Tourism is well-intentioned and a great idea when executed with the right goal: Increasing our quality of life.
To make smart data-driven decisions, we need to know information like visitor arrivals and the money tourism generates.
But at some point we began using money to measure the primary worth of tourism. Eventually, it became the end-goal itself.
This shift in perspective has adversely impacted kamaʻāina.
A Good Idea That Forgot the Point
Today, we use money and tax dollars collected as the primary measure of the worth of tourism.
I get it. Tourists and money are in units that are easy to count – people and dollars.
Easy to tally, straight forward to report, simple to analyze on a spreadsheet.
The Insidious Problem with This Approach
Money is the intermediate metric, not the goal itself
The goal of tourism is to improve our kamaʻāina quality of life.
Money is only one of the contributing factors. A fundamentally important piece, for sure, but not the end goal.
The amount of tourism dollars is not directly proportional to your happiness
Tourism is a great tool. But overtourism derails the path to that goal.
Consider the curve of the lines on the graph:
The red straight line is the income from tourism. The more tourists equals the more money generated. It is a steady increase.
The blue curved line is the quality of our kamaʻāina lifestyle. As more tourists bring more money into our economy, the quality of life increases… until it reaches a tipping point where too many tourists begin to decrease our quality of life.
At some point the amount of tourists on island begin to stand in the way of our kamaʻāina lifestyle.
It starts as small annoyances – there is less parking at the beach and the places we enjoyed as keiki are now tourist Instagram hotspots.
Then it grows into full blown overtourism – the cost of housing skyrockets and we are completely blocked from the very places we grew up.
When the volume of incoming tourists stops improving the quality of our kamaʻāina lifestyle, then it IS overtourism.
Overtourism cannot solve the kamaʻāina cost of living problem
If we prioritize tourism revenue as the ultimate objective, the math will always conclude that more tourists are always better.
Then as our cost of living increases, the solution will be to bring in even more tourists. It’s a vicious cycle that never ends.
Currently, tourism is generating the most money in our history but our housing and cost of living is the worst. If the answer to our cost of living problem is more tourism then we should have the lowest cost of living in our State history.
Overtourism increases the cost of living. Ever heard of short-term vacation rentals?
More and more tourists will never bring our cost of living down.
The problem with using visitor money as the goal is no amount of money will ever be enough. There will always be more money that we or the government can spend but only a finite amount of space on an island.
Not all tourism revenue stays within our State
The profits from big corporate travel businesses go elsewhere.
Do you think Hilton Resorts, United Airlines, and Enterprise Rent-a-Car are corporately based in Hawaiʻi?
What we see as jobs for kamaʻāina, a mainland corporate CEO sees as “labor expense”.
Where do you think those profits are going and being spent? Not Hawaiʻi.
Overtourism strains our limited resources
The land is finite…
Is finding parking at the beach easy nowadays?
Your time is finite…
We only have 24 hours in our day. No amount of tourists can buy you 25. If youʻre spending an hour of it in traffic everyday, youʻve fallen in the trap. You cannot buy more time.
Kamaʻāina patience and aloha is finite…
Let’s be honest. Kamaʻāina are fed up with overtourism.
Educating tourists on our history and culture is needed but it’s not the primary reason kamaʻāina are disenchanted with tourists.
Kamaʻāina feel there are too MANY tourists. People have had enough of sharing their aloha with tourists who have grown to become roadblocks to their quality of life.
How Should You Measure the Worth of Tourism?
Remember the big picture
We should be using the quality and improvement of your kamaʻāina lifestyle as your personal measure of the worth of tourism. After all, that’s the entire point.
What does quality mean?
Everyone measures the quality and weighs the priorities of their life differently. It’s personal to each individual and ʻohana.
Here are things that kamaʻāina use to measure their quality of life:
Cost of living
Affordable housing
Commute times
Quality time spent with your keiki and ʻohana
Time spent at the beach
Time spent fishing
…the list goes on but each kamaʻāina’s personal priorities are a little different.
If we could assign a nice neat single unit to measure the quality of our kamaʻāina way of life, I would be all for it.
Money is important. It’s necessary to pay the bills. But not everything of importance can be measured in dollars.
At the end of the day, money is one of the tools to the goal but not the goal itself.
Conclusion
Today we are trying to reign in an industry that has become accustomed to doing whatever it wants. The justification has always been more tourism dollars.
As we became more myopic about ‘the number’, we chased it as the goal itself and completely forgot the point.
Money should absolutely be one of the intermediary measurements. But never the goal.
Tourism is important, but not at the cost of our homes, our traditions, and quality of life.
Blindly and singularly chasing the money creates overtourism.
Overtourism is when the amount of tourists exceeds the net improvement they bring to our kamaʻāina lifestyle.
We need to shift our perspective. We should be using the quality of our kamaʻāina lifestyle as the primary measuring stick.
Our kamaʻāina are the heartbeat of these islands. Our well-being, culture, and way of life should be at the forefront.
I want a home where the quality of life for our people takes precedence. Where the ʻāina and our kamaʻāina culture are preserved and respected.
We need to prioritize the quality of life for our kamaʻāina, so they can live, thrive, and maintain their unique way of life.
Let’s advocate for policies and practices that respect and uplift our kamaʻāina. We can create a balance where tourism and local life coexist more harmoniously.
Keep measuring the people and dollars but remember your kamaʻāina quality of life is the goal.
The people who are using money as the primary measurement of the worth of tourism, have their heads stuck up their spreadsheet.