Showing posts with label Tourism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tourism. Show all posts

Friday, May 23, 2025

FREE HAWAI`I NEWS SHORT


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PROGRESS FOR HAWAII AT THE UNITED NATIONS

WATCH IT HERE

Want More? Watch The Full Episode Here - FreeHawaiiNews.com




Friday, May 16, 2025

FREE HAWAI`I NEWS SHORT


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WHY DONʻT THE COOK ISLANDS WANT TO BE LIKE HAWAII?

WATCH IT HERE

Want More? Watch The Full Episode Here - FreeHawaiiNews.com




Wednesday, April 23, 2025

FREE HAWAI`I TV
THE FREE HAWAI`I BROADCASTING NETWORK

 

"IS THIS THE END OF TOURISM IN HAWAI`I?"

 

We Have Shocking News About Hawai`i Tourism.

The Head Of Tourism Says “Tourism As We Have Known It Is Over.”

Itʻs The Moment So Many Have Been Waiting For.

Watch This to See Why Itʻs A Huge Opportunity For Hawai`iʻs Future.

 

Saturday, April 19, 2025

TOURISM AS WE HAVE KNOWN IT IN HAWAI`I IS OVER



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Travel Weekly - April 16, 2025

Envisioning revolutionary changes for Hawaii's tourism industry, Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau CEO Aaron Sala said at the Travel Weekly Hawaii Leadership Forum on April 15, "Tourism as we have known it is over."

Sala was hired last September, coming to the HVCB as a business entrepreneur and educator. As president and CEO of Gravitas Pasifika, he led a boutique firm dedicated to advancing Native Hawaiian talent.

Sala's hire is in line with Hawaii tourism's movement toward prioritizing the well-being of Native Hawaiians (including tourism workers), environmental protection and cultural preservation, while de-emphasizing growth in visitor numbers.

"The traditional model is not just outdated, it is extractive, colonial, dangerously romantic," he said. "It asked communities to perform authenticity while their futures were auctioned off for occupancy. It celebrated arrivals while silencing the voices of those displaced by rising rents and eroding shorelines. And yet this traditional approach remains the one too many are still polishing, buffing the rust off a machine that was never built to serve all of us in the first place.”

Sala said that he did not come to the HVCB to maintain the status quo, but rather to end it. He described this as a transformational time for Hawaii and the HVCB, and he looks forward to building more partnerships and collaborations.

"Whether we recognize it or not, our campaigns, our inventories, our itineraries, they all play a role in larger geopolitical narratives, narratives of dependency, narratives of dominance, narratives of dispossession," he said. "Let us not pretend that we are doing enough or that we are doing it fast enough. Too many of us are still acting like [the tourism numbers we had in] 1995, or 2019 even, might come back if we just market it better. But neither of those worlds is real, neither of those worlds is returning.”

A Call For A 'New Tourism Compact'

Sala said he wanted to share this message as a call to action, so that others in the industry can work together with the HVCB to reconstruct its strategy and models. He refers to the HVCB as "becoming a destination futures enterprise, a force for cultural stewardship, economic innovation and geopolitical fluency."

"In addition to the work that we are doing to reimagine ourselves internally as a visitors and convention bureau, through strategic efforts of our team, we challenge all of you to join us in the co-creation, perhaps, of a new tourism compact," he said. "That compact is meant to be a global framework rooted in regenerative principles, cultural integrity and systemic equity. We want to do this together. Partner with us on innovation pilots, if you have an idea, if you're a wholesaler, if you're a hotelier, if you work in airlines and you have an idea that makes sense to partner with us, bring that idea to us."

Sala's words sparked discussion during the wholesaler/tour operator panel, which gave positive and optimistic feedback about the HVCB's shift.

"I love the fact that they're asserting their leadership and basically wanting to communicate the proper message and controlling the narrative of what Hawaii is. I think a lot of things they're doing is fantastic, and we're happily supporting it," said David Hu, president and CEO of Pleasant Holidays.

Ray Snisky, group president of ALG Vacations, said that it's a different approach "that's badly needed," and he is confident that it can be done when stakeholders work together.

"I have a tremendous amount of optimism," he said.

Snisky said the next step is "forming an execution plan and doing that together….”

