want visitors back on the islands, despite high unemployment from pandemic-sidelined local tourism workers. It was telling for the Hawaii Tourism Authority, or HTA, the state agency that conducted the survey, about the growing concerns over overtourism and how disconnected locals felt from being part of the tourism process.

Fast forward nearly two years later. In early June, the authority awarded a multiyear contract to the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement , a local nonprofit, to help market the islands to the U.S. The contract is set to expire in December 2024 and is worth $34 million. One component of the contract is also destination management.

“What the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement did is put together a group of marketing organizations which complemented their ability to work with the community,” said Frank Haas, president of Marketing Management, a hospitality marketing consultancy that advised the council on its winning proposal and is a member of the transition team.

In the rough-and-tumble world of politics among tourism stakeholders within states, that the authority chose the group over the legacy contract winner, the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau , was incredibly significant, if not a historic shift. The bureau, which had done the marketing for the state for more than a century with strong support from the hotel and airline industries, is now protesting the decision . HTA extended its current contract until September 28 to sort out the protest.

The new partnership with the council represents Hawaii’s latest step toward implementing a “locals-first” approach toward tourism, a movement Skift highlighted for 2022 as a megatrend .

“What I’m cognizant of now is that communities are intently watching the visitor industry,” said Hawaii Tourism Authority CEO De Fries. “About 10 years ago my predecessor could enter into a room of industry colleagues and everyone patted each other on the back. Now when I walk into a space, I’m aware the community is there.”

In years past, the tourism industry was very insular, DeFries underscored, with suppliers like hotels and airlines the key stakeholders having the biggest voices at the table.

Residents now are emboldened to have a greater say on how tourism operates on the islands. This comes as Hawaii’s tourism industry continues to recover from the pandemic. In May 2022, 776, 375 visitors came to the Hawaiian Islands, a 92 percent recovery from prepandemic May 2019, according to the Hawaiian Tourism Authority . 

As tourism resumes, a major focus will be to attract the high-spending but mindful visitor. The mindful visitor “wants to come to experience the culture, the activities and the attractions that are unique to Hawaii and respectful of sacred places and the natural environment,” Haas said. CNHA intends to use big data, analytics and other new tools to target this group and move away from mass marketing, according to Haas.

Another aspect of the shift towards a locals-first approach has been embracing so-called regenerative tourism. Preserving Hawaii’s natural resources and rich culture for future generations is a key focus for HTA. “The regenerative model is important to us at HTA because it mostly models our ancestral teaching as Native Hawaiians,” De Fries said.

Ensuring visitors don’t do harm is key. Visitors are educated on the concept of malama, meaning “to protect, nurture and care for,” according to De Fries. Examples include educating travelers to not leave hiking trails to trespass private property, littering or touching wildlife.

Over three-quarters of visitors from the U.S. East and U.S. West market said they have heard about the importance of caring and respecting Hawaii’s culture, people and environment, according to a visitor satisfaction survey in the first quarter this year by the state’s Department of Business Economic Development & Tourism (DBEDT), which the Hawaii Tourism Authority falls under.

Visitors are encouraged to give back to communities. Last year, the authority launched Mālama Hawaii . Under the program, visitors can volunteer in a community enhancement project and receive a special discount or a free night from a participating hotel. “Feedback we are getting is excellent,” De Fries said. “We are looking for ways to refine and scale it.”

But Mālama Hawaii has a long way to go. At least 85 percent of visitors from the U.S. West and U.S. East have said they do not recall specifically hearing or seeing Mālama Hawaii before or on their trip, according to DBEDT’s visitor satisfaction survey .

“Hawaii has the curse of a strong brand. When you say Hawaii to anyone around the world, they say palm trees, beautiful beaches and wonderful weather,” said Haas. “That is ingrained in the heads of people around the world. To change that takes resources, effort and time. It’s actually a pretty big task.“

To achieve its ambitions, the Hawaii Tourism Authority faces a formidable obstacle: a hostile legislature. Last year, the Hawaiian legislature, after overriding the governor’s veto, passed a bill that reduced the tourism authority’s budget from $79 million to $60 million, removed its state procurement exemption and eliminated its dedicated source of funding: the transient accommodation tax. 

The tourism authority has had to lean on funds from last year and federal money . This year, the legislature passed operating appropriation funds to the agency in a capital improvement projects bill . The governor has said he will veto it and reallocate money from federal funds again to the tourism authority. There remains the possibility the legislature will override the governor’s veto like it did last year.

Nobody said defining new models for tourism would come easy.

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Tags: climate change , coronavirus recovery , hawaii , regenerative tourism

Photo credit: Kauai, Hawaii Karsten Winegeart / Unsplash

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A Year without travel

In Hawaii, Reimagining Tourism for a Post-Pandemic World

Before Covid, ‘tourism was at this point where everything was about tourists.’ With the one-year anniversary of travel’s collapse, the state, like other overtouristed places, is hoping for a reset.

By Tariro Mzezewa

For a visitor who was on the island of Oahu in 2019 when a record 10.4 million people visited Hawaii , returning to Honolulu nearly a year after the onset of the coronavirus pandemic is breathtaking.