Friday, September 20, 2024

FREE HAWAII NEWS SHORT


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

IS THIS THE ANSWER TO HAWAIIʻS TOURISM HEADACHE? - Watch It Here

Want More? Watch The Full Episode Here - FreeHawaiiNews.com


Wednesday, April 19, 2023

FREE HAWAI`I TV
THE FREE HAWAI`I BROADCASTING NETWORK

 

"GREEDFLATION SMACKS HAWAI`I

 

Responsible Hawai`i Tourism Seemed Like A Good Idea.

A Higher Quality Of Tourists Learning Aloha `Aina.

But Then Foreign Profiteers Got Involved Ready To Make A Killing.

Watch This To See How Greedflation Is Taking Hold Of Tourism & A Solution To Stop It.
 

Wednesday, December 14, 2022

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"WHY THE US TELLS HAWAIIANS TO DROP DEAD”
 

Itʻs Usually Only Whispered About.

Then It Rears Its Ugly Head Right Before Your Eyes.

You Can See Whatʻs Been Right Below The Surface All The Time.

Watch This To Discover What It Is & Why It Exists.
 

Tuesday, October 04, 2022

 BE A PART OF THIS TOMORROW


 

Wednesday, June 08, 2022

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"A BREAKTHROUGH FOR HAWAIIANS?"

 

Itʻs Controversial But It Sure Looks Like a Breakthrough.

Hawai`iʻs Tourism Messaging Will Now Be In The Hands Of Hawaiians.

It Happened In A Very Surprising & Unexpected Way.

Watch This For Details & The Surprise Of Who Got Put In Charge.

Then Share This Video Today With Your Family & Everyone You Know.

 

Friday, May 20, 2022

HOW THE PANDEMIC SHOOK HAWAIIAN TOURISM










SeattleMet - March 22, 2022


Waikiki was like a ghost town in the middle of 2020. Instead of sunburned bodies sardined on the Hawaiian beach or the high-pitched squeals from tourists as their feet touched the warm ocean, there was just the sound of the wind and waves crashing on the shore.

For Starr Kalahiki, Native Hawaiian jazz singer and activist, those early quarantine days fostered healing—for both the land and the locals. “The response was immediate. The land was so, so happy,” she says from her blue-walled bedroom in Moanalua, about 10 miles northwest of Honolulu’s famous beach. “In Waikiki, you could smell the lipoa, you could smell the seaweed. You didn’t smell suntan lotion.”

Two hundred miles away, on Hawai’i Island, photographer Kapulei Flores felt the same: “It was so nice to be able to go to the beach and not have to worry about if it’s gonna be crowded. Just being able to freely walk around your own community, your own ’āina, was the best part.”

But for others, the change felt apocalyptic. Airports had no traffic; neither did the freeways. Streets weren’t flooded with people, hotels and restaurants were desolate. With tourism as the state’s biggest industry, Covid threw Hawai’i for a loop—and the islands already struggle with the effects of visitors.

A 1973 Seattle Daily Times article proclaimed the 50th state an ideal travel spot for Washingtonians: “Hawai’i is a destination that has just about everything for the vacationer, from the high-rise finery of bustling Waikiki to the quiet scenery of the neighborhood islands.”

In 2019, Hawai’i had a record year, bringing in 10.4 million tourists from around the globe—two million of those from Washington. Pre-pandemic, 170,000, on average, left Sea-Tac Airport for the islands every month. But when Covid hit, Hawai’i governor David Ige proclaimed a 14-day quarantine for all incoming travelers. The slightest violation of his restrictions would be met with a pricey fine or up to a year in prison.

For those first 10 months of 2020, total visitor arrivals in Hawai’i dropped 75 percent, from 30,000 to less than 1,000 per day. Travel from Washington to the islands declined only 35 percent to about 730,000 for the entirety of the year.

Though the pause in travel kept Hawai’i as one of the lowest Covid-infected states in the U.S., its unemployment skyrocketed, going from two percent to 20: “We went from the lowest unemployment to the highest in the whole United States in one month,” says Jerry Agrusa, travel industry management professor at the University of Hawai’i.

Then quarantine exceptions expanded, allowing visitors to bypass it with a negative test. The pre-travel testing program led to the highest number of visitors since before Covid in just the first month, and nearly half of those travelers flew out of Sea-Tac.

By the time 2021 came around, talk of a “hot-vaxxed summer” lingered in the air. Although Seattle logged record-breaking temperatures in June, nothing stopped Washingtonians from trading Golden Gardens for the North Shore.

Yet visitors cheated isolation requirements, ignored mask mandates, and even falsified vaccination cards—one forger was arrested with a fake card that read “Maderna” instead of Moderna. As delta spiked, the state saw some of the highest case numbers they’d seen all pandemic and Ige pleaded, “Now is not a good time to travel to Hawai’i.”

Covid cases and hospitalizations can be tallied and the number of tourists that entered each island can be counted, but it’s harder to determine a diminishing land. “How do you quantify ’āina that is eroding because there’s too many hikers?” says O’ahu singer Pōmaika’i Keawe. At Diamond Head State Park near Honolulu, a park coordinator counted more than 500 people on the trail one day last summer, despite Hawai’i’s social distancing measures.

In 2020, Hawai’i Tourism Authority tried to remedy the tourist problem, announcing a six-year plan that consists of reservation requirements for state parks, conservation fees, and even educational videos that spread cultural and environmental awareness. The plan hopes to change the stigma surrounding tourism and challenge visitors, giving them a more authentic experience. Agrusa thinks the real problem is there are just too many tourists.

Tourism has never been a black-and-white issue for Hawai’i. For many, the hospitality industry is their main source of income and is the main driving force for the state economy. But its effects are complicated. “Everyone equates Hawai’i with tourism,” says Agrusa, “but our real problem is housing.”

It started with short-term vacation rentals. During the 1980s, O’ahu was littered with STRs. Visitors intruded residential neighborhoods and by 1989, the island made them illegal. But in 2019, there were still an estimated 33,118 STRs statewide, and they contributed to the shortage of affordable full-time rental homes.

Some renters in Hawai’i spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing costs. Home value and property taxes continue to rise, pricing out many local residents who already struggle to stay in their homes. Still, out-of-state investors continue to buy up houses, condos, and apartments, especially in Waikiki. “We’re being uprooted for corporate foreign entities and companies who do not care about the land or the people or the effects,” says photographer Kapulei Flores.

Struggles over land are nothing new in Hawai’i, nor are how they intersect with its tourism. Mauna Kea, the globe’s largest mountain, is a premier site for astronomical observatories—and a popular visitor attraction. It is home to more telescopes than any other peak. When plans for another observatory were announced, Native Hawaiians protested the additional intrusion on a sacred space. Kia’i mauna, mountain protectors, have been protesting the installation since 2014. “We are doing our best to preserve what

we can so you can continue to come back,” says Keawe. “But you’re not going to have the same Hawai’i to come back to if you’re not helping us care for this place, and learn who we are, and why these places are important to us.”

In late 2021, locals in the state’s biggest city were dealt another blow. As tourists worried about restaurants being open for indoor dining, 93,000 people couldn’t even drink their own water—it was laced with petroleum from the nearby Navy fuel farm on O’ahu. This isn’t the first occurrence either. Since its creation in the 1940s, the well has leaked 180,000 gallons of gasoline into Hawai’i’s drinking water.

As mask mandates fell across the country, Hawai’i has remained the sole holdout with a statewide rule ending March 25. Two years into the pandemic, singer and activist Starr Kalahiki still has hope for a change in how outsiders affect life in Hawai’i; she imagines a world for both outsiders and Natives.

“What I wish is that it would be understood how sacred this place is and that it would be honored as such,” Kalahiki says, crying. “I don’t blame the world for not knowing how Hawai’i should be seen. I want to share the beauty of this place with the world, but in a safe way.”

Wednesday, May 18, 2022

FREE HAWAI`I TV
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"AN OUT OF CONTROL INVASION"

Would You Believe It?

There Are Now More Tourists In Hawai`i Than Before COVID.

So What Happened To Hawai`iʻs Promise To Redesign Tourism From The Ground Up?

Watch This To See Why They Lied (Again) & What You Can Do About It.

Then Share This Video Today With Your Family & Everyone You Know.

 

Wednesday, December 08, 2021

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"HAMMOCK CAMPING - TOURISTS TAKING OVER YOUR FAVORITE BEACH"

 

You & Your Ohana Head Out For A Relaxing Day At Your Local Beach.