At Daniel K. Inouye International Airport, souvenir shops and nearly all food vendors have closed. In neighborhoods around the state’s capital, restaurants and bars, tour operators and travel agencies have shuttered permanently, and many that remain appear to be shells of the popular jaunts they were before the pandemic. Hotels with skeleton staffs. No tourist-filled buses blocking the entrances to attractions. Plenty of room to move on sidewalks without bumping shoulders.

Meanwhile, the state continues to solidify its reopening procedures for travelers from the mainland and international destinations as well as between the islands.

And yet, according to one survey by the Hawaii Tourism Authority, the agency charged with promoting Hawaii around the world, about two-thirds of Hawaii residents say they still do not want tourists to return to the islands.

“Before the pandemic, tourism was at this point where everything was about tourists,” said Lindsey Ozawa, a farmer and chef in He’eia on Oahu. “Tourism had become extractive and hurtful, with tourists coming here and taking, taking, taking, taking, without any reciprocation with locals.”

Mr. Ozawa’s frustrations are felt by people beyond the Pacific, in popular destinations like Machu Picchu, Venice, Barcelona and Iceland, where residents bemoan inconsiderate travelers, damage to natural resources, overcrowding and the rising cost of housing because of short-term rentals created for tourists.

In those places, as in Hawaii, the screeching halt in travel after the World Health Organization’s March 11 declaration of a pandemic provided a moment to reimagine and reconfigure tourism. Without visitors running amok, institutions, government agencies and individuals who work in the travel industry or are touched by it have been searching for ways to change a sector that many describe as a necessary evil or an addictive drug from which destinations need to wean themselves.

In September, representatives of 22 European cities, including Berlin, Bologna and Prague, met with a European Commission leader to call for stricter regulations on short-term vacation rentals. In Venice, officials have taken steps to better manage the city’s crowds by collecting data on visitors’ movements — working from a “smart” control room, CNN reported , officials use phone data to see where tourists are from, how long they spend in the city and which places they visit.

And back in the United States, in November, residents of Key West, Fla., have approved three referendums to limit cruise visitors.

Among the goals of these destinations, as they await the return of visitors, is to make tourism better, not only for guests, but for locals and their communities, and to broaden their economies, so they aren’t almost solely reliant on tourism.

Rethinking state parks

For travelers heading to Oahu, a hike up Diamond Head State Monument is likely on the to-do list. The distinctive silhouette of the crater is as much a part of the quintessential tourist experience as a visit to Waikiki Beach.

In 2019, more than 1.2 million visitors went to Diamond Head. The park was open every day. Staff had to rush to clean bathrooms, which led to lines of irritated visitors. Wear-and-tear was visible from the litter near the summit to the paint on the sign at the bottom of the hike that’s a popular spot for taking photos.

In recent years, getting into Diamond Head has been a frustrating experience for tourists. The combination of tour buses depositing hundreds of guests at the park’s entrance throughout the day, with many others opting to either drive or walk in, led to crowding and long waits to enter the park. Residents said that the overflow into the neighborhood made everyday living exhausting.

Cassandra Springer, a state park ranger, said that people who didn’t prepare for the hike and became dehydrated often had to be rescued . Others regularly strayed off designated areas, saying they didn’t see the signs. Ms. Springer said the badly behaved guests were, at times, overwhelming.

“I’d tell people to stay where they are supposed to, to follow the rules, and I’d go to the summit in the afternoon and talk to people, and say, try to take your pictures, enjoy the view, but please don’t linger, don’t crowd. Other people would like to see the view,” Ms. Springer said. Some would argue with her or try to justify why they were allowed to break the rules.

At Hawaii’s Department of Land and Natural Resources, staff and leaders said they felt the pain of losing tourists and their money in 2020, but they also welcomed the pause to rethink how to run a state park.

After successfully creating a reservation system at Haena State Park on Kauai and at Waianapanapa State Park on Maui, limiting parking spaces and implementing a slew of other changes at the parks, the department turned its attention to Diamond Head.

During the pandemic, the Department of Land and Natural Resources added traffic lights on either side of Kahala Tunnel, which visitors must drive and walk through to enter and exit the park, essentially turning the tunnel into an alternating one-way access route. The pedestrian walkway at the entrance was more than doubled to encourage people to walk in rather than drive. The parking vendor created a designated location for ride-share drivers to drop off and pick up passengers.

Curt Cottrell, an administrator for the Division of State Parks, said that the department has raised prices for nonresidents and hopes to lower patronage into the park in order to make the experience of hiking more enjoyable.

Mr. Cottrell added that making life easier for locals who live in the community was an important part of the process of reimagining the park and how tourists visit it.

As in many other destinations that are rethinking tourism, technology and data are key to making changes. In advance of post-pandemic crowds, the department is culling through pre-pandemic and current data to understand guest behavior. Cellphone information provided by UberMedia and on-site park data allow Ms. Springer and Mr. Cottrell to get an idea of how many guests have out-of-state phone numbers, which of those people are wandering in parts of the park where they aren’t supposed to be, and what time of day they typically arrive and leave, which will inform how the reservation system is set up.