When You Arrive Youʻre Astonished By Two Surprises.

Tourists Have Taken Over Your Beach & Theyʻre Living In Hammocks.

Watch This To Learn About Hawai`iʻs Craziest Vacation Idea Yet.

Then Share This Video Today With Your Family & Everyone You Know.

 

Thursday, July 01, 2021

TOURISMʻS BACK & THE FAKE STATE HASNʻT LEARNED A THING



Wednesday, June 30, 2021

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"TOURISMʻS BACK & HAWAI`I HASNʻT LEARNED A THING"

 

They Said It Wouldnʻt Be Business as Usual.

They Promised The Future Would Be Different.

Of Course They Lied, But Do You Know Why?

Watch This For Answers & What Needs To Be Done Right Now.

Then Share This Video Today With Your Family & Everyone You Know.

 

Wednesday, May 05, 2021

FREE HAWAI`I TV
THE FREE HAWAI`I BROADCASTING NETWORK

 

"WHATʻS HAWAI`IʻS BIGGEST PROBLEM & THE SOLUTION?"

You Would Think They Would Have Learned.

Even COVID-19 Shutting Down Tourism Didnʻt Do The Trick.

Theyʻre Planning To Go Right Back To The Way It Was Before.

Watch Our Report To See Why & The One Solution That Will Change Everything.

Then Share This Video Today With Your Family & Everyone You Know.

 

Monday, March 08, 2021

REIMAGINING TOURISM FOR A POST-PANDEMIC WORLD


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The New York Times - March 7, 2021

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 Hawaiians 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.

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.”

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.”

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.”

For many Hawaiians, 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 Hawaiians 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.

Wednesday, July 01, 2020


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"WHATʻS PROPPING UP THE FAKE STATE OF HAWAI`I?"

Whatʻs Kept The Fake State Of Hawai`i Going All These Years?

Itʻs Something Thatʻs Been Enslaving Everyone For Decades.

Naturally Those Running The Fake State Want To Keep It Going.

Watch This To See What It Is & Why Itʻs Time To Look Within Hawai`i For Solutions.


Then Share This Video Today With Your Family & Everyone You Know.

Wednesday, June 03, 2020


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"WHAT IS YOUR `AINA ALOHA FUTURE?"

What Would You Like Hawai`iʻs Future To Be?

Less Tourists, More Food Sovereignty & Economic Security?

Thereʻs A Place Where You Can Be Part Of This Important Conversation.

Watch This To See What It Is & How You Can Help Put Hawai`iʻs People & Land First.


Then Share This Video Today With Your Family & Everyone You Know.

Wednesday, May 27, 2020


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"WHATʻS A GROSS DOMESTIC PONO INDICATOR?"

Itʻs Something That Can Create A Whole New Hawai`i.

So The Same Mistakes Donʻt Get Made All Over Again.

Itʻs Actually A Very Simple Tool With Very Big Results.

Watch This To See For Yourself Why Itʻs Key To A Better Future.


Then Share This Video Today With Your Family & Everyone You Know.

Friday, May 22, 2020

"THE SKYʻS THE LIMIT" - US FEDS GIVE GREEN LIGHT FOR TESTING & TOURISM
























Local representatives worked with the White House for weeks seeking clarification on whether Hawai`i could require COVID-19 testing for all visitors before arrival, and found out on Wednesday that nothing in the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) or the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) regulations that prohibits the state from requiring such testing.

“This is the breakthrough we have been waiting for," said Rep. Ward. "It signals to the Governor and the Legislature that they can now act to safely and systematically open our visitor industry." "While testing visitors before arrival is not fail-safe, it is the best bet we have for protecting our flight attendants, airline crew, hotel workers, visitors, and locals alike."

However, a passenger can not be refused entry onto a plane without a test. Instead, the passenger would knowingly be under a 14-day mandatory quarantine and tested upon arrival.

"The priority of our plan is to protect our local residents while also allowing them to safely provide for their families. We have a moral and civic duty to do this," said Rep. Bob McDermott (R-40 Ewa, Ewa Villages, Ewa by Gentry, Iroquois Point), a member of the House Select Committee on COVID-19. "Now that the FAA and DOT have cleared the way, the sky's the limit."