There is currently an effort to implement a reservation system to limit the number of people in the park at any one time, and Mr. Cottrell and Ms. Springer are hopeful that they will be able to offer different prices for different times of day and the year, all changes that the pandemic made possible to reimagine.

“These kinds of changes would enhance the quality of the experience,” Mr. Cottrell said. “Those are the things we want to have in place before we hit, God forbid, the 2019 massive tourism levels again.”

A shift away from tourism

Conversations with locals about tourism and the future of Hawaii tend to fall into three camps. There are the absolutists who say that tourism is destroying Hawaii and should be done away with. Those in this camp tend to believe that the Tourism Authority, which received $79 million in transient accommodations tax funds that are added to the daily cost of guest lodging, should no longer receive funding from the government . That money, they say, should go to local communities.

The second group, the status quo, takes the opposite stance: Tourism should remain the lifeblood of the economy — it’s easy, it works, keeps people employed and everyone knows how to live with it.

The third group, the compromisers, is of the opinion that tourism can and should exist in concert with other sectors like farming, retail, health care and culture, and not trample on them as it has in the recent past.

That last group points to the potential for growth in farming and what are called “green collar jobs,” which grew during the pandemic, as unemployment rose in other sectors of the economy, primarily tourism.

Kako‘o Oiwi is a farm that has been working to restore hundreds of acres of wetlands to their native state by cultivating taro, a root vegetable and once a staple in Hawaii, in abundant, terraced patches. Before the pandemic, the farm’s leaders had been discussing how to amp up its eco-tourism programs. They were surprised when more locals started coming by to work the land last year.

“I realized that people don’t have the time to come here under normal circumstances,” said Mr. Ozawa, the farmer and chef.

Such activities might not be able to replace tourism, but can be added to the tourism economy when it recovers. One of the organizations that has partnered with Kako‘o Oiwi to provide resources and workers is Kupu , a nonprofit that provides service programs in conservation and sustainability.

Last year, with stimulus money from the CARES Act, Kupu hired more than 350 people, many of whom had lost their jobs in hospitality and tourism, as part of its Kupu Aina Corps program. Participants worked on farms and in other community jobs. Between September and December, Kupu produced more than $6.5 million in economic benefit for Hawaii, but ran out of funding.

John Leong, the chief executive of Kupu, said this model could be expanded to offer employment to more people as a means of diversifying the economy and providing those who work in tourism new opportunities and skills.

“There’s an opportunity to tweak tourism so it has more of a values-driven focus, culturally and environmentally,” Mr. Leong said. “We should give people the tourism industry and give them an alternative.”

For tourists around the world, Hawaii’s main draw is its beauty: beaches, parks, fresh air — all natural resources, which, increasingly, locals worry are being harmed by too many tourists. These resources, many point out, can be overused and damaged. They are finite.

“In order for tourism to remain vibrant, the land and community need to be cared for,” Mr. Leong said. “When tourism reaches a point where it extracts without giving back, that threatens community, the environment and more.”

Promoting Hawaiian culture

Nestled in the Kalihi neighborhood of Honolulu, is the Bishop Museum, a natural history museum that focuses on Hawaii’s culture, past and present. During the pandemic, the museum’s team has been developing its virtual memberships, its Japanese language programing and it has doubled down on partnerships with organizations. When the museum opened in June after closing earlier in the year, its 15-acre ​outdoor area became a space for exhibitions and a place to take an audio tour of the gardens, listen to live music and more.

“Part of what the pandemic made a lot of us do is think about what’s important, what we value the most and where to put strategic investments,” said Melanie Ide, the museum’s president and chief executive.

In 1921, the museum endorsed research presented by the anthropologist Louis R. Sullivan at the Second International Eugenics Conference. Mr. Sullivan, with financial support from the American Museum of Natural History in New York, spent time in Hawaii photographing, interviewing and studying locals, with the intention of measuring and classifying the physical traits of a “pure” Native Hawaiian race. Although eugenics has long been discredited, myths about racial superiority being a scientific rather than social construct have perpetuated racism and had traumatic effects on communities in Hawaii and beyond.

The museum’s current exhibition, “(Re)Generations: Challenging Scientific Racism in Hawaiʻi” takes this on. It reappropriates Mr. Sullivan’s own work and uses it to celebrate the ways Native Hawaiians have reclaimed his photographs, plaster busts and tools to learn about their ancestors, genealogy and family. When the exhibition opened in February, 100 years after Mr. Sullivan presented his work, many of the people who attended were the descendants of those who had been prodded and violated by the anthropologist.

The exhibition is also a case study in how to take a different approach to tourism. The show’s curators — the museum’s archive director, Leah Caldera, the archaeology curator, Jillian Swift and the genome scientist and University of California San Diego professor Keolu Fox — said it was created for Hawaiians. Interviews with the families whose stories are a key part of the exhibition, and rather than being spoken for by outsiders, the families speak for themselves. Their heirlooms are included and family histories underscored.

But the exhibition can also be appreciated by tourists looking to learn something new about the islands or Pacific Island cultures more broadly.

By having a program that centers on Hawaiian history and experiences in a space that is frequented by tourists, the museum is sending the message that anyone who enters must be willing to engage with more of Hawaii than its beaches.

“A lot of people come to Hawaii and don’t know where they are except what might be in the popular imagination and culture,” Ms. Ide said. “We hope people who come here can get oriented and grounded in the culture of Hawaii.”

A more regenerative role for tourism

For many Hawaii residents, a large part of rethinking tourism involves rethinking the role of the tourism authority, which was established by the state legislature in 1998 to serve as “the state’s lead agency supporting tourism.” Many Hawaii residents believe that the organization has become too powerful and overfunded, pushing tourism at the expense of everything else.

After the outbreak of the pandemic, Governor David Ige issued an executive order ceasing the disbursement of hotel and other transient accommodation taxes paid by visitors to the agency. Those funds have, since last year, been utilized to support other government operations.

Many are hopeful that John De Fries, who became the chief executive of the Tourism Authority in September, will be able to lead the islands into an era where tourism is more regenerative than extractive. Mr. De Fries is the first Native Hawaiian to lead the organization and business owners who rely on tourism are counting on him to represent their interests as he thinks about how to market the islands in a post-pandemic world.

“We are at a time when our very survival is at stake,” Mr. De Fries said. “We understand that there are currencies other than cash that we have to reconcile. Some of those other currencies are the natural environment, a sense of well-being in the community. There’s currency in ensuring that Hawaiian cultural traditions are and should be protected.”

In January 2020, the tourism authority created a 2020-2025 strategic plan with four pillars or areas of focus — natural resources, Hawaiian culture, community and brand marketing — to manage tourism responsibly going forward. When the pandemic hit, the agency decided to continue working on the plan. In particular, it kept consulting with residents about how they feel about tourism.

Mr. De Fries, who grew up in Waikiki and has seen tourism turn to overtourism over the past three decades, said that his approach for moving forward will emphasize regenerative travel through the Hawaiian ancestral idea of malama which means “to nurture.” The four pillars, he said, will be a guiding force.

“Everyone I talk to — hotel owners, elders, even the people who don’t like tourism — agrees that we all want future generations to have a natural resource base that’s in better condition than it is now, so we have to care for it and anyone with any aloha for this place will understand that.”

It’s a lesson that other overtouristed destinations might learn from.

Paige McClanahan contributed reporting from Europe.

Follow New York Times Travel on Instagram , Twitter and Facebook . And sign up for our weekly Travel Dispatch newsletter to receive expert tips on traveling smarter and inspiration for your next vacation.

An earlier version of this article misstated the status of entrance fees for nonresidents for Diamond Head State Monument in Hawaii. The park has raised the rates.

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Tariro Mzezewa is a travel reporter at The New York Times.  More about Tariro Mzezewa

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Hawaii’s Tourism Plans Marooned Again, Mired in Latest Controversy

Hawaii visitor marketing and communications are stuck again, while the controversy surrounding the Hawaii Tourism Authority (HTA), is unabated. This comes as the contract for the next five years of marketing was abruptly pulled from the likely winner.

The recently rescinded offer from the HTA was to the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau (HVCB), which has been the contractor for the state for many years. When the last long-term contract expired, HVCB was awarded an interim six-month extension.

So this brings up an interesting point about these two players. The HVCB was already in operation before the State Legislature created HTA in 1998. But HVCB can track its history back to 1902 when Hawaii was a territory and a group of businessmen under the auspices of the Chamber of Commerce and the Merchants Association began promoting tourism. It’s had several name changes over the years: Hawaii Tourist Bureau (1919), Hawaii Visitors Bureau (1945), and Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau (1996). The first contract with the state was in 1961 when funding changed from private business to a mix with state funds. It became completely state-funded in 1999 by the newly established HTA.

These problems come as the state is facing a myriad of critically important tourism-related issues that include, but aren’t limited to:

1. Controversial visitor destination management and marketing plans . Hawaii is seeking to attract and educate island visitors in new and important ways. Those include protecting the environment, among other things.

2. Increasing visitor taxes and fees . Visitors are complaining and you see it in comments here on Beat of Hawaii. State legislators are becoming increasingly concerned, too. Awareness is building that there is a tipping point at which over-taxation will produce unwanted results. Aloha needs to be retained and therein, a good communication and marketing arm is critical but missing.

3.  Fast-encroaching over-tourism . Hawaii is preparing to exceed all prior visitor numbers, first domestically, then internationally.

4. Alienation of visitors . There’s no doubt that visitors are feeling unsure about how welcome they are in Hawaii. That too is obvious in the comments. And that’s a key role in any destination’s tourism management.

Hawaii legislature digs into tourism planning.

A bill now in the state senate (SB1065 – included below) seeks to inject legislative controls on HTA in order to address, “the effects of tourism on Hawaii’s economy, environment, and way of life for residents… [and this] opportunity to rethink and transform Hawaii’s tourism industry for a post-pandemic world in a manner beneficial for Hawaii and its future.” The bill directs the “Hawaii Tourism Authority to develop a tourism management plan that includes tourism marketing, best practice destination management, and regenerative tourism”

What’s the HTA/HVCB controversy about this time?

It was expected that HVCB would again win the new contract. It isn’t clear why their proposal has been rejected, or whether they will indeed be the selected vendor. As recently as last week, our coconut wireless said to expect this to be resolved within days. Now, however, that isn’t at all clear. The current interim contract will expire in June.

Hawaii’s state research arm is at odds with HTA.

UHERO, the University of Hawaii research arm for the State of Hawaii came out swinging recently with its critical take on upcoming changes to Hawaii tourism plans. Among other things, there is concern that HTA’s controversial plans tend to marginalize tourists, while at the same time not having the backing of the state or the authority needed to ever be implemented.

Hawaii has been crafting tourism plans starting over forty years ago. . However, UHERO pointed out that “until now, the State’s policy toward tourism has been to accommodate its growth. With HTA’s new [plans]… that is about to change!”

Oahu’s plan to reduce tourism:

• Decrease the total number of visitors to Oahu to a manageable level by controlling the number of visitor accommodations and exploring changes to land use, zoning and airport policies.

UHERO said however that they “are not convinced that HTA can achieve this or any of the other actions because they lie beyond HTA’s capacity. Further, they say the state’s research arm intends to subsequently address whether they even believe that “reducing the number of visitors would actually be good for the community.”

• BOH: This important discussion is further unfolding amid this round of HTA/HVCB controversy  and UHERO’s take on it.

Oahu destination management plan.

“By 2024, together with the community, the visitor industry will be rooted in mālama — to take care of this place and each other. Oahu will live in joy, abundance, and resilience because visitors and residents understand what is pono, and have respect for each other and the environment.”

The number one goal stated in this plan is to reduce tourism. Following that, improving infrastructure and visitor sites, and communications programs follow. Not far after that comes “regenerative tourism fees” to fund the protection of natural resources.

As pointed out by UHERO, “HTA lacks authority over state and county agencies.” They have made that point repeatedly. The research group also calls out that costs associated with the implementation of the proposed plans have not been addressed. UHERO said, “it is a serious shortcoming as State lawmakers passed legislation during the last session requiring HTA to compete for funding from the general fund; moreover, there is no guarantee that other agencies have funds available….”

UHERO says Hawaii should instead “focus on tourism governance” not tourism reduction.

They point out that while Hawaii is “very good at crafting tourism plans… the problem has been ineffective implementation….”

So what is tourism governance and what is its importance? Sustainable tourism is likely to be achievable, according to UHERO when there’s effective governance. So just what is that?

UHERO defines it as “a process whereby different stakeholders interact in order to solve problems and find opportunities for the different sectors involved … It is the coordinated participation of all stakeholders in the tourist destination with a view to achieving shared goals.”  What is needed is coordination across all state government, industry, and community stakeholders.

The state of Hawaii clearly doesn’t have effective tourism governance. That was acknowledged by the HTA as far back as 2015 when it said it “did not have sufficient authority or resources to require others to help carry out that plan or to constantly monitor and oversee what was being done by others. Therefore, the new [plan]… is an ‘HTA’ plan only, though it recognizes the need to work with partners and stakeholders.”

HTA’s tourism plans are not State of Hawaii’s tourism plans.

UHERO concludes, “As the latest HTA tourism strategic and action plans are not State plans, they only required approval by the HTA board and not by state lawmakers or other agencies. Why should we expect the outcome to be any different this time?… HTA, despite its good intentions, is still plagued by structural shortcomings that have not been remedied.”

UHERO said previously that “three conditions are required to successfully manage a destination: 1.) Authority to take action, 2.) Sufficient resources to implement actions, and 3.) A long-term strategic view. Hawaii doesn’t meet these conditions.”

What is needed is a plan capable of governing tourism across all jurisdictions, agencies, functions, and stakeholder groups. “The long-term solution for tourism sustainability will require buy-in and participation from a broad range of stakeholders.”

In summary, UHERO states that “over-tourism has become a much larger social issue since the 1970s. The problem with Hawaii’s strategic planning process for tourism is that Hawaii has put massive efforts into developing tourism plans but has put little effort and thought into developing a governance system to ensure that plans are successfully implemented. That has to change.”

BOH: We concur with UHERO’s findings. Toothless HTA plans are just that. Furthermore, unless they are well thought out and become the State of Hawaii plans with appropriate “tourism governance,”  they’re  bound to both fail, and to further alienate Hawaii’s visitors.

We welcome your input.

Updated 3/22/22.

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167 thoughts on “hawaii’s tourism plans marooned again, mired in latest controversy”.

Thanks for attaching the SB regarding HTA. Having served in government I want to point out a few things:

1.) Keep an eye on WHO those employees and consultants are. This is TAXPAYER’S MONEY and a quick leak are those 2 places.

2.) Anyone else catch the reference to “selling and building a convention center?” More tax money spent and another typical money leak.

3.) I’m impressed with the the concept of county control so long as oversight of the funds’ utilization is maintained. Good luck!

Thanks to the military and Providence, we lived in Hawaii. Having lived there, we feel we have a vested interest. The last time we visited we helped 808 clean up a beach, and will surely do so this time. We want to keep Hawaii beautiful. We have come back to visit often, but this time when our booking car rental, the taxes were half as much as the total rental price. We love Hawaii, and we hate to see everything about the almighty dollar. The tax-tipping time is rapidly approaching for us.

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‘Let Maui heal’: Grieving Hawaii residents want tourists to go home

Maui’s tourism machine never stops, but residents who are reeling from wildfires need a break

While the Maui wildfires became the deadliest in the U.S. in a century, the 1,500-acre resort hub of Wailea was salvaging business as best as it could.

South Maui properties from premium brands such as the Four Seasons, Hyatt, Marriott and Waldorf Astoria were advised to shelter their guests, keep the roads clear and use their hospitality infrastructure to support relief efforts.

With Lahaina in crisis, workers who could get to their jobs faced difficult decisions. For one dancer in luau shows, that meant deciding whether to show up for a shorthanded crew or spend time cooking and making Costco runs for displaced family members. Two of his siblings lost their homes. His wife’s auntie lost her life. In an interview with The Washington Post, the performer said he felt remorse over going into work. He spoke with the conditions that he remain anonymous and that his employer not be named to protect his night job.

Maui wildfire updates

“I shouldn’t be here,” the man said he was thinking while dancing. “Everyone that I told that I had to work, they were in shock. Like, ‘Why are you working?’ They couldn’t believe that a luau is going down. It’s embarrassing. I should be there for my community.”

As Maui reckons with catastrophe , many residents have been questioning whether the tourism businesses that fund their livelihoods should continue during a tragedy.

“There are two camps,” said Somerset Tullius, a Los Angeles resident who was born and raised on Maui and who flew home to the island the day after the fires to help her family. When she landed, she started working with the Maui Rapid Response Instagram page to coordinate relief efforts.

“One camp is, ‘Let Maui heal, we don’t need you here right now,’” Tullius continued. “And the other camp is like, ‘Hold on a second, this is my main form of income. I have to suck it up or else what else am I going to do?’”

For the luau dancer, showing up wasn’t easy.

“I could have said no, but it’s my job, and it’s my responsibility to show up for work,” he said. “But it was hard for me to do. … I wasn’t present while I was dancing. I could only think about my family.”

How to help or donate to Hawaii residents displaced by Maui wildfires

Snorkelers spark controversy

Two days after Lahaina burned to the ground, a 53-foot dive boat departed for a half-day snorkel trip about 15 miles south of the disaster site. From the highway en route to Lahaina, Miki‘ala Makanamaikalani Pua‘a-Freitas — a Maui native and the founder of Kapuna Farms in Waihe’e Valley — spotted the excursion and started recording the scene.

“Shame on this company right here — Maui Snorkeling,” Pua‘a-Freitas said in a video she posted to her Instagram account the next day. “Look at all these tourists just frolicking in the waters off of Lahaina. Unreal.”

In the more than 700 heated comments on the post, Instagram users were divided over whether tourism should go on during a tragedy.

Mark Elmore, the owner of Maui Snorkeling, insists the publicly shamed tour wasn’t actually an example of putting profits over people. The trip, he said in an interview, had been planned before the worst of the fires, and was carried out as a fundraiser. A screenshot of a receipt reviewed by The Washington Post shows a payment of $10,265.88 to the Maui Food Bank , representing 100 percent of the trip’s profit.

“It’s really hard to serve people mai tais when your family and your friends and everyone is suffering.” — Somerset Tullius, a Los Angeles resident who was born and raised on Maui

Elmore’s company is working with PR Security Service, a crisis communications and management firm that focuses on reputation repair and social media response, according to the company’s website . Maui Snorkeling has posted an apology on its website and its Facebook page . The PR firm showed The Post a screenshot of a social media message from Maui Snorkeling to a customer in which the company said it was rescheduling a tour set for the day after the fires and planned to donate all proceeds from its next booking. The message has a timestamp for Aug. 9, well before the Instagram callout was filmed.

Elmore told The Post he wished he had “telegraphed our intentions a little better.” Speaking of the criticism, he said “it came fairly quick and caught me off guard, but I certainly understand.”

For locals, however, the optics of tourists snorkeling were incredibly painful.

“The boat tours that went out to Lahaina the very next day taking people snorkeling was like a stab in the heart,” April Boone, owner of the Tropical Goddess boutique inside the Andaz Maui at Wailea Resort, said in a text message.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Mikiʻala Makanamaikalani Puaʻa-Freitas (@kapunafarms)

Boone, who has been focusing her time on volunteering with relief efforts, says the unfolding tragedy feels as devastating as a terrorist attack. She doesn’t think visitors realize the gravity of the situation, that people working in tourism are still waiting on DNA test results to see if their loved ones were among the 106 fatalities confirmed as of Wednesday morning.

“I think people should respect the Hawaiians [and] Maui and give the locals time to grieve without having to worry about interacting with extra tourists,” Boone said. “This is not Disneyland. This is our home.”

A tourism-driven economy

Even with Lahaina in ashes, tourism is inescapable in Maui.

About 70 percent of every dollar generated in Maui can be attributed to the visitor industry either directly or indirectly, according to the Maui Economic Development Board, which calls tourism “irrefutably the ‘economic engine’ for the County of Maui.” In 2022, total visitor spending on Maui was $5.69 billion , according to the Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism.

“To a degree we are so dependent on other people,” said Native Hawaiian Kaimanamālie Brummel, a former luxury concierge who’s now the director of advancement for Seabury Hall, a private school in Upcountry Maui.

“We’re dependent on people coming here and spending money. We’re dependent on ships coming here,” Brummel said. “We’re not growing our own food, and that’s really frustrating because we never wanted it to be that way.”

Seeing vacations continue unimpeded feels like an added blow.

“The way I’ve been framing it for a really long time is people have felt entitled to our land, to our culture, to our people, and now they’re feeling entitled to our grief,” Brummel said.

Vandalism, tantrums and narcissism: Entitled tourists are out of control

As days pass, Brummel says the community is discovering additional impacts from the fires. The area is home to many eco- and farm tourism businesses, as well as restaurants that rely on travelers’ dollars. At her school, there are students and staff who have lost everything either in the Lahaina fires or those in the Upcountry.

“We were already an isolated, under-resourced community with a lot of people living on the edge of poverty, and now we’ve had this tragedy on top of that,” she said.

‘The rest of Maui is still open’

Hawaii Gov. Josh Green (D) issued an emergency proclamation Sunday declaring that nonessential travel to West Maui was “strongly discouraged.” The proclamation noted that “visitors in West Maui have largely heeded the call to leave the island, and hotels and other accommodations are needed for displaced residents and emergency workers.”

The Hawaii Tourism Authority echoed that message in an update to its website Monday, saying that the stance is in effect through this month. It noted that hotels in the area — which includes Lahaina, Napili, Kaanapali and Kapalua — have temporarily stopped taking future bookings.

But it did not warn travelers away from visiting other parts of Maui, including Kahului, Wailea, Kihei, Hana and Wailuku. Earlier advisories from officials strongly discouraged nonessential travel to the whole island and urged tourists to leave; the narrowed focus on West Maui has led to criticism as locals and advocates ask visitors to stay away. (A spokesman for the authority, T. Ilihia Gionson, did not address a question about that criticism.)

“The lack of empathy and seeming like your vacation is more important than the tragedy … that happened in these people’s lives — that’s what’s upsetting,” said CarrieAnn Randolph, who grew up on Oahu and left Hawaii in 2013, and still has family on the island, as well as the Big Island and Maui. Her cousin lost his Lahaina home in the wildfire.

Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen said during a recent news conference that the message has been to avoid West Maui, “but the rest of Maui is still open. We’re not shut down, we’ve not shipped anyone out, we’ve not asked anyone to leave.” Green, the governor, said that if no one traveled to the island, it “would be potentially catastrophic.”

“We probably would see a mass exodus from Maui,” he said.

Tourists are still arriving, lounging by resort pools and posting about their vacations on social media.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by ʻĀina Momona | Moloka’i (@ainamomona)

Tullius said Maui’s dependence on tourism is “very complicated” because workers need to earn money but may also resent visitors for enjoying themselves during such a dark time.

“It’s really hard to serve people mai tais when your family and your friends and everyone is suffering,” she said.

Actor Jason Momoa, who was born in Hawaii, has been one of the most prominent figures to join the chorus of local voices discouraging tourism.

“Maui is not the place to have your vacation right now. DO NOT TRAVEL TO MAUI,” he recently posted on Instagram . “Do not convince yourself that your presence is needed on an island that is suffering this deeply.”

Callback to covid

The pleas are reminiscent of a widespread sentiment felt during the pandemic. Two years ago, as coronavirus cases rose, then-Gov. David Ige (D) asked tourists to stay away. Residents implored the visitors who did come to be respectful amid a spate of bad tourist behavior, including faking vaccination cards and trespassing into clearly marked private property.

That summer, as locals grappled with a water shortage and restrictions on Maui, “stop coming” became a rallying cry on social media. The county’s mayor asked airlines to bring fewer visitors as restaurants and other businesses struggled to keep up with an influx of tourists, the Associated Press reported .

But even with a mandatory 14-day quarantine in place from March to October 2020, then a longer-lasting “Safe Travels” program with protocols that required testing or vaccination , mainlanders continued traveling to Hawaii en masse .

“This conversation intensified during the pandemic, but has been happening for decades prior, possibly since the beginning of the hospitality industry in Hawaii,” said Maui-born Kainoa Horcajo , a cultural adviser and founder of Mo‘olelo Group, a consulting firm specializing in Hawaiian culture and communications.

With the fires intensifying the conversation yet again, Horcajo has heard from both sides of the issue including some calling for a total shutdown of the tourism industry. He understands the argument but believes it would impact “massive amounts of people,” “and that’s creating another disaster where there was just one,” he said.

Business as usual?

With such arguments looming, tour operators find themselves in a double bind.

“There are so many people that have just taken off work, they’ve spent down their vacation days or their companies just closed up out of sensitivity, and they’re asking themselves, ‘We got to open back up. How do we do it in the right way?’” Horcajo said. “I don’t think there is a blanket approach.”

Pua‘a-Freitas, who shared the video of the Maui Snorkeling tour, emphasized she is not opposed to tourism, but called for sensitivity.

“People will never be able to look at these beaches, these waters, these places, these spaces that brought us so much joy and happiness,” she said. “It’s also a place of remembrance for a lot of pain. We can’t just be like, ‘Oh, a few days passed, let’s go back to what we were doing.’ I’m sorry, we’re going to have to all pause and really move forward with a better conscience.”

Helen Taras, office manager of Hana Tours of Maui, says the company began running tours this weekend after being closed for a few days out of respect. “We’re heartbroken about what’s happened, but we also want to help people keep their jobs so we can help them and they can help their family and friends,” she said.

Send us your Maui memories

Kevin Ditamore, co-owner of the tour operator Adventure Maui, said that while his company will be donating 20 percent of the proceeds from Maui bookings for the rest of the year, they’re struggling.

“Just about everything for the first week [of the fires] was canceled, so that was a significant loss,” said Ditamore, who’s lived back and forth between Maui and Kauai for 25 years. He started his business in Lahaina; the office he rented in 2002 is now gone, as are two of the houses where he once lived.

“This also really hurts because it’s coming on the heels of the covid pandemic where we were all closed for a year,” Ditamore added. “We were just in full-blown recovery, and when this happened, it really hurt.”

Horcajo says every individual and family may have to decide for themselves what’s right. That includes tourists.

If someone does want to keep their trip to Maui, Brummel asks them to do so with empathy. Even if they’re staying in or visiting parts of the island that weren’t burned, everyone on the island has been affected heavily. “We are trying to figure out how to welcome and host people while trying to reconcile what this means for our community,” she said.

It’s not the time for a standard beach vacation, she added. Only come if you’re ready to respect the culture in addition to the island’s physical beauty.

“I need people to know that culture is based on this land and the people who live here,” she continued. “You can’t like the culture and the food without loving the people.”

A previous version of this article misstated when the Maui Rapid Response Instagram page was founded and who founded it. Nicole Huguenin started it in March 2020 for pandemic relief efforts. Somerset Tullius is a contributor. This version has been corrected.

Wildfires in Hawaii

What’s happening: After the deadly wildfire in Maui devastated the town of Lahaina, people search for their loved ones as they face the devastation of losing homes , schools and businesses .

How did the fires start? Officials have not announced a cause, though video and data shows it was probably power lines . The spread of nonnative grasses and hurricane-stoked winds could have been factors, along with the indirect influence of climate change .

What areas have been impacted? Fires burned across multiple Hawaiian islands — these maps show where . The town of Lahaina on the island of Maui suffered widespread damage, and historical landmarks across the island were damaged . These photos show the extent of the blaze .

Can I help? Many organizations are accepting donations to assist those affected by the wildfires. Visitors returning to West Maui are encouraged to practice regenerative tourism .

The controversy over Hawaii Tourism Authority's CEO Rex Johnson continues

By Leland Kim - bio | email

Three Republican State Senators joined the call for the resignation of Rex Johnson Friday, saying he should no longer be in charge of the state's most vital industry.

But Johnson's supporters continue to insist he is the right person to lead the organization, especially during these slow economic times.

The beautiful view of Waikiki is the picture the Hawaii Tourism Authority wants the world to see.

While Johnson's mostly republican opponents continue to insist this is not a partisan issue, it appears the controversy is shifting focus from the business of tourism to Johnson's future.

Waikiki and the rest of Hawaii are facing a slump.

Tourism is down by as much as 20 percent from a year ago.

But the controversy surrounding the Hawaii Tourism Authority, CEO, Rex Johnson is still red hot. This more than a month after he admitted sending inappropriate and x-rated content from his work e-mail account.

Senator Gordon Trimble is the latest to call for Johnson's resignation.

"His views and actions are not my views," said Trimble. "They do not represent the residents of Waikiki, or the businesses that operate in Waikiki. It is time we put this sad incident behind us."

Johnson apologized and was able to keep his job at a reduced salary.

"He clearly made a mistake and he admitted it, and I think it's completely unfortunate,"said Hawaii Hotel and Lodging Assoc. President, Murray Towill. "He's been punished by the Authority. I guess everyone would like to move on if we can,"

Senator Trimble, who's up for re-election this fall says that's not enough especially since Hawaii tourism is suffering.

"It was not an inadvertent mistake. It was a pattern of behavior," said Senator Trimble.

The head of the Hawaii Hotel Association has known Johnson for 25 years..

"He's provided real leadership for the HTA, and provided direction for them and came on board at a time when they needed that," said Trimble.

"He may be a capable administrator, but he doesn't seem to have the image Hawaii needs to put forth now and that is why he should step down," he said.

Two different visions for the future of the Hawaii Tourism Authority.

